In Tübingen, citizens are divided over Boris Palmer's latest conflict with his party.

Some business people thank the mayor in their shop windows for the corona test strategy.

Left-wing students demonstrate and spray slogans on the pavement: "No racism in Tübingen".

The Schwäbisches Tagblatt has been full to the brim with letters to the editor for days.

Some speak of respect for the mayor's achievements, but many writers are also fed up with seeing their city in the media all the time because of Palmer's Facebook addiction: “So much understanding, so little common sense.

It's a shame, sad, ”writes one reader.

Others write of the "drug importance" or just: "Not my OB".

Philip Eppelsheim

Editor in politics of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

  • Follow I follow

    Rudiger Soldt

    Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.

    • Follow I follow

      The discussions that Palmer has staged since 2015 amidst a great media turmoil took the citizens quite calmly for a long time. But with his latest posting, Palmer has finally crossed the line for many. He had spread: “The Aogo is a bad racist. Offered his negro cock to women. ”Satire, Palmer later justified himself. The background: The former soccer player Dennis Aogo had previously spoken of "training to gassing" during a match analysis on television. Palmer wanted to protect him. Such a sentence must end with an apology. Then, according to Palmer, a member of the green youth asked him if he would put racism into perspective again. Palmer responded with the above sentence. He was referring to another Facebook entry,did not make it clear. According to Palmer, he had "increased an absurd accusation of racism so far into the grotesque that it should be immediately apparent how absurd it is".

      But most of them didn't think so. The Greens chairwoman Annalena Baerbock found Palmer's posting repulsive and racist, it joins ever new provocations. Habeck called the party exclusion process inevitable. It was because Palmer declined an apology in the phone call with Baerbock. Many Greens say the arc is overstretched. This provocation by Palmer was simply one too many, and it was still at this point in time. Palmer spoils the state party conference in Stuttgart - and the federal election campaign for the Greens. Even greens, who say they like Palmer, are annoyed by him because he “can't hold the water”. Why does the Lord Mayor of Tübingen think he has to secrete this “Facebook mustard”? The sentence, as one Green puts it, could also have come from the AfD.The party had no choice but to condemn it most vehemently. Because what kind of sign would it have been if one had once again left it with reproachful words? Wouldn't it have been: Ah, the word “negro” is now part of the good manners of the Greens?

      The Green Bundestag member Konstantin von Notz says: “If someone in his party is, so to speak, in opposition to his own party, it is incredibly profiling in public. Bosbach, Gauweiler, Sarrazin, they brush against the grain, and people say: Good guy, he won't let himself get down. At the same time these people become key witnesses of the media against their own shop. ”But parties also have a certain set of values. And "if someone aggressively and repeatedly says things that are not at all compatible with this set of values, then the party has to react to them."