The old town of Stolberg is heavily drawn.

It has been three weeks since the disaster.

Since then, emergency services and an army of volunteers have carried away the worst of their forces to the limit: mud, rubble, soggy carpets, furniture.

But there is so much to do.

Across from the new town hall - which, according to Mayor Patrick Haas (SPD), was so badly damaged that it must be torn down - a truck driver parked a large container in front of the “Willi Croé” butcher's shop.

A little later, the entire inventory of the small craft business ends up there: the sausage machine, the cooling system, the scales, the sales counter.

Pure burger

Political correspondent in North Rhine-Westphalia.

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On July 14th, the otherwise harmless Vichtbach swelled into a raging river within a short time.

From Stolberg Castle down to the Mühle district, the water swept through the old town at an insane width of more than a hundred meters.

The transition from Kaiserplatz to Rathausstrasse looked like a funnel that collected and accelerated the floods.

"At 3 p.m. the police drove through, warning that the cellars would be flooded," reports Werner Pfeil, who runs a law firm with colleagues on Rathausstrasse.

A little later, the first floor was 1.80 meters under water.

A fund worth billions should be available until the election

Stolberg lost almost all of its retail trade three weeks ago: pharmacies, bakeries, shoe stores, clothing stores, kebab shops. The jeweler across the street from Pfeil's office was also hit hard twice. After the flood came the looters. "The retail sector urgently needs support, otherwise this will remain a ghost town," says Pfeil, who is also a member of the state parliament of the FDP. Everyone affected by the flood urgently needed future prospects.

That is why Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) and the North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Armin Laschet (CDU) came to Stolberg. As candidates for chancellor of their parties, they are competitors in the federal election campaign. But on Tuesday they meet with entrepreneurs from the region in the city. The flood also hit numerous companies hard: Aurubis - one of the leading European manufacturers of semi-finished products made of copper and copper alloys -, the drugstore manufacturer Dalli-Werke and the haberdashery manufacturer Prym, which is one of the oldest industrial companies in the world.

Scholz and Laschet hold company meetings without media support.

But after a short tour through the devastated old town, the two chancellor candidates on Kaiserplatz send a non-partisan signal from Stolberg to the republic during the press statement in the onset of rain.

Scholz and Laschet promise extensive help.

A fund worth billions should be in place before the federal election at the end of September.

Scholz repeats the Schröder promise from 2002

By Tuesday, emergency aid amounting to 215 million euros had already been paid out in North Rhine-Westphalia, half from the state and half from the federal government, reports Laschet. Now it is important that the funds for reconstruction can flow quickly. The federal and state governments wanted to create the legal prerequisites for this at a Prime Minister's Conference on August 10th, and the Bundestag could then pass the drafts in its last session on September 7th. Regardless of this formal process, reconstruction aid can be provided immediately, assures Laschet. However, calls for a special session are growing louder in parliament itself in order to speed up the process.

When asked whether there would be a similar promise as in 2002, when the then Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) had promised after the floods on the Elbe and Danube that no one affected should be in a worse economic situation than before the disaster, Finance Minister Scholz said: “That is exactly what it is about.

We want to help everyone with the reconstruction, with the replacement of the damage, billions are at stake. ”For the reconstruction after the flood of 2013 almost six billion euros have been spent to date.

He is assuming that this time it will be "more likely", says the SPD's candidate for chancellor.

Because now the damage in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate probably exceeded the extent of what was then recorded in eleven federal states.

Laschet calls for "flood-resistant Germany"

"You can see from this that it is precisely this intention, that everyone is placed as if the event had not taken place, from an economic point of view," said Scholz. What nobody can make amends, however, are the destroyed lives, the destroyed health and everything that the catastrophe has wrought in the hearts and minds of the people. “But what you can fix with money, we will fix with money,” says Scholz. It is a "disaster with a national dimension".

Union Chancellor candidate Laschet reaffirms the Stolberg promise: “The federal government and the states will pull this together.” Nevertheless, Germany will “become a different country”. "Flood-resistant" must be built in the affected cities, says Laschet. Meanwhile it is pouring out of buckets. “We need climate adaptation measures on a large scale. That too will mean a lot of change and will cost billions to prepare the country for the climate change that is taking place. "