Robert Habeck knows what he owes his candidate for chancellor.

"So welcome on stage: the woman who wants to give answers and makes climate protection a matter for the boss," he called on Wednesday evening over the Römerberg, which is filled with green fans.

The so advertised cannot be asked twice: Annalena Baerbock steps into the limelight.

It is the first time since the Greens' campaign tour began a month ago that the two top people appear together.

Here in Frankfurt they want to support the constituency candidates Deborah Düring and Omid Nouripour and go into the final sprint to the federal election.

Matthias Trautsch

Coordination of the Rhine-Main report.

  • Follow I follow

Otherwise, the candidate for chancellor and the man, who avowedly would have liked to have entered the race himself, will do their campaign appearances separately, which may increase the range, but has fueled speculation about a disturbed relationship and mutual alienation.

Be that as it may, speaking after Habeck is a double-edged matter.

You benefit from the fact that he gets the audience in the mood, but you also run the risk of falling against him.

"Our symbols, our flag, our hymn"

The fifty-two-year-old, who walks across the stage in an unbuttoned white shirt and jeans, knows how to grasp the audience intellectually and emotionally. He refers to the Paulskirche in sight, speaks of the first National Assembly, of those who fought for democracy and died in German history. “Our symbols, our flag, our hymn,” he says. They are symbols of freedom that cannot be left to the yesterday and the rights.

Then Baerbock enters the ring. She ties in with the topics of freedom and responsibility, but quickly comes to concrete political goals, talks about solar systems on roofs and the financing of the climate change. It almost seems as if she cannot keep up the tension that the previous speaker has built. But then it also picks up speed, getting in the mood for a tight election campaign in which a few votes might be important. Those who vote for the Greens are voting “for a Germany in 2021 that is colorful, anti-racist and wholeheartedly European”.