The fact that actions can say louder than words is an old insight, which does not have to be any less true.

As far as the CDU is concerned, there were two acts to be reported on Saturday afternoon that actually say far more than the numerous but still helpless-sounding words from many mouths of the Union after the defeat in the Bundestag election.

Eckart Lohse

Head of the parliamentary editorial office in Berlin.

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Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and Peter Altmaier will forego their parliamentary mandates that they won through the Saarland CDU state list. You can also put it this way: The Federal Minister of Defense and the Federal Minister of Economics, two important personalities in Chancellor Angela’s fourth cabinet, are saying goodbye to federal politics. Instead, the much younger MPs Nadine Schön and Markus Uhl can continue to stay in the Bundestag, which would otherwise not have been possible because of the poor performance of the CDU.

While the interpretation of the words that CDU chairman Armin Laschet spoke on Thursday about the staff renewal is still going on, many party friends already paid him respect for his withdrawal, although he had left it in the dark as to when and whether he would give up office at all others are facts. The steps taken by Kramp-Karrenbauer and Altmaier show how lonely it has long since become around Laschet, who still nourishes the hope that a Jamaica coalition of the Union, Greens and FDP could come about. Only he knows whether he really believes in it.

Most of the important party friends have long assessed the chances publicly as minimal or nonexistent.

At the beginning of September, Kramp-Karrenbauer had confirmed that she wanted to remain Minister of Defense in the next federal government.

Originally, she had given up her secure office as Prime Minister of the Saarland in order to first become CDU federal chairwoman and then Merkel's successor in the Chancellery.

She was even on the way to becoming Merkel's confidante until the two fell out and Kramp-Karrenbauer gave up the party chairmanship and the ambitions to run for chancellor.

The last close confidante of Merkel

If the Union had clearly won the election, Kramp-Karrenbauer would have had the prospect of a ministerial office, if only because the CDU now has so few experienced women in the executive branch. Peter Altmaier is the last close confidante of Merkel in the government from the first few hours. Even with a strong CDU result, he would hardly have had a chance of getting back into the cabinet because the number of male applicants around 60 years old would have been simply too large.

Anyone who listened to him shortly before the election could be sure that he somehow wanted to continue in politics.

The federal political basis is now gone for both.

But in the end this is part of the normality of democracy, especially when a party has been in power for as long as the CDU.

A minister who will turn 60 next year and a minister who is already 63 years old are giving up in favor of a 38-year-old MP, who has already made it to the position of deputy group leader, and a 42-year-old MP.

That is not yet the solution to all the problems the CDU has in abundance.

But a step towards a - compulsory - rejuvenation.

It will be interesting to see whether there will be similar behavior outside of the Saarland.