When Olaf Scholz went to the microphone at 3:11 p.m. in a listed former warehouse at Berlin's Westhafen, he didn't talk about what the SPD candidate for chancellor came here to do with the leaders of his party, the Greens and the FDP.

Rather, the likely future Federal Chancellor is now expressing himself specifically about what he has said in more general terms so far: how the new government will react to the Corona crisis.

Peter Carstens

Political correspondent in Berlin

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Markus Wehner

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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"The situation is serious," says Scholz, who despite all the experience seems a bit nervous that afternoon.

He lists everything that should be done to cope with the dramatic situation.

He first names a permanent crisis team from the federal and state governments in the Chancellery, and a group of experts, which will include virologists and epidemiologists, should work there and give recommendations to the government.

The vaccination campaign is also to be promoted, and the Bundeswehr wants to see Scholz deployed.

And he speaks out in favor of compulsory vaccination for everyone who has to do with vulnerable groups, i.e. for nursing staff in old people's homes, to whom Scholz promises a bonus payment at the same time.

"It's up to us to break this fourth bad wave," says Scholz.

Scholz tries to quote Brandt quotes

Only then does Scholz talk about what has preoccupied him since the September 26 election, forging a coalition of three parties that Germany has not yet governed. “The traffic light is up,” says Scholz, “the first alliance of red, green and yellow at federal level”. It is "a coalition at eye level".

At the weekend Scholz had already used a modified quote from Willy Brandt when he said about the Ampel-Coalition that "what fits together" grows together. Now he repeats that in a similar way and once again makes use of the seemingly immeasurable treasure of Brandt quotes. “We want to dare to make more progress.” Scholz mentions climate protection, the minimum wage of twelve euros, the introduction of basic security and the planned construction of 400,000 apartments a year - this is hardly surprising, because these are the points from his election campaign speeches.

At the end of his speech, he once again echoes the historical of the moment by addressing the “traffic light”.

In 1924 the first traffic light in Germany was set up in Berlin at Potsdamer Platz.

At the time, people wondered whether that could work.

Today one can no longer imagine the traffic light without it, in order to regulate things clearly, to give orientation and to make good progress on time.

“Our aim is for this traffic light to be similarly groundbreaking,” says Scholz.

Far from the government district

From the point of view of the Hamburg resident Scholz, the presentation of the coalition agreement will take place at a particularly suitable location.

Nowhere does Berlin look more Hanseatic than at the old warehouses of the Westhafen, the capital's traditional transshipment point for goods and building materials of all kinds. and the working-class town it once was.

Today, modern start-ups and a few office rental companies have their headquarters in what used to be the largest inland port in the Reich. As a place of transformation, the Westhafen is certainly also attractive for the Greens and the FDP.