Didn't your heart feel warm despite the cold?

When our parade soldiers marched into the Bendlerblock with torches and sounding games, even former conscientious objectors had goosebumps.

Yes, that was a nice addition to the handing over of the discharge papers at Bellevue.

With "Helmet off to prayer!" The nation hung on the television as spellbound as it has not since the wedding of Charles and Diana.

Berthold Kohler

Editor.

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Our soon-to-be ex-Chancellor also knew, of course, that this is not a Pillepalle event that the woman, in God's name, has to complete at the end, such as the now really superfluous visit to the party's parliamentary group, which she was once close to.

Such a big tattoo is the last opportunity to have a huge impact on your own image in the history books with a small effort.

The more weird, the better

All you have to do is write a few pieces of music on a piece of paper shortly beforehand. Of course, not something as predictable as the Starfighter song or “Battleship Germany”, both of which were ordered by Franz Josef Strauss at the time. No, it must be oldies but goldies that make the conductor desperate because a piece for a harp is not so easy to play with a tuba. But the more weird it sounds, the more certain it is already during the live broadcast: This autobiographical subtlety! What wonderful self-irony! Isn't this song a declaration of love to your husband / wife / dog? Oh, she / he was a sweetheart after all!

The meaningful final chord that is struck there reverberates endlessly.

In some cases music is more likely to be remembered than politics.

But the programs of these wish concerts also show how things got this far with the republic.

And who could forget that Wulff had "Over the Rainbow" played and Guttenberg played "Smoke on the Water"?

Eighty million in three-quarter time

Schröder, of course, has to be counted among the cool dudes, although he, the Mackie knife among our chancellors, got watery eyes on "My Way". But it was really a shame that Putin couldn't come, because Merkel is cut from a different cloth. Even when not just two, but eighty million hearts beat in three-four time on “For me it should rain red roses”, she remained as relaxed as ever. She is handing over the country, including the Bundeswehr, to her successor in excellent condition. Did you see the carabiners flash? Putin will think twice about invading Ukraine.

However, Russian secret service agents, as well as some Merkelologists, will be puzzling for a while, which (subversive?) Message the Chancellor associated with the Nina Hagen song. Fortunately, she did not play the Valkyrie's ride, which one could have imagined in a Wagnerian. That would not have worked at all in the Bendlerblock, even if most of them would have thought more of the Vietnam War when listening to this piece. But then it would certainly have been suspected that Merkel was saying: Apocalypse now.

Fortunately, it didn't occur to her to wish for something like “On the beautiful blue Danube” instead of the sinner's waltz.

The usual doubters, who always only think of the one person when they see helmets and torches, would have immediately suspected that Merkel might recognize the chance of a subsequent employment in Austria's current lack of leadership.

Yes, in the end, too, the Chancellor did everything right.

We say, no, with the cheerfulness she commanded in our hearts to say goodbye softly: Servus.