oops!

This is the appropriate expression when you have made a mistake, but the feeling of guilt is contained.

There is also a formula for this in politics: One regrets having given rise to a misunderstanding.

With that, the matter is usually as good as off the table.

In this way, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) could have gotten rid of a process last week that is now making her life difficult.

In the summer of last year, the Hessian SPD chairwoman wrote an article for a magazine that is published and read on the far left.

That was the first mistake.

The second was the mistaken belief that the interior minister could pull herself out of the affair without a single argument.

One could expect more from Faeser.

She would have to know the subject inside and out.

Because the fight against right-wing extremism is the overarching umbrella campaign with which the Hessian SPD wants to get to the state elections in autumn next year.

Faeser's predecessor in the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the CSU politician Horst Seehofer, repeatedly emphasized the magnitude of the challenge.

Nowhere after Hanau are people more sensitive to this than in Hesse.

Faeser also put the topic in the foreground at her inauguration in Berlin in December.

For her personally, it would be a great opportunity to apply for the position of Prime Minister of Hesse with this profile in the autumn of next year.

On the right edge of their national association

But the allegations that Faeser is now facing show how sensitive the issue can become.

Can you fight right-wing extremism with the help of left-wing extremists?

The minister would have liked to have an answer to this question.

It is particularly exciting because Faeser is not on the left, but on the right edge of her national association.

The qualified lawyer didn't work in a major international law firm in Frankfurt's banking district to destroy capitalism from within.

She was able to earn good money there and had a job that many FDP supporters dream of.

Faeser is one of the social democrats who also appeal to middle-class voters.

It is all the more irritating that their fears of contact with the far left are obviously not very pronounced.

Regardless of her personal point of view, Faeser doesn't seem to want to make a clear distinction.

But anyone who likes this politician doesn't like extremists - neither right-wing nor left-wing ones.