On Monday afternoon something happens in Berlin that has never happened before in the history of the Federal Republic.

The national leader of a party asks a former chancellor to leave his own party.

"I would suggest that to him," says Saskia Esken at noon in the Willy Brandt House.

It's about Gerhard Schroeder.

For her request, Esken brings out heavy artillery against the former chancellor.

His defense of Vladimir Putin's war crimes was "absolutely absurd".

Unfortunately, Schröder did not follow the advice of the SPD leadership to resign from his posts for Russian energy companies, Esken continues.

That is why she is now asking him to leave the party.

Reinhard Bingener

Political correspondent for Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Bremen based in Hanover.

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Markus Wehner

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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Esken has to react on Monday after she and co-party leader Lars Klingbeil had hesitated for a long time.

Weeks ago, the chairmen had asked Schröder in writing and verbally to immediately resign his commitment to Moscow energy companies in view of Putin's war of aggression in Ukraine.

What is meant is the chairmanship of the shareholders' committee of Nord Stream AG, a Gazprom subsidiary, and the work on the supervisory board of the state oil giant Rosneft.

Schröder responded to the request with silence, the SPD leadership, in turn, did not react at all - despite numerous inquiries from the media.

But now the former German head of government, who does not want to break with his friend Putin despite Russia's attack on the neighboring country, has given an interview to the New York Times.

In an interview with the newspaper, during which Schröder, according to the author, consumed "a great deal of white wine", he first commented on the question of whether he would continue to work for Russian companies.

He will not give up his posts, he will only “resign” if Russia itself stops supplying gas and oil to the West.

Under pressure

This statement forced the party leadership to take a stand.

Esken criticized not so much Schröder's business activities for Russia as his relativization of Putin's role in the atrocities committed by the Russian army in Ukraine.

She was "very outraged" by Schröder's statements.

Schröder had said that Putin probably did not himself give the orders for the gruesome killing of dozens of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha near Kyiv.

What he didn't say: Putin awarded the perpetrators medals a short time later.

On Monday, Esken initially asked the Germans to do something that is difficult to do.

One should no longer perceive Schröder as former chancellor.

"Gerhard Schröder has been acting as a businessman for many years, and we should stop seeing him as an elder statesman, as a former chancellor." But Schröder is undoubtedly a former chancellor, commonly referred to as former chancellor.

Erasing him from the annals of the SPD would be tantamount to a culture of oblivion that would be more reminiscent of chilling examples of Stalinist historical distortion.

In addition, the SPD invited the man, who led the party as chairman for five years from 1999 to 2004, to party congresses for a long time and paid tribute to his services to Germany.

How can she extricate herself from this situation?

The SPD initially hopes that Schröder will solve it for them himself.

When asked on Monday, Esken justified this hope with the fact that Schröder also returned the honorary citizenship of the city of Hanover himself before it was revoked.

He did the same with his membership in the Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO) when a withdrawal was discussed there.