Sigmar Gabriel has always liked to surprise.

On April 20 he visited Gerhard Schröder in his house in Hanover.

With his visit, the former SPD chairman and federal minister violated the SPD's new agreement that the former chancellor should be avoided because of his support for Vladimir Putin despite Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine.

Gabriel and Schröder have a lot in common.

They both come from Lower Saxony, they are rowdy politicians and have always liked to make a name for themselves against their party.

Gabriel arrived at Schröder's house just after nine in the morning, and a photographer from the "Bild" newspaper recorded the greeting at the garden gate.

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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After the visit, Gabriel said he wanted to find out what the outcome of Schroeder's talks in Moscow, where Schroeder had met with Putin more than a month ago, shortly after the start of the war.

Gabriel had previously expressed his appreciation for Schröder several times.

In view of what Schröder had done for Germany, he found it "downright indecent" to give him public advice, Gabriel said.

He feels Schröder "politically and personally connected".

However, he had a "completely different opinion" on the "Russia question".

If one reviews Gabriel's work on Russia during his time as Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Foreign Affairs between 2013 and 2018, it can hardly be said that he was particularly critical of Putin and Russian politics.

On the contrary.

Very unusual for a foreign guest with the rank of minister, Putin has repeatedly received Gabriel in person.

At a meeting at the end of October 2015 at Putin's residence in Novo-Ogaryovo near Moscow, Gabriel thanked Putin for the Russian President's taking so much time for him, even though he was "heavy on the conflict in Syria".

Gabriel said he was "completely unclear" about what could have brought Russia and Germany so far apart in 15 years.

Gabriel demands a restart of relations

That should have been clear at the latest since the annexation of Crimea and the fighting in Donbass.

Gabriel should therefore have counted on the EU's sanctions against Russia remaining in place.

But the economy minister has spoken out in favor of lifting or scaling back the sanctions on many occasions.

Gabriel expressed his “personal opinion” to Putin that the sanctions should be lifted gradually – and not just as Brussels and Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin demanded, once the Minsk agreements had been fully implemented and Kyiv would regain full control of its eastern border .

Gabriel, who, true to Moscow's interpretation, repeatedly spoke of the "civil war parties" in Ukraine, stabbed Merkel in the back, who went to great lengths to