"An era is coming to an end." This is how the Hessian Prime Minister Volker Bouffier (CDU) put his resignation, which had long been announced for this Tuesday, in an interview with the FAZ.

In various interviews he is currently painting with thick brushstrokes the picture with which he wants to go down in history.

The historical context in which the seventy-year-old Union politician is one of the outstanding figures is formed by the "Hessian conditions".

They can be traced back to the traditionally strong opposition between the CDU and SPD in this federal state.

The two parties only cooperated with each other shortly after the founding of Hesse.

The only grand coalition to date ended in 1950.

Ewald Hetrodt

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung in Wiesbaden.

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After that, both sides preferred to look for other solutions.

This became complicated when neither of the two major camps was able to form a majority.

Such a constellation first emerged after the state elections in September 1982. It took three years before Holger Börner (SPD) was able to form a stable red-green coalition, the first in Germany.

In doing so, the Social Democrat corresponded to the wishes of the chairman of his federal party, Willy Brandt.

He was fascinated by the "majority on this side of the Union" and urged the Greens to be tested as a coalition partner.

Germany's political laboratory

Since that time, Hesse has been referred to as Germany's "political laboratory".

In December 1985, Joschka Fischer was sworn in as Environment Minister in jeans and sneakers.

But as early as February 1987, the coalition broke up in a dispute over the operating license for the Alkem fuel element factory in Hanau.

The second red-green attempt under the Social Democrat Hans Eichel worked for a decade before Roland Koch formed a government with the FDP in 1999.

The state elections in January 2008 again resulted in “Hessian conditions”.

This time Prime Minister Koch did not have a majority in his camp, just like the previous opposition.

The Social Democratic top candidate Andrea Ypsilanti tried in vain, contrary to her promises before the election, to be elected prime minister of a red-green minority government with the help of the left.

Eventually new elections were held, in which the SPD suffered dramatic losses.

Koch once again headed a coalition of CDU and FDP.

However, the ambitious Greens remained in the opposition.

Their faction and party leader Tarek Al-Wazir drew the consequences and, together with other state politicians from the Greens, opened up his party to alliances with the CDU and FDP.

It was one of the prerequisites for the experiment that Bouffier set in motion in the Hessian policy laboratory in 2013.

The black-green coalition is now in its ninth year of reliable cooperation and is serving as a model for the coalition negotiations in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia these weeks.

Strong commitment for Laschet

The probability that sooner or later there will also be such an alliance at national level is increasing.

Black-Green is Bouffier's life's work and his political legacy.

At the head of this coalition, he became the longest-serving prime minister in the state chamber.

In Berlin, he also played an important role as deputy federal chairman of the CDU.

However, he also suffered a heavy defeat.

His strong commitment to Armin Laschet as party leader and candidate for chancellor was a major reason for the Union's loss of power in the federal government.

Bouffier's self-confidence has apparently not suffered from this - on the contrary.

In an interview with Hessischer Rundfunk, he now reveals that he himself flirted with the office of Chancellor.

"If I had been younger, I would have arranged things differently in the Union two years ago," he says in all seriousness.

In the serenade with which the Bundeswehr bids farewell to Bouffier this Monday evening at Biebricher Schloss in Wiesbaden, a song will be heard that fits this interview: "One Moment in Time".

Sung by Whitney Houston, the unofficial anthem of the 1988 Olympic Games celebrates man's belief in himself and the longing to rise above himself.

Bouffier, the power politician, asked for the song.