Friedrich Merz is still a good and quick-witted speaker.

He doesn't let the black sling in which his left arm rests ruin his performance.

An ironist like Merz is even able to get punchlines from his own broken collarbone: After all, it's only the left arm that's in the sling.

And the six screws in the shoulder are green, but he doesn't see them himself.

The CDU federal chairman has already made the same jokes in other cities.

Reinhard Bingener

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

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Stephen Locke

Correspondent for Saxony and Thuringia based in Dresden.

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Rudiger Soldt

Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.

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The relaxed start also works on Saturday at the official campaign start of the Lower Saxony CDU in downtown Osnabrück.

300, maybe 400 people came to listen to Friedrich Merz and top candidate Bernd Althusmann.

If you subtract the active CDU professional politicians, the former CDU professional politicians, their families, the campaign workers from the Junge Union and the music band, there are perhaps 200 potential voters who are interested in the top CDU personnel when the weather is fine.

"Thank you very much for accepting the invitation in such large numbers," Merz calls out to them.

The other Union greats turn around on their beer benches from time to time with a questioning look.

The small square is still largely empty.

When the CDU still had Chancellor Angela Merkel on offer, larger squares were usually jam-packed.

"I'm disillusioned too," said a local union leader about the disinterest in the election campaign.

"People have probably not yet understood the seriousness of the situation."

Merz in a new role

The seriousness of the situation is also the big topic at Merz today.

"For the first time I'm really worried about the future of our children," says the opposition leader in the Bundestag and sees the end of Germany's previous business model on the horizon: "Cheap gas from Russia, cheap imports from China, expensive products from Germany all over the world, and the Americans are paying for our security – this division of labor is over.” Merz has always liked to paint such geopolitical paintings.

Large canvases have the advantage that they also make the painter appear tall.

The strategy worked brilliantly when Merz had no political office and therefore no mandate to comment on the dispute over commuter allowances or speed limits.

Conservative CDU district associations or companies could instead invite him as a speaker who explains the world to them.

When Merz skilfully reported on how China is developing or why the reorganization of constituencies in the United States is so important, the upper classes listened spellbound.

The tall man from the Sauerland gives such an audience the impression of a political giant who could one day step out of the shadow into which Angela Merkel had banished him.

Merz had to make three attempts before he succeeded and won the CDU federal presidency in the membership decision in December 2021.

Merz immediately regained his old post as CDU parliamentary group leader, which Merkel had taken away from him in 2002.