During the Corona crisis, things did not always go smoothly between the Federal Ministry of Health and the Robert Koch Institute.

And since the change of government a good year ago, that has usually meant that things did not go well between Health Minister Karl Lauterbach from the SPD and the head of the agency, Lothar Wieler.

It is true that the ministry and the authority subordinate to it are only a few kilometers apart.

But the distance between the two houses has increased over time.

And the relationship between the two bosses seemed to have cooled off for a long time.

Kim Bjorn Becker

Editor in Politics.

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Christian Geinitz

Business correspondent in Berlin

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The story of alienation has two episodes.

The first: Just over a year ago, the traffic lights just came together, the federal and state governments discussed to what extent the omicron variant of the virus, which was emerging at the time, required stricter restrictions.

The expert council of the federal government, in which Wieler is a member, held back with concrete demands.

While shortly afterwards the new Chancellor Olaf Scholz was discussing the situation with the Prime Ministers of the federal states, Wieler had the RKI send out a paper calling for "maximum contact restrictions". These should also "start immediately".

This was clearly intended as a work order for the heads of government.

The paper is said to have caused astonishment not only at Lauterbach, but also among the country heads.

Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) was "highly irritated" by the communication strategy of the RKI.

Suddenly halved: only three months of recovered status

It didn't stop there.

A few weeks later, the authority headed by Lothar Wieler shortened the recovery status of corona infected people from six to three months - much to the displeasure of Lauterbach, who claims to have known nothing of all this.

The decision not only contradicted other countries, but also caught politicians and the public cold.

Lauterbach had to be reprimanded by the equally surprised country leaders.

The minister immediately corrected the so-called right of reference, which had given the RKI and the Paul Ehrlich Institute the opportunity to declare modifications to the vaccinated or recovered status without the government and parliament being involved if they considered this to be scientifically necessary.

However, Lauterbach had caused the fiasco himself by previously granting the institutes this power in the Covid 19 Protective Measures Exception Ordinance.

Lauterbach even shared Wieler's professional assessment at the time.

But he also stated: "The timing of such decisions and the preparation for them must be improved".

A minister rarely criticizes one of his most important officials so openly.

Lauterbach publicly counted his agency chief, so everyone had to understand that.

In an interview with the FAZ, Lauterbach said at the time that the cooperation with the RKI “works well” and that they are doing “great work” there.

But the praise was poisoned.

"There is no question that there were communication problems," the minister made clear.

"But we're going to stop that now." Lauterbach could hardly have put Wieler in his place more clearly.

No one knows whether Wieler took the scolding as an insult.

It would be possible.

Since then, the relationship between the two men has been considered damaged – it only remained open until Wednesday whether the relationship could be repaired.

However, Wieler's announced resignation on April 1 shows that the microbiologist no longer saw his future in the institute.