Here you will find the most important news of the day, the most popular stories of SPIEGEL + and tips for your end of workday.

THE THEME OF THE DAY

Merkel's departure from the CDU chairmanship

What comes to your mind when you think of the year 2000? Erich Ribbeck was a national coach and put down a cruel European championship with the German team led by Lothar Matthaus, Hanover hosted the World Expo Expo, in Russia 118 soldiers died in the tragic sinking of the submarine Kursk. And: Angela Merkel was the first woman to take over the chairmanship of the CDU.

18 years later, she is now leaving office. With such a long time at the top of the CDU, hardly any had expected in their election to the party leader. Many saw in her only a temporary solution. But the East German Protestant prevailed in the predominantly Catholic male association. Merkel led the party after the donation scandal to new successes. Last, the trend showed down. Tomorrow, the 1001 delegates will decide on their successor. My colleagues Florian Gathmann and Philipp Wittrock have written down a readable balance sheet of the Merkel years.

HAYOUNG JEON / EPA-EFE / REX

But who will inherit Merkel? For weeks, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Friedrich Merz and Jens Spahn have been touring the three most promising candidates, presenting themselves to the members at regional CDU conferences. In the new podcast "Stimmenfang", CDU supporters reveal who they are hoping for and what their wishes are with the candidates.

For Harald Schmidt Merkel's successor is already decided: Germany is Annegretland. Click here for the video.

THE MIRROR

THE NUMBER OF THE DAY

3115

At so many meters altitude, a special Advent custom has been taking place on the Schnalstal Glacier in South Tyrol for 600 years. In scary costumes, which are partly reminiscent of the Yeti, the "Tuifl" move from hut to hut and scare people in the ski areas. The "Tuifln", also called "Krampusse", is a frightening figure who accompanies St. Nicholas. Meanwhile, tradition in the Alps has become a boom.

Franziska Horn

Krampuslauf

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NEWS

What you need to know today

  • Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Arrested in Canada: The US accuses her of violating Iran sanctions and espionage investigations against the corporation.
  • China reacts with indignation to the arrest of the Huawei financial expert: Read more about the Meng family here, on the allegations at this point.

  • Expensive fuels : low-water on the Rhine is to blame for the high fuel prices, say the oil companies. Now the river levels are rising again - fuel could be expensive.
  • Dispute over tricycle triggers police action: In a Hamburg day care center, two children argued about a toy, a mother chose the emergency call.
  • US critic to Til Schweiger's new film: "As funny as a root canal treatment without anesthesia."

ddp images / INTERTOPICS / PictureLux

Nick Nolte in "Head Full of Honey"

OPINION

Most talked about comments, interviews, essays

Diesel voodoo and climate change: too high targets, contradictory information. "The problem of German environmental policy is that it is designed in the Cloud Cuckoo Home," writes our columnist Jan Fleischhauer. He continues to fire the fireplace with wood and drives diesel.

STORIES

The most read texts at SPIEGEL +

End the Perfectionism at Christmas : How to manage this time, not to be stressed. My colleague Mikhail Hengstenberg gives tips on how to survive the contemplative time without quarrels and family dramas.

Getty Images / iStockphoto

Researchers develop artificial nose: Who can not see is blind, who does not hear, deaf. But what if the sense of smell fails? Now, doctors are working to help them.

MY EVENING

The recommendations for your closing time

What you might see: The biopic about writer Astrid Lindgren, which is shown in many cinemas from today. In it, director Pernille Fischer Christensen describes the young years of the later children's book author. When Astrid unintentionally becomes pregnant at the age of 18, she has to leave her homeland so as not to bring shame on her family. She goes to Stockholm and looks for work there, gives birth to her child in Copenhagen and gives it into the care of a foster mother. My colleague Wolfgang Höbel writes in the literature review: "a heart-moving drama."

Erik Molberg Hansen / DCM

Scene from "Astrid"

What else you could do: read through the best anecdotes about helicopter parents. Maybe you have already experienced something similar.

I wish you a nice finishing time.

warmly

Max Holscher from the Daily Team

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