If Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) decided to attract attention for the new year only through her political work and not through mishaps, then she has clearly failed. The reason: a New Year’s video with irritating statements about the war in Ukraine.
On Sunday Lambrecht shared a video on an Instagram account marked private, in which he takes stock of the year 2022. Their sentences are drowned out by the whistle of New Year’s rockets and the explosion of firecrackers. Lambrecht says the year 2022 has presented us with “incredible challenges.” “A war is raging in the middle of Europe. And that meant for me a lot of special impressions that I was able to get, many, many meetings with interesting and great people. For that I say a heartfelt thank you.” She also thanked the emergency services who work during the new year.
The minister earned much criticism, ridicule and outrage for her speech during the New Year’s fireworks display. In the run-up to the war in Ukraine, many accuse Lambrecht of not having a good sense of the right situation. CDU defense politician Serap Güler suggests Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) to sack Lambrecht. Referring to the war in Ukraine, Güler tweeted: “Every extra minute that the chancellor detains this minister and thereby further damages our country’s reputation goes to his account.” It is no longer a question of the external impact of a minister, but of the perception of Germany in Europe and in the world. “Who should take us so seriously?” Guler says.
The federal government does not want to comment on the video. “Now I see no reason to evaluate it,” deputy government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann said on Monday.
A Department of Defense spokesman said the video was privately recorded and did not use Department resources. Asked if the filming was an appropriate way to welcome in the new year given the war in Ukraine, he said: “The minister’s words in the video stand by themselves. It’s not for me to comment.”
The chair of the defense commission, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP), was distant: “The New Year’s video in question is a matter for the minister and her communication staff. I myself find the setting a bit unhappy. I don’t think so. I won’t say more about it.”
Several questions arise when watching Lambrecht’s video
The New Year’s video is just one of the many misadventures of the SPD minister. So Lambrecht flew his son in the readiness-to-fly helicopter on vacation together. Though he paid for the trip out of his own pocket, the public impact was devastating. She was also spotted in a beauty salon in Ukraine shortly after the war broke out, which has been interpreted as a lack of sensitivity to the seriousness of the situation. Furthermore, according to many observers, it seems that she was overwhelmed by the job and she never really wanted to be defense minister.
In general, statements by politicians on cell phone cameras are rarely a good idea. Tobias Hans had to find out in March 2022. The then Prime Minister of Saarland and CDU’s lead candidate for the upcoming state elections posted a short video on Twitter in which he apparently recovered in front of a gas station. In it he called the price of 2.12 euros for a liter of diesel “really crazy”. For example, Hans has been criticized for suggesting in his video a contrast between people with low incomes and “hard working people”. Literally, she said: “This doesn’t just affect low-income earners, it really affects the many hard-working people who have to refuel, who fill up their diesel vehicles, who drive to work, who take children to sports”. Many users thought Hans’s appearance was embarrassing, and in the state elections, the use of the cell phone camera to limit fuel prices did not bring him any points: the CDU fell, the SPD won an absolute majority.
Several questions also arise when watching Lambrecht’s video: why does she seem so unprepared? Did anyone watch the video prior to posting and point out the potential embarrassment? And if someone tried to stop Lambrecht from publishing, why didn’t she listen? Finally, why did she do it? Probably no one would have missed a New Year’s message from the defense minister.
