ZThere are still ten meters to the red carpet, where Nathanael Liminski seems to show a little bit of role uncertainty. “Should I go without it?” he asks, pointing to the knot in his tie. Liminski smiles mischievously during the short artistic break and answers himself: “That always makes you look like a politician!”
A few moments later, with his shirt collar open, he is routinely standing in a storm of flashes next to Sandra Hülser, one of the most internationally sought-after German actresses, and Justine Trient, the director of “Anatomy of a Case”. The film won a Palme d’Or at Cannes. There will be another award at the Cologne Film Festival, whose awards ceremony Liminski will soon open in his role as North Rhine-Westphalia's media minister.
The 38-year-old Liminski is one of the politicians with the longest experience in the North Rhine-Westphalian state government. Since 2017, he has coordinated the departments for Prime Minister Armin Laschet as head of the State Chancellery with hard work, perseverance and seemingly playfully acquired authority that is not dependent on derived power. Liminski is also indispensable for Laschet's successor Hendrik Wüst.
“He is simply the best person for this job”
When Wüst introduced the members of the first black-green cabinet in North Rhine-Westphalia in the summer of 2022, he gave particularly high praise to Liminski, who has since been responsible for federal and European affairs, international affairs and the media and has been promoted to minister. There is no need to explain to anyone why the party friend remains head of the State Chancellery, said Wüst. “He is simply the best person for this task.”
Liminski, who likes to flirt in his speeches with the fact that he looks older than his age, is one of the most important leading figures in the Union. He has held high office for a long time. He is believed to be even higher. When no one expected the Union to lose the federal election in the summer of 2021, it was considered a given that Laschet would take his most important confidant with him to Berlin. Not the Social Democrat Wolfgang Schmidt, but Nathanael Liminski would now be head of the Federal Chancellery. Because nothing came of it, Liminski concentrated on his national political career.
Liminski is considered by his party colleagues to be an exceptional political talent and, despite his young age, he already has almost as large a network of contacts to all wings and committees in the Union as Helmut Kohl once did. Now he also wants to become a publicly visible political figure. While Liminski still acted as a machinist of power under Laschet, as a shadow man who couldn't be quoted, as a minister he likes to give interviews, has reporters and photographers accompany him on his trips abroad and also knows how to present himself on social media – sometimes in an amazingly unashamedly powerful and self-confident way.
There is a picture from the Prime Minister's Conference in Berlin at the beginning of November in which his boss Wüst as well as Boris Rhein and Daniel Günter, the Prime Ministers of Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein, are listening attentively. Liminski writes that the issue of migration is about “no less than cohesion in our country” and the “state’s ability to act”.
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