VDefense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) received a lot of criticism for her speech in the New Year’s Eve fireworks. The CDU defense politician Serap Güler suggested Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) to dismiss Lambrecht. Referring to the Ukraine war, she wrote on Twitter: “The speech about the war with New Year’s Eve firecrackers in the background only adds to her series of embarrassments. Therefore: Every additional minute in which the Federal Chancellor still holds on to this minister and thus further damages the reputation of our country goes to his account.”
It is no longer about the external impact of a minister, but about Germany’s perception in Europe and the world. “Who should take us so seriously?” Güler wrote on Monday morning. Criticism of the video also came from other Union politicians and representatives of other parties.
“The words of the minister in the video speak for themselves”
Lambrecht had shared a video on Sunday via an Instagram account marked as private, in which she took stock of the year 2022. Her sentences were overlaid by the whistling of New Year’s Eve rockets and exploding firecrackers and, in the eyes of critics, testified to the minister’s lack of understanding of the current situation in Ukraine.
The federal government did not want to comment on Lambrecht’s video. “I now see no reason to evaluate this,” said deputy government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann. A Defense Department spokesman said the video was privately recorded and did not use Department resources. When asked if filming was an appropriate way to welcome the New Year given the war in Ukraine, he said: “The Minister’s words in the video speak for themselves. It is not for me to comment on that.”
In the video, Lambrecht said the year 2022 was associated with incredible challenges. “A war is raging in the middle of Europe. And that was linked to a lot of special impressions that I was able to gain, many, many encounters with interesting and great people. I would like to say a big thank you for that.” She also thanked the emergency services who worked over the New Year.
The chairwoman of the defense committee, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP), said on Monday: “The New Year’s video in question is a matter for the minister and her communications staff. I personally find the setting a bit unfortunate. I do not want to say more.”
The chairman of the Junge Union, Johannes Winkel, wrote on Twitter: “Hats off to how Lambrecht combines her communicatively original request for resignation with subtle references to the current failure of left-wing politics in the area of internal security – especially in Berlin.” He probably played with it also to the current debate about attacks on security forces on New Year’s Eve; Lambrecht’s video shows fireworks exploding. Criticism of the video also came from politicians from other parties.
The CDU member of the Bundestag Matthias Hauer had already tweeted on Sunday that “the performance of the minister in 2022” was even worse than Lambrecht’s speech. For 2023 he sees “a lot of room for improvement”.
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