Ulrich Wickert on the federal government: "We are being taken for idiots"

Created: 09/15/2022, 10:05 am

Dispute in Maischberger’s TV talk about the government’s Ukraine policy: How are the sanctions against Russia working – there and with us?

Berlin – There are two English words in the surname of Jean-Lud Godard (December 3, 1930 in Paris – September 13, 2022 in Rolle, Switzerland): “God” and “art”. So God and fine arts. But with Sandra Maischberger in her ARD talk show at the beginning of the “Pictures of the Day” about the death of one of the most important filmmakers of all time, who as a co-founder of the Nouvelle Vague with cinematic masterpieces such as “Out of Breath” (1960), “The Contempt ’ (1963) and ‘Eleven o’clock at night’ (1965) revolutionized international cinema in a way that was socially critical in terms of content and innovative in form, without ending a syllable.

Just as little as about the death of the Albanian-Greek actress Irene Papas (September 3, 1926 as Iríni Lelékou in Chiliomodi near Corinth – September 14, 2022 ibid.), which was caused by films like “Antigone” (1961), Elektra” (1962) ” Alexis Zorbas” (1965) or “Z” (1969) greatest tragedy of the modern age. Wasn’t Das Erste, as a public broadcaster, even committed to the educational mission?

“maischberger” in the first: “The Queen was not always so popular”

For this, the Munich presenter, whose program is produced in Berlin, chooses another, widely popular topic of the day. The transfer of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II (21 April 1926 as Elizabeth Alexandra Mary in Mayfair, London – 8 September 2022 at Balmoral Castle, Aberdeenshire) from Scotland to London. For four days, the British and up to a million expected tourists can now say goodbye to the monarch, who will then be buried next Monday in a state funeral in Westminster Abbey under “Pomp and Circumstance”. For Ulrich Wickert, flanked by Helene Bubrowski (FAZ) and Julie Kurz (ARD capital studio), the only man in Sandra Maischberger’s journalistic “comment club”, “a part of British identity is being buried”, although he knows: ” The Queen wasn’t always so popular.” Brexit and the changing prime ministers of the United Kingdom would also have been to blame. Only the humorous short film shot for the 70th anniversary of the throne, in which the Queen receives the (children’s book) bear Paddington for tea and exchanges secrets about jam toast, would have brought her the unrestricted sympathy of the people again.

The later “Daily Topics” presenter was once very close to the Queen – literally. Sandra Maischberger has archive recordings imported, where the graduate in political science and law at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn at a receptionBehindElizabeth II standing. The hostess wants to know whether he has also exchanged a few words with her. No, not with her, but with Prince Philip! “He wanted to know what I had studied and then said: ‘Oh, you can’t do anything with political science!'” At Wickert’s bold contradiction, the Duke of Edinburgh made a funny remark and then turned his back on him.

“maischberger” on ARD: Ulrich Wickert gets upset

After this exhilarating start, things quickly get serious again. Sanctions against Russia, about whose meaning Green politician Marieluise Beck and Klaus Ernst from the left are arguing, and (heavy) arms deliveries to Ukraine, for which – as was to be expected – the President of the Bundestag Bärbel Bas (SPD) speaks out the long-term discussion in the German talk shows in the last six months. Sandra Maischberger is no exception. Its starting point is the achievements of the Ukrainian armed forces in recent days, which would have been unthinkable without military support from the West. The German Gepard tank also played a major role in recapturing the territory occupied by Russia. As is well known, Kyiv requests heavy combat vehicles of Western design, the delivery of which Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) and Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) have so far refused on the grounds that Germany will not go it alone. The tank stocks of the industry, which would like to supply, are excluded from this.

“What is Berlin afraid of, while Kyiv isn’t?” “Kevin Kühnert warns of escalation, Lambrecht says that there aren’t enough weapons, then it’s said that we only work together internationally when it comes to the delivery of battle tanks. But there has to be someone who takes the first step,” says Helene Bubrowski. A clear line is not recognizable in the federal government: “They want to help Ukraine and appease the critics of arms deliveries at the same time.” Ulrich Wickert puts it more drastically: “I think it’s pretty terrible how the defense minister argues. There are a hundred Marder tanks in the yard of an industrial company that could be sold immediately. We’re being taken for idiots!” For this, the Tokyo-born diplomat’s son, who is about to turn 80, reaped applause from the largely young audience in the television studio.

The three also agree on the subject of sanctions. “Hardly any gas comes from Russia anymore and we notice that it works anyway. The sanctions must remain in place,” says Ulrich Wickert. “Solidarity begins where it hurts,” adds Helene Bubrowski.

With so much agreement, a different opinion is good for the discussion. Klaus Ernst (Die Linke) has them. Speaking quickly, with words almost falling over one another, he defends the speech by his party member Sahra Wagenknecht in the Bundestag, who accused the federal government of having started an “economic war” with the sanctions, which would plunge millions of people in Germany into poverty. The reactions in the form of economic sanctions came “from us and not from Russia”: “In this respect it is correct that we too are waging an economic war against Russia. There are two involved. Some are leading it, we are, and others are fighting back by turning off the gas.” Marieluise Beck of the Greens calmly but firmly disagrees: “Putin started out by using energy as a weapon.”

“maischberger” stops the one-man show

And then she attacks Klaus Ernst: “I am amazed at your coldness towards the people in Ukraine. We fed the Russian budget with our energy funds and financed the armament.” He gets angry: “Where did you get that from that leaves me cold?” He also condemned the Russian war of aggression as a “crime”. But: “If you have anything left for Ukraine, you have to end the sanctions because Russia is making money from this war,” he accuses Marieluise Beck, who interrupts him several times. “They like to talk in between. Me too,” admits Klaus Ernst. “Today I made up my mind not to do it. Please don’t do it either.” Admittedly, that’s a point for him. He goes on to say that negotiations between the warring parties must be promoted and the cliché of the “bad Russians” coming to us and wanting to smash everything together to stop. But when he tried to calculate the alleged profits of the Russian state-owned company Gazprom on a piece of paper he had brought with him, Sandra Maischberger stopped his one-man show.

Now it is time for an almost 20-minute one-on-one interview with Bärbel Bas, who made it from a secondary school graduate via a detour as a welder to the President of the Bundestag and, as Sandra Maschberger emphasizes, would be ahead of the Federal Chancellor in the ranking. A visit to the Ukraine made her rethink the issue of arms deliveries; “I’ve always said ‘make peace without weapons’. That was the principle of my generation. Suddenly standing in the middle and seeing that triggered something in me.” That’s why she is now pleading for further weapon deliveries: “We now have to give the support that we can give. We can’t let up now. But I share the view that we should do this together with our partners and not alone.”

When asked how she would feel about social media after party member Kevin Kühnert had just withdrawn from Twitter, she says: “We politicians stand for direct dialogue with the citizens.” But: “No matter what political message I have, a bucket of hatred is poured out.” Her task as President of the Bundestag is to allow lively discussions like those between Marieluise Beck and Klaus Ernst in Parliament, but to intervene in the event of personal insults. However, she doesn’t want to see if “Mr Ernst is really upset,” she says with a wink. At the end, Sandra Maischberger would like to know why she watched the martial series “Vikings” at home during the lockdown period and would rather read Stephen King as high literature: “Why so much blood?” Bärbel Bas laconically: “Maybe I have to do something compensate for what is happening in Parliament…” (Marc Hairapetian)