Resurrection of the SP: The Unexpected Rise of Germany’s New Chancellor, Olaf Scholz
But the feedback Esken and Walter-Borjans were receiving from the party was that Scholz was by far the most popular Social Democrat and was the most obvious candidate. General Secretary Klingbeil also indicated internally that he felt Scholz was the best solution. It gradually became clear to the SPD leadership duo that sidelining Scholz wasn’t an option.
And perhaps they could even profit from it? Wouldn’t it be a grand gesture if they made their vanquished opponent the SPD candidate for chancellor?
In Le Bon Mori, the two announced their decision right at the beginning of the gathering: They wanted Scholz to be the candidate because the party had the best chances for success with him at the top. Nobody at the table was particularly surprised by then; they had all received certain indications of which way the wind was blowing in the preceding few days. There were no objections.
Esken and Walter-Borjans had defeated Scholz because they understood what messages the party wanted to hear. But they chose the party’s candidate based on perceptions outside of the SPD.
The group decided to go public with the decision in August and to keep it strictly confidential until then. Not even key party staff members were told.
Shortly after the meeting, Lars Klingbeil and SPD whip Carsten Schneider flew off to Mallorca, where they planned a few days of biking and relaxing. Every morning before getting on his bike though, Klingbeil would work on the choreography of the announcement, in close consultation with others in the know. He told Schneider nothing.
The group kept things secret until the very end. Staff at SPD headquarters prepared an event in the Schöneberg neighborhood of Berlin for Aug. 10, but they didn’t know what was going to be announced there. Internally, it was being discussed as a kind of “post-corona party,” given that the first wave of the pandemic had subsided.
On the morning of Aug. 10, the SPD executive committee met, and Scholz was presented as the SPD candidate for chancellor, which came as a surprise to most of those present. But nothing from the meeting initially leaked to the outside. For some participants, it was rather uncanny, accustomed as they were to the situation in prior years when sensitive information from SPD meetings would immediately be leaked to the press.
After the executive committee meeting, SPD management met. It was a much larger group and less impervious to leaks. Quickly, the news became public knowledge: Olaf Scholz was the SPD’s candidate for chancellor.
V. Slowly but Surely
The SPD had managed to do something it hadn’t done since the Gerhard Schröder era: It ran an orderly process free of strife to choose a candidate for chancellor, and early enough that they had plenty of time to prepare for the campaign. What, though, is the point if nobody was much interested in voting for the SPD?
As 2020 came to an end, Scholz was still quite popular in the country, but his party wasn’t. Poll numbers were still extremely low.
In January, SPD state governors put Health Minister Jens Spahn, a member of the CDU, on the spot by sending him a list of questions pertaining to Germany’s extremely slow vaccine rollout. Scholz joined the campaign by demanding in a cabinet meeting that Spahn answer the questions. The move angered Angela Merkel and she saw it as a rather unfriendly provocation. Which is exactly how it was intended. The campaign had slowly got rolling.
But would it be enough?
The Green Party named Annalena Baerbock as their candidate for chancellor and immediately enjoyed a spike in support in the public opinion polls. Armin Laschet, meanwhile, managed to beat out first Friedrich Merz and then Markus Söder of the CSU to become the candidate for the conservatives. He wasn’t particularly popular in the country at large, but the CDU continued to poll well. State SPD chapters started getting nervous.
In late April, the SPD party chief in Rhineland-Palatinate, Roger Lewentz, went after Lars Klingbeil in the influential German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung. “We are missing the campaign launch,” he complained. The attack reached the SPD general secretary when he was in a meeting, his spokesperson informing him via text message. Walter-Borjans called Lewentz and urged restraint, but the quote had already begun making the rounds – along with the impression that the SPD, even if it had a candidate, wasn’t making any progress.
Klingbeil tried to keep the party quiet. During executive committee meetings held during this phase of the campaign, he constantly reminded attendees of the goals they had agreed on: clear messaging, confident tone. We’re playing to win.
But he started receiving calls from party allies and journalists. And, in the early summer, from TV broadcasters telling him that if Scholz didn’t start moving up in the polls by August, they might have to exclude the SPD candidate from the televised debates and reserve the stage exclusively for Laschet and Baerbock.
That, of course, would have been a disaster. Televised debates are key, and candidates who are not included can essentially abandon their campaigns – for the Chancellery, at least.
And Scholz? He did what he always does. He just kept on going, taking care of the pandemic, attending crisis summits and even taking a trip to Washington. The G-7 had agreed to a minimum global corporate tax and Scholz was a major player in pushing it forward. It was actually a huge success for him. In the U.S., he had hoped to give the project a bit more substance, ideally in a meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris. But she had no time – and then, her convoy even cut him off on the streets of Washington.
By then, only three months remained until the election.
VI. Harvest Time
In late June 2021, Scholz had an appointment with the photographer Axel Martens in the Finance Ministry and a couple of staff members attended as well. The Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, a weekly supplement delivered with the paper, had commissioned Martens to photograph Scholz for the magazine’s silent interview segment, in which interviewees are only allowed to respond to questions with facial expressions and gestures.
“What does conservatism mean?” Scholz stood stiffly at attention as Martens took his picture.
Then Scholz, the former mayor of Hamburg, was asked about life in the northern German city. The SPD candidate held a fish sandwich up for the camera.
“How badly will you miss Angela Merkel?” Scholz paused.
Those present remember him thinking about it for a bit before an idea began to form.
Scholz then stood in front of the camera and shaped his hands into the diamond form that had become Merkel’s trademark, the so-called Raute. Once the segment was printed, that photo quickly spread. The message was clear: I am Merkel’s true successor. Those who have voted for Merkel in previous elections should vote for me now.