Part of the mother party considers Merkel to be an undesirable person

While especially the younger part of the party base considers Merkel to be almost an undesirable person, others are calling for a return to the politics she embodied.

Daniel Güntherr (50), Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein, joined the second camp. “Angela Merkel’s centrist course was her recipe for success,” Günther told the Funke Mediengruppe newspaper on Sunday.

“Currently, we are not reaching many of those who voted for the CDU under Merkel’s government,” criticized the head of the Schleswig-Holstein government. However, according to him, these voters are not unreachable. “For example, we know of many disgruntled Greens voters who are definitely willing to switch. We should get all the voters we reached under Angela Merkel,” demanded Günther, according to the newspaper Die Welt, alluding to the more conservative course of party leader Friedrich Merz (68).

Merkel is totally isolating herself

Foreign

Günther also admitted that he misses the ex-chancellor and chairwoman of the CDU as a person: “Angela Merkel misses politics as a whole,” he said. He always admired the way she solved problems. “As a scientist, she always approached things in a very structured way, she knew how to plan solutions. We could use more of that,” he concluded.

Young people speak radically

Carsten Linnemann (46), general secretary of the CDU, chose a completely different tone in the newspaper Bild: “At the end of her era, we were largely gutted in terms of content. We are fixing that one now.”

Johannes Winkel (32), national leader of the Junge Union, i.e. the youth organization of the CDU, went even further. He wrote an open letter to Günther, which is available to Bild.

“Dear Mr. Daniel Günther, which party are you a member of? I am amazed and irritated. Because until now I have not noticed you as a politician who thinks backwards and lives in the past. Of course, the CDU owes much to Angela Merkel. But Angela Merkel also owes a lot to the CDU. This party opened the way for her to a global political career and made it possible for her again and again,” he wrote.

The CDU is burying its welcoming of Islam

Europe

“If you demand that the CDU not only criticize but also propose its own content, you must have missed the last 2.5 years. Before and shortly after the Bundestag elections, the CDU wandered around the political landscape without any direction or content. After this day, the party succeeded in a historic change of course,” added Winkel.

He mainly criticized Merkel’s migration policy. “This is a fundamental mistake that the CDU under the leadership of Angela Merkel made, but never corrected. The CDU has now set out in the right direction. We need more Merz, dear Daniel Günther,” he concluded.

The convention will decide on the direction

The eagerly awaited three-day CDU congress begins on Monday at the Berlin Congress Center. First, they will focus on the elections for the executive committee and the federal presidency, including the planned re-election of party chairman Merze.

On Tuesday, the CDU will discuss and adopt its new basic program, which is to express, among other things, the economic future of the Federal Republic, the relationship to Islam, migration, compulsory military service and the changed geopolitical situation in Europe and the world after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.