AWhen today’s SPD chairman, Lars Klingbeil, was still a young guy, he refused military service. Command and obedience were not his. Klingbeil comes from Munster in Lower Saxony, it is the largest army base in Germany. 16,000 people live there, and a good 5,000 soldiers are also stationed in the city. Klingbeil’s father was a non-commissioned officer. And so over the years Klingbeil became more and more involved with the Bundeswehr, defended it – especially against accusations from his own party – and became a defense politician.
He was shaped by the attacks of September 11, 2001. He was asked more and more often why he had previously refused. He was fed up with the question and withdrew his conscientious objection a good ten years ago. This had no immediate consequences. But his loyalty to the force was now documented.
Now Klingbeil is being asked a new question, also by the Green coalition partner: How can he claim that Germany should be a leading power and not lead the way, for example when it comes to supplying battle tanks? And what does that even mean – leadership power?
Fill the turning point with life
In a speech three months ago, Klingbeil was the first representative of the governing coalition to put this term in the context of the Ukraine war: “Germany must have the right to claim leadership.” see.” Apart from Scholz, no politician dared to go further than the 44-year-old SPD chairman at the turn of the century. He wants to change the SPD, give it a new foreign policy towards Russia and regain trust in other European countries. He wants to fill the turning point with life. That is a lot. There’s a lot of pressure on Klingbeil. Nobody should notice that. After all, the motto of the SPD in this multiple crisis is: keep your nerves. Just like Scholz. Like Klingbeil.
Klingbeil is in front of around 60 women and men that evening at the Wrede Theater in Oldenburg. The format is called “Klingbeil in conversation”. It’s raining, it’s 16 degrees. The SPD boss is wearing a dark blue suit and has his left hand loosely in his trouser pocket. “Lars, you became party leader in challenging times,” the moderator greets him. Corona crisis, Ukraine crisis, energy crisis and climate crisis anyway. “It’s about us discussing things,” he says.
Hesitating, only to change course after all?
He is glad that, according to the polls, two-thirds of Germans still think it’s right to support Ukraine. But one listener immediately wants to know: Why isn’t Germany delivering battle tanks to the Ukraine? Klingbeil sticks to Scholz’s argument: no going it alone, after all, the western allies are not supplying any battle tanks. In addition, the Ukrainians would not know the weapon system of the Leopard 2, which is currently the issue. The training lasts up to three years. But didn’t it used to be the case with other devices: Don’t we do it, takes too long, is too complicated? And then change course? The listeners in Oldenburg don’t really seem convinced.
One can assume that the delivery of battle tanks would not fail at Klingbeil. But he wants to avoid any impression that he is taking a different line from the Chancellor. Klingbeil was shaped and deterred by the Schröder period and the rift with the party leader at the time, Lafontaine. The unity in the SPD is everything to him, he sees it as the recipe for success. At the same time, he has ambitions that are significantly greater than his co-chair Saskia Esken. Klingbeil often seems slowed down. As if he was going two steps forward and then one step back for party reasons.
