Attacks on Bas despite his bereavement? Now a text message is shedding new light on the debate

After the resignation of Bärbel Bas (SPD), there is still a lot of mystery surrounding the Union's alleged attacks on the former labor minister. Bas justified her decision with the sadness after the death of her stepdaughter, but also with “public attacks” from the Union. Prominent voices in the SPD also denounced public attacks from the CDU/CSU. Now a text message published retroactively is throwing a new spotlight on the debate.

The “Tagesspiegel” reports on a text message from the head of the Junge Union (JU), Johannes Winkel, which he sent to the newspaper at the beginning of October. In a quote for an article at the time, he called for a draft “from the Ministry of Labor” to be quickly implemented in order to implement the Pension Commission’s recommendations.

Before the quote was released, he told the editors in a text message that he “didn’t want to mention Ms. Bas personally at the moment because, as far as I know, she is having a bereavement.” The “Tagesspiegel” interprets this as a desire to take Bas’s personal situation into consideration at the time.

Shortly after Bas' resignation, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) emphasized that the CDU had "always expressed its sympathy for Ms. Bas in the last three weeks," said Merz. If there were differences of opinion on the matter, “then they were resolved as was necessary in the matter.” Union parliamentary group leader Thorsten Frei was recently able to recall “not a single conscious statement from the last three or four weeks on Deutschlandfunk that would have been hurtful in any way.”

However, the SPD is sticking to the allegations. Bas was “exposed to political attacks in times of personal suffering and grief,” said Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil on Monday. “This is indecent and no one in our country should have to endure this.” Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD) also complained about "inhumane" attacks on Bas from the Union.

Most recently, Schwesig's spokeswoman referred to Merz's critical statements to journalists, according to which the Chancellor, knowing about Bas' situation, criticized her lack of presence. The “Change in Power” podcast previously reported that a corresponding background conversation had taken place with Brussels correspondents from German media in which such statements could have been made. However, information from these rounds is not typically used in reporting.