The Vice-Chancellor and the Federal Minister of Finance write uptight letters to each other – our columnist writes a cheerful admonition to both of them.
Dear Robert, dear Christian,
I’ll go into first-person form without being asked to take some of the stiffness out of the debate. I’ve heard with concern that you’re now writing tight-lipped letters about money – as if there were suddenly no more telephones. Robert, as Vice-Chancellor, on behalf of all green ministries, you protest against financial pre-determinations and Christian, you urge thrift. You deposited your letters with Reuters.
What’s up with you? I have to praise one thing: letter writing itself is a cultural technique that has been unjustly lost. When it comes to emotional impact, even the most emoji-infested e-mail can counteract signatures distorted with anger, authoritarian letterhead, ink smeared with tears or even burn marks.
Tragically, only officials and editors write letters today, where they are called “briefings” – Gabor Steingart has one, the people at “Politico” write some and the “Tagesspiegel” sends out the famous “Checkpoint”. There are columns in the form of letters, such as the incomparable “Post von Wagner” or the journalistic response of the “Titanic” – the reliably insulting “Letters to the Readers”.
The political establishment also knows the letter, but mostly from outside: Anyone who is angry writes a letter – often “armored”, i.e. wearing armor – to the responsible minister and then passes it on to the press. If the present is too much for you, write an “open letter” to the chancellor and then print it in Emma for you to sign. What does that say about cabinet members writing to each other across the table?
Letters, you recognized that correctly, at least don’t get lost in the electronic noise. Some are never forgotten: Jack the Ripper once wrote to George Lusk, leader of the Whitechapel militia, “I’ll send you half the money I took from a woman”. In a box that came with it, you guessed it, half a kidney.*
It’s not quite as dramatic for you, but almost. You both punctured your snuffy letters to the Reuters news agency, where you’re probably still being laughed at. You practice offended communication via third parties, the political variant of “please ask your mother if she could pass me the salt”.
You started off cool, with a selfie, remember? We were amazed at how fresh and unconventional it looked! A new wind blew through the old, weary land. Now you write “Dear Mr. Colleague” to each other like rival sub-department heads, although you’ve been on the first name for a long time! You sound as spread as Mr. Müller-Lüdenscheid and Mr. Dr. Kloebner in Loriot’s bathtub. Which of you is the master of the water tap is still pending at the moment.
Unlike the two gentlemen in the initially empty tub, you are already up to your neck in water: money is running out, the FDP is gradually running out of state parliaments after Berlin, which also quite thins out the options for a coalition break: if the liberals If they drop stores, then in the worst case they will crash against the five percent hurdle. On the other hand, the Greens cannot starve the Liberals, because then – see above.
In view of the budget situation and the ongoing multiple crises, the public must be prepared for further controversy. “If there is to be no more road construction, then there will also be no more power lines,” said FDP man Wolfgang Kubicki recently – that also sounded like Dr. Kloebner: “If you let the duck in, I’ll let the water out!” The share pension of the FDP is finally a creative means beyond freedom and hum, but it also costs money.
In one thing, Robert, Christian is quite right, namely with the norm pyramid: The coalition agreement is on the airy nothing and the debt brake is pretty high up there. “The legal nature and binding nature of coalition agreements are disputed,” an old elaboration (pdf) says, but “there is agreement that coalition agreements are not legally enforceable and enforceable.”
Christian, your answer was a bit smug: “I was relieved that the ministries led by the Greens do not question the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany.” Insults are a tradition in good letters, but please use more oomph! Mark Twain, for example, once wrote in response to a sales letter, “there are even traces of intelligence in what you write”. That’s how it goes!
You have missed the communicative goal of your letter-writing, namely to make your positions audible to your own people like a fanfare: The Republic does not talk about your concerns, but the sticky communication in the traffic light. Even the otherwise well-behaved Tagesschau writes about “green-yellow beef letters”. Nobody can want that!
So the next time you ram the goose quill into the inkwell with a swollen neck and a tightly pressed tie, learn from Lieutenant Colonel Alfred D. Wintle. In 1946 he wrote these lines:
Sir, I have just written you a long letter. After re-reading it, I threw it in the wastebasket. Hoping that you will approve, I remain Yours sincerely, A. D Wintle
In order?
Your so mean devoted
H. Wieduwilt
*The quotes from the letters can be found, dear reader, in the volume “Letters That Matter the World”, edited by Shaun Usher.
