Campaign at the Stammtisch: Özdemir and Hagel in a Face-off - Baden-Württemberg election heats up as CDU and Greens trade bitter blows over policies
Political Mud-Slinging Is Par for the Course at Germany's Political Ash Wednesday—So Why Does This Year Feel Different?
For decades, the Politischer Aschermittwoch—Germany's raucous political Ash Wednesday tradition—has served as a stage for politicians to take swings at their rivals. In the heat of a state election campaign, verbal attacks are hardly unusual. But when the two collide? With the state vote just 20 days away, all eyes were on the top candidates from the Greens and the CDU—the only two with a real shot at becoming minister-president. A long-distance duel, dissected.
The Christian Democrats: Oompah Bands and Hemp Plants
The atmosphere in Fellbach's Alte Kelter hall is loud and lively, with hundreds of guests fueling up for the final election sprint—and, of course, fueling up on beer. CDU frontrunner Manuel Hagel starts by talking about brass bands. They make the state a better place, he says. The 37-year-old delivers a speech familiar to anyone who's heard him before: prosperity must be earned before it can be shared, the value of hard work, the crisis in the auto industry, the importance of vocational training. And he slams the fiscal equalization system, converting Baden-Württemberg's net contributions into beer steins for dramatic effect.
The far-right AfD trains its fire on Hagel, casting him as its primary adversary. His Green rival, meanwhile, gets only passing mention—mostly on auto policy. Hagel accuses the Greens of ideology, railing against the planned ban on combustion engines. Their "culture war against the car" must end, he declares. The Greens' plan to phase out combustion engines in Berlin by 2035 isn't transport policy—it's "green sabotage of Germany as an automotive hub."
Cem Özdemir's name never comes up. But Hagel clearly has his Green opponent in mind when he remarks how odd it is for a lead candidate to pull one way while his own party rows in the opposite direction. "That's not honest, my friends."
Is Hagel positioning himself as a statesman, eyeing the premier's office? With the CDU so far ahead in the polls that the Greens have little hope of catching up, a coalition between the two seems inevitable. Yet even outside the beer tent, Hagel barely lays a glove on Özdemir directly.
Reinforcements from Hesse
The role of chief attacker in Fellbach falls to Hesse's minister-president, Boris Rhein (CDU). "People are fed up with Green paternalism, Green bans, and above all, Green know-it-all arrogance," he booms. Rhein mocks Özdemir's campaign posters, where the Green Party logo is barely visible. "And who can blame him?" he quips. "Which of us would want to plaster 'The Greens' on our posters?"
He also ridicules Özdemir's tenure as federal agriculture minister, claiming farmers were sidelined "at the kiddie table" during the diesel subsidy dispute, not at the cabinet table. "But what can you expect from someone whose only planting experience is with a hemp seedling?"
The Greens: Accusations of Legacy-Theft and a Rare Kretschmann Soundbite
At the Greens' event in Biberach, beer is traditionally scarce—and usually alcohol-free—while brass bands are nonexistent. But this election year, the speakers sharpen their rhetoric. Green Party veteran Joschka Fischer sets the tone with a blistering attack on Hagel.
Fischer says he read that Hagel believes he's the rightful heir to Winfried Kretschmann's legacy. "That's what we call inheritance theft," he scoffs. If Hagel wants an inheritance, he should look to Stefan Mappus—the hapless CDU premier ousted in 2011 after just months in office, paving the way for Kretschmann. "Kretschmann's legacy belongs to the people of Baden-Württemberg—but it belongs to us Greens, too," Fischer declares.
Even the outgoing premier himself has taken to the campaign trail—and, in a rare move for him, leveled criticism at his coalition partner. Looking at what Hagel is demanding in the election, he said, one might think the CDU had not been part of the government at all over the past few years. "We've been doing all of that already," Kretschmann called out. Hagel, he argued, was merely repackaging existing policies with new headlines—useful for campaigning, perhaps, but not for serious governance.
Özdemir's attacks followed a similar line. The Green Party's lead candidate accused his CDU rival of flip-flopping on key political issues, leaving voters confused about where the party truly stands. As an example, he pointed to Hagel's call to eliminate redundant layers of administration—without ever specifying which ones or including the proposal in the CDU's manifesto. "Big announcements—but when it comes to details, there's nothing there," Özdemir remarked.
Still, Özdemir is well aware of the current polling—and the strong likelihood that the CDU and Greens will once again have to govern together after the election. He, too, holds back from sharper jabs. "After the vote," he noted, "we'll still need to look each other in the eye."
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