First published in German at Focus Online, May 31, 2023.
The former parliamentary group leader of the Oldenburg Greens, Anne Lück, is turning her back on her party after 30 years. In an interview, she settles the score with top Greens Habeck and Baerbock in particular.
FOCUS online: After 30 years with the Greens, you have left the party. What is your main criticism?
Anne Lück: The Greens have betrayed their values. They have become a party of a lack of transparency, a lack of closeness to the people and - for me the worst - they are no longer a party of peace.
What do you attribute that to?
In the Ukraine war, the party is not focusing on negotiations, but on ever heavier weapons. Yet the election program still said that no weapons should be sent to war zones. Now even uranium-sheathed missiles are to be deployed in Ukraine, as they are no longer considered so dangerous. As a reminder, it was precisely these missiles that were massively denounced during the Iraq war.
I can't believe that representatives of a party that emerged from the environmental and peace movement are exposing the Ukrainian people to this risk! Even more, our Green foreign minister wants nuclear sharing. You have to imagine that. The nuclear clock is already close to twelve... And then this: One does not fear a nuclear war any more? Is there a lack of knowledge here?
"Annalena Baerbock shouldn't be firing up"
You seem to have a particularly hard time with Annalena Baerbock?
In many respects, yes. I was speechless when she said in January that we were at war with Russia. Those were my last days as a party member, and I couldn't possibly let that remain uncommented.
What did you do?
I wrote to the chancellor. Did I miss anything? Has Annalena Baerbock now taken over the chancellorship, that she is declaring war on Russia? Baerbock unfortunately quite often says things that are very ill-considered. The foreign ministry should first and foremost have diplomatic skills. We must not forget: Annalena Baerbock is our country's chief diplomat. Someone like that should not be fomenting. Any bellicose behavior is out of place, because it does the opposite of de-escalation. She says that what her voters think is secondary for her. Ukraine is important to her. But shouldn't she then first and foremost want to end the war and thus the terrible misery through negotiations?
Was there a specific reason for her resignation?
There were always new occasions, one thing led to another.
Habeck's heating turn: "Politics is untrustworthy"
At the moment, the Greens are being criticized above all for their energy policy. What do you say?
There's no question that climate protection is the order of the day. Germany needs to get on the right track. But please do it in an orderly fashion. There's far too much happening all at once at the moment, and no one understands what's happening. By the way, I'm speaking from my own experience: my gas heating system broke down in the winter. Of course, I also thought about a heat pump. But it was not possible to get a company to supply it. I would have had to wait three quarters of a year.
Would have? So did you decide against such a heat pump?
Yes. It was cold, after all. I had previously heated with gas and now I have a modern gas heating system again, which can be combined with a solar thermal system if necessary. I learned from the craftsmen who were with me that the heat pump is not even included in the journeyman's training in Lower Saxony. Only in the master training it might becomes a topic. A policy that pretends to want a transformation in energy use and does not even begin to create the necessary conditions for this is untrustworthy.
In some Nordic countries, heating with heat pumps is already taken for granted.
Yes, they are already much further ahead. In our country, politicians are taking the second and third steps before the first, and all this bypasses the citizen. A brochure or at least some written information at all to all households would have been nice. In times like these, politics must involve the people more. First Covid, then the war and of course the climate... Many are currently driven by great fears....
It sounds like there's not only a lack of information, but also a lack of empathy.
You name it. Technical terms and facts are being thrown around, but let's be honest: The energy transition is also a very emotional topic. A warm home provides security. People who are afraid of the future need it more than ever. I can't understand how my former party treats an issue that has so much to do with domesticity so unemotionally. Pressure and possibly threats of punishment are completely out of place for me in general and even more so at the present time! It is more than understandable, given the uncertainty, that the poll numbers for the Greens continue to plummet.
"New dependencies are accepted cheaply".
How do you react to the pressure?
Pressure is hard to bear. But when a party adds to feelings of insecurity, it's especially bad. I also resent the Greens' gas policy. We don't need Putin's gas - how could my party colleagues in Berlin say that with such conviction? We need gas for the transition. Instead, switching now to the much more expensive liquid gas with long-term contracts is fatal.
As if that could seriously be an alternative, when we need to expand alternative energies as quickly as possible. Liquefied gas is a huge environmental problem, this has been known for a long time, both in extraction (fracking) and in conversion to gas in LNG terminals. The danger of fracking was addressed in detail by the Greens not so long ago ...
... and now?
I hear nothing more from the Greens on this issue. Unfortunately, economic concerns seem to be more important for the party than fundamental convictions. New dependencies are accepted - e.g. liquefied gas supplies from the US, which Trump has already demanded instead of Nordstream 2. The Greens seem to seriously believe that they can simply put certain highly sensitive topics ad acta, depending on their interests. Liquefied natural gas, which was considered problematic yesterday, as described above, is suddenly harmless. I can't get my head around that. At some point, I had the feeling that, as a Green, I could no longer look in the mirror in the morning. Look, I joined an environmental and peace party back then....
But times have changed. Even the self-confessed pacifist Franz Alt recently endorsed arms deliveries to Ukraine on a talk show.
That may be so. But he signed the call for peace. I don't think there should be any discussion about the following: a peace party must always and under all circumstances remain ready for dialogue. Every chance, however small, for a positive turn in the conflict must be seen. Pretty much at the beginning of the war it was heard that Russian conductors should no longer perform. Russian literature and music are losing their value in our country - what is the point of turning away from Russian culture? Do I seriously want to be persuaded that all Russians are bad people and that whatever comes from them is bad? And the Greens go even further. In the eyes of a leading party representative, I, too, have recently found myself on the wrong side, and I am - to put it bluntly - a traitor.
Criticism of public appearances by Baerbock and Habeck
You'll have to explain that, please.
Well, Anton Hofreiter said it like this. Whoever is for peace belongs to Putin's fifth column, that's a verbatim quote from him. People like me are more or less directly declared perpetrators with that. What a madness.
But isn't that an isolated opinion that Anton Hofreiter is expressing?
Unfortunately not. Claudia Roth said some time ago that we have never been a peace party. Another reason to turn my back on the party. I personally handed over my resignation, together with a farewell letter, to the managing director of the Oldenburg Green Party. For me, this was a difficult emotional step. That was at the beginning of February. After that, things kept happening that confirmed my decision.
What, for example?
Oh, I could tell you a lot about that. Annalena Baerbock's less than diplomatic appearances continue unabated. I found her arrogant behavior in China particularly bad. In terms of domestic politics, I was most annoyed by Robert Habeck's appearance. It seems unbelievable when politicians repeat like a prayer mill that no one has to worry, that we will be supported. Of course, worrying is easy to say if you tend to be financially well off, which many Green voters are.
Is that the case?
Well, we tend to be talking about a well-off electorate. Upper middle class. Of course, in this segment of the population, the fears I just mentioned are comparatively small. But if you think outside the box a little bit, you can see what's going on. There are a lot of homeowners who have little money and fear the innovations. For the first time since 2018, the right-wing populist AfD is now ahead of the Greens again in polls. No wonder: the very fears that people are concerned about are being addressed here. Those who know little about the true background of this party are easily captured these days, simply out of the feeling that they finally have a place again where they feel cared for and understood. This is, of course, a fallacy and therefore very bad. And is not least the responsibility of a party to which I once felt very attached. Until it stopped being true to itself in essential things.
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More English translations of German articles by myself and other sources can be found here.