Scholz does not remember his memories
Animeyfied picture of Olaf Scholz, 2024
In 2022, the journalist Thomas Schmoll ran the headline “Scholz doesn't remember his memories” on ntv, providing the template for a phenomenon that will be discussed monothematically on this blog. I am talking about partial memory loss without medical indication. This memory loss affects 95% of influential men who face charges relating to omissions, mistakes and crooked dealings in the near and distant past. In the case of Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, it relates to his statements on the so-called cum-ex scandal during his term of office as Senator of the Interior in Hamburg. Warburg Bank, which was involved in the scandal, benefited massively from a decision in which Scholz was actively involved. This decision cost taxpayers 47 million euros, which the bank did not have to repay. Scholz had always emphasized that he would help with an active investigation. The opposition in Hamburg, however, assumes that Scholz has stood up for the company and is now leading the public around by the nose. Scholz initially denied having met with the head of the bank, but it then emerged that they had met several times. Scholz finally admitted this to the committee of inquiry, but he could not remember what the subject of the meeting was.
This is just an extremely abbreviated account of a much more complex tangle of concessions, revelations and more recent memory lapses, in which the Federal Chancellor cuts a sorry figure.
How can it be that the current chancellor, in the face of serious accusations, has one memory lapse after another and that this is not held against him by the voters as grounds for dismissal? Who wants to be governed by a chancellor who cannot remember what he discussed with one of the most powerful private bankers in the Republic?
The chancellor's loss of memory is an admission of a mistake for which he could also make himself honest and ensure that such behavior becomes impossible in the future.