Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier awards according to information from “Stern”
the former Chancellor Angela Merkel on April 17, the highest possible award in the country. Before Merkel, only Konrad Adenauer (1954) and Helmut Kohl (1998) received the “Grand Cross in a special copy”. Steinmeier thus officially places Merkel in the same ranks as her important predecessors, which is likely to spark debate because of the criticism of her Russia policy.
Former Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) caused a stir just a few weeks ago because he did not want to include Merkel in the list of great chancellors such as Adenauer, Brandt and Kohl. “Perhaps it is still too early to make a final assessment,” Schäuble told the Handelsblatt at the time.
These people are on Merkel’s invitation list
The “Stern” also has the list of invitations to the ceremony in Bellevue Palace: In consultation with Steinmeier, Merkel invited her husband Joachim Sauer, his son Daniel and her siblings Irene and Marcus Kasner as well as political companions and friends. Corresponding letters have already been sent to their former chancellery heads Thomas de Maiziere, Ronald Pofalla, Peter Altmaier and Helge Braun, the former education minister Annette Schavan and Merkel’s first SPD vice chancellor Franz Müntefering.
Also on the list of invitations are Merkel’s long-time closest collaborators Beate Baumann and Eva Christiansen, as well as her former government spokesman Steffen Seibert, now ambassador to Israel. The former Union parliamentary group leader Volker Kauder would also have been invited, but is reportedly unable to attend. Ursula von der Leyen’s participation is still open. Nobody from the current CDU leadership is on the list, the same applies to the CSU and Merkel’s coalition partner between 2009 and 2013, the FDP.
Jürgen Klinsmann has also been invited to Merkel’s ceremony
Also invited are the GDR civil rights activist and later CDU politician Rainer Eppelmann and the actor and close friend of Merkel, Ulrich Matthes, as well as Jürgen Klinsmann. In 2006, Merkel’s first full year in office, he was national coach during the World Cup in Germany.
Klinsmann now works as a national coach in South Korea. Merkel has also invited four renowned scientists: the historians Neil MacGregor and Karl Schlögel, the art historian Horst Bredekamp and the chemist Helmut Schwarz.
