Sonthofen strategy

The Sonthofen strategy refers to a procedure that Franz Josef Strauss , then CSU chairman and economic and financial policy spokesman for the CDU / CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag , recommended in a speech he gave on November 19, 1974 at a closed meeting of CSU regional group of the Bundestag held in Sonthofen .

It was about the question of how the Union parties , which were then in the opposition , should participate in federal politics. Strauss was of the opinion that it would be best for the 1976 elections if the opposition no longer brought their own proposals into the political discussion, but instead watched the Federal Government under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt deal with the massive problems at the time (pension insurance, unemployment, economic downturn ) tries to finish, only to be able to present himself as the savior in the election year.

Der Spiegel published the speech that had been leaked to him in March 1975. Strauss admitted that it was a recording that reproduced the core issues correctly, but that they were exaggerated by omitting individual passages.

The “Sonthofen Strategy” has become a catchphrase that is used by government politicians and political commentators when they want to characterize certain behavior of the opposition as obstructive.

Web links

• Speech by Strauss at the meeting of the CSU regional group in Sonthofen , quoted from Bernt Engelmann : The new black book, Franz Josef Strauss. Kiepenheuer and Witsch, 1980, ISBN 3462013904 , p. 177 ff.

Footnotes

1. ↑ Clean up until the rest of this century . In: Der Spiegel . No. 11 , 1975 ( online ).
2. ↑ Hanns Seidel Foundation : Were Sonthofen's statements actually made?
3. ↑ See, for example, Christoph Schwennicke: Commentary - Sonthofen strategies, once and now ( memento of the original from November 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . March 26, 2002