German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has described her 2021 chancellor candidacy as a personal low point. In an interview with the Zeitmagazin, part of a long-term project from July 1, 2020, to January 2, 2025, Baerbock said in September 2024, “I can say that now clearer than in our earlier conversations: the chancellor candidacy, that was hell often enough.”
In a previous conversation, shortly after her failed top candidacy, Baerbock had said that she had learned the importance of friendship during that time. “In this business, you need people in some moments who know you as a person, not just as a politician. When so many things are written about you in the newspaper, that affects you. Then, people are important who, despite all the noise, remain unimpressed because they have been friends with you for 20 years.”
According to Baerbock, it was primarily the encouragement of many women that motivated her to keep going. “And I felt: now more than ever. I won’t give my opponents the satisfaction of being defeated and disappearing into the void. Because many of the mistakes were made at the beginning, but the real campaign only took place at the end, when the mood had already turned, I felt like I never got to the point where I could show what I can do.” Since then, however, Baerbock has lost her objectivity, she said. “The extent of the hate directed against me has shocked me.