The Aachen Carnival has its origins in the days of proselytizing, but already in the eighteenth century it lost its religious character and became a way to escape protest. With the occupation of the city by the French, costumes reminiscent of the uniforms of the invaders began to appear, and the performances began to take on a satirical tone that crystallized over the decades in the form of political criticism. The difference between these carnivals and other carnivals is that prominent political figures come in to introduce themselves in disguise and deliver monologues in an acidic, blunt tone, absent from their speeches throughout the remainder of the year. For a week, political decency has been suspended to make the most humorous judgments imaginable. The result is priceless. Unforgettable is the performance of Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, whom Merkel tore from regional politics to head to Berlin to lead the renewal process from within the party, the CDU. The AKK, as the conservative politician’s name was then summed up in the form of an acronym, appeared in Aachen disguised as a cleaning lady, Kelly in the latest slang, and gave a hilarious speech about how she could do everything, in short, it was sweeping some crap under the rug . Electoral candidate and president of the CDU in 2020 also attended to invest it with “Aucher Jung”, the local order against animal danger, presented by the Aachen Carnival Association, which dates back to 1859 and which gives such a distinguished prize, as “ancient wine, such as Bocksbeutel ‘, in a non-veiled reference to his protruding stomach. Laschet described the grand coalition in which his party partner, Angela Merkel, was ruling at the time on the side of the Social Democrats, as “a kind of NGO that is in Berlin” and revealed himself as a candidate: “For me, on the other hand, what I like is To judge!” Because the sine qua non of the Aachen carnival is a stark sincerity that leads to statements that politicians and parties forget the next day, as if nothing had happened here. It was interrupted by covid but the pandemic arrived immediately and the Aachen Carnival had to be suspended, leaving Germans orphaned with a joke. At the reopening, the politicians came back with more desire, in the spirit of more chirigota. The Secretary of State, Annalina Berbock, started the first laugh of this edition as soon as she took to the stage. “Actually, I thought of coming in a tiger outfit,” he admitted last Saturday, when the German government was just beginning to get over the serious crisis caused by the shipment of Leopard II tanks to Ukraine. – Criticism and self-loathing, assuming the paradox that a party like the Greens, environmental pacifists, is rearming the army and extending the life of German nuclear power plants. Those who have been awarded the ‘Öcher Jong’ are placed in a cage where they must announce their speech and show that they deserve it. Of this post, Burbock acknowledged that when he told his mother he was going to receive the award, she replied, “I don’t understand, you’re not funny at all.” He then points out the amusing anecdotes from the daily lives of the “Ménage à trois” that make up the “Semaphore Alliance”, the government of three headed by Olaf Schultz in which differences abound everywhere, as there are reasons to stick together. He said that “my security advisors have advised me not to enter this room…a room where Armin Laschet (CDU), Frederik Merz/CDU) and Lars Klingbeil (SPD) are a real threat”, using the everyday war language of his incumbent since the war in Ukraine began. Finally, he decides that “we must start laughing a lot at men”, introducing a hitherto unknown feminist facet to the carnival. Snow White’s Wicked Witch Costume But the appearance that stirred up the most political dust this year was Liberal Party Defense (FDP) officer Mary Agnes Strack Zimmerman, who appeared dressed as a punk witch from Snow White’s vampire vibe. And hit left and right. Describing herself as an evil queen competing with a “dwarf herd who has begotten a poisonous manhood”, she referred to her party’s government as a “failed coalition” and spoke of the incumbent CDU leader as “an unbearable mountain dwarf.” The joke expanded: “Another old white guy who thinks he can do better.” Frederick Merz was sitting in the audience and didn’t laugh at all. “Outwardly bourgeois in appearance, but utterly bad at heart”, he said, “he mocks anyone who has fled the war as a social tourist”. He was referring to some of Mears’ controversial remarks on immigration. “If a boy’s name is Ali and not Sasha, he calls him Pasha in elementary school. And all the climate activists are terrorists to him. But if a Nazi prince becomes so brutal, the dwarf suddenly becomes soft… Christians should be ashamed of him,” he said, in A reference to Merz’s lukewarm reaction to the nationalists’ attempted coup against the Reichsberger. Strack-Zimmermann went on to talk about “Vladimir Putin’s vodka dwarf, a clear case of hemlock” and about “the dwarf chancellor, who suffers from severe amnesia,” referring to his memory gaps in the Cum-Ex case. But by then, the spirit of the carnival, which allows everything and forgives everything, has reached its ceiling. The CDU demanded an apology from Strack-Zimmermann.
