“How great is the pressure on black and red after the state elections?” wants Sandra Maischberger know this Wednesday. The ARD talker brings a conversation partner into the studio who recently couldn’t cope or didn’t want to cope with the pressure. In 2025, Kevin Kühnert withdrew from federal politicsafter he resigned as SPD general secretary in 2024 after the end of the traffic light government. “Health reasons,” it was called at the time.

There now seem to be more reasons for the 36-year-old to seek out more publicity. Does he miss the SPD? Or is the SPD missing it? Or: Is Kevin Kühnert proof that it is time to really appoint the gravedigger for what was once the largest people’s party?

Kühnert – and his party in an election disaster

In the ARD talk, Kühnert meets Philipp Amthor. The CDU man is only 33, three years younger. And he too has already left one or two political hopes behind him. “Are you still sitting in front of the TV and watching with excitement?” Sandra Maischberger from Kühnert wants to know about election Sunday. “You see everything – and you don’t have to do anything,” he answers. That sounds pretty relaxed. “He’s in a more comfortable position than me,” Amthor gets in.

But also raise your index finger. And he ritually defends the CDU candidate in Baden-Württemberg, and immediately afterwards he dutifully prepares the coalition negotiations with the Greens. That’s boring. What’s more exciting is how the SPD, which is just over five percent, is coping with the election disaster.

“Kühnert is becoming an economic liberal!”

“I don’t vote for a party for species protection reasons,” says the former SPD general secretary about his party, which actually gives the impression of being threatened with extinction. Kevin Kühnert has already said a lot about the state of mind of Germany’s oldest party. Even if he assures me in a well-behaved and very decent manner: “I’m sitting here as a former top politician of the SPD. But I’ve decided not to comment on my party from the sidelines. I’ve always found that to be indecent.”

Let me confess: When I see Kevin Kühnert sitting on this talk show. When I listen to him. When I take note of the clarity of his messages. Then at some point during this evening of television I almost start to miss the 36-year-old as a professional politician.

So I seem to be in the company of his CDU rival, who is almost equally young. Let’s take the conversation about the CDU topic of “lifestyle leisure”. This is where Kühnert comes up with the sentence: “What does politics have to do with the organization of my working hours?” And CDU man Philipp Amthor says: “Kevin Kühnert is becoming an economic liberal!” That may be poisonous praise. It actually sounds a bit like recognition.

Does Kühnert deliver the swansong for the SPD?

Amthor becomes even clearer in the course of the ARD discussion. “I also regretted the departure of the SPD general secretary,” he says, “he fought passionately – and that’s what our democracy needs!” Kevin Kühnert nods friendly.

Why did he still take his hat? “In the end, the balance was no longer right for me,” says Kühnert: “How does overexploitation relate to what I can achieve?” This may actually be the swansong for the effectiveness of his SPD.

Alice Schwarzer and the stupidity of women

Two men, Kühnert and Amthor, have this talk “Maischberger” that evening. Let us give the final word to a person who has determinedly determined his own life without this XY chromosome defect.

Alice Schwarzer, now 83 years old and probably still the best-known feminist in our country, comes to the conclusion on ARD around midnight: “Women are no smarter than men.” Perhaps a second Schwarzer sentence from that evening fits in with this: “I think Alice Weidel is a very capable woman.”