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Those Taking Credit for Other People’s Feathers: CDU Bigwigs Turn Out in Force in KarsdorfOnce again, the same old spectacle: A family-owned company is investing more than €50 million in a new, more efficient cement mill at the Karsdorf site. And what happens? The CDU bigwigs from Saxony-Anhalt swoop in like vultures for the groundbreaking ceremony, pose with shovels, post enthusiastic self-congratulatory messages, and act as though they personally mixed the concrete and conjured the millions out of their own wallets. 
Eva Feussner (CDU, former Minister of Education) cheers on Facebook: “€50 million for the Karsdorf site!” – as if this were a gift from the state CDU rather than a decision by the Thomas family of Simmern, the company’s owners. Dieter Stier (CDU, Member of the Bundestag) waxed lyrical about the commitment to the site and sustainability. And Minister-President Sven Schulze (CDU) himself could not resist joining in on this “project for the future.” The CDU delegation stood packed tightly together, cameras clicked, press releases flowed – all beneath the lofty banner of regional economic strength and climate protection. 
Only: On the lectern on August 7, 2026, there was an unmistakable notice reading: “Funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action on the basis of a resolution of the German Bundestag.” The investment by thomas zement GmbH is therefore – as industry reports confirm – being supported with federal funds. Taxpayers’ money from Berlin, approved by the Bundestag, not conjured out of some Saxony-Anhalt CDU magic hat. Exactly how large the subsidy is remains remarkably vague in the state politicians’ public statements. They would rather talk about the company’s “more than €50 million” investment and the “significant improvement in efficiency” – while remaining silent about the exact share contributed by the federal government (in other words: all of us). 
And as if that weren’t embarrassing enough, on August 11, 2026, Schulze followed it up on the official Facebook profile of Sachsen-Anhalt.de with a full-blown taxpayer-funded propaganda clip. Drone footage, naturally. The Minister-President poses and says: “When you talked about cement production in the GDR, the subject was always Karsdorf. And after reunification, some companies took over the operation. It was always back and forth, and by now the company thomas zement is here. This is a family-run company that bought the entire site here a few years ago and is making sure that the jobs, that the employment here, are preserved. Today we celebrated a €50 million investment here. Today the groundbreaking ceremony took place, based in part on a really good cooperation that we as the state government, the state administration, have with the company. Fast approvals, setting the right framework conditions quickly, being here on site when it comes to investments, and helping to ensure that the jobs, the employment, are secure for the decades to come.”Listen carefully: “Preserving jobs.” Not creating them, not expanding them, not allowing them to grow – merely preserving them. That is the entire ambitious message. And the history that Schulze so casually glosses over is considerably less glorious than he makes it sound. During the GDR era, VEB Zementwerk Karsdorf was a monster: around 3,200 employees in 1981, producing roughly one third of all cement in the GDR. After reunification, Lafarge took over the plant. The workforce was brutally slashed – within a short period from around 1,800 to 650 and then even further down. Today, only around 200 to 240 people still work there. There was no insolvency of the plant itself, but a constant back-and-forth in ownership: Lafarge (France) → following the Holcim merger, inevitably to the Irish CRH Group (Opterra) → failed attempt to sell to Schwenk in 2017 (blocked by the competition authority) → at the end of 2022/beginning of 2023 to the thomas Group from the Hunsrück region. “It was always back and forth,” says Schulze. True. And in the end, what remains is a site that has shrunk dramatically since reunification and whose jobs are now celebrated because they are not being cut any further. Apparently, “preserving” is as far as the ambition goesNot a word about increasing employment figures, no claim to creating new prospects beyond simply safeguarding what already exists. Instead, drone videos paid for by the state, in which the Minister-President presents the mere fact that the plant is not being shut down as a major achievement of the state government. Private investment plus federal funding plus a little faster permitting – and suddenly it becomes the heroic story of CDU industrial policy.Anyone who so relentlessly takes credit for other people’s achievements while whitewashing their own historical record (the drastic loss of jobs since reunification) reveals one thing above all: a hunger for public photo opportunities and a lack of tangible achievements of their own that do not first have to be rebranded. Politics was not made in Karsdorf – a photo opportunity was staged there. And taxpayers get to watch as their federal funds and the production costs of the State Chancellery become the backdrop for the next CDU image campaign. “Preserving jobs” – that is the bar that Saxony-Anhalt’s politicians have long since run underneath.
Author: AI-Translation - АИИ | |
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