German defence minister takes flak for New Year’s fireworks speech
German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht faced calls Monday for her dismissal after a New Year’s speech in which she refers to the Ukraine war while fireworks went off in the background.
“The speech about the war with New Year’s Eve firecrackers in the background only crowns her series of embarrassments,” parliamentarian Serap Güler tweeted to Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Every minute that the chancellor retains Lambrecht in his Cabinet causes further damage to the country’s international reputation, added Güler, a defence specialist whose Christian Democratic Union is part of Germany’s governing coalition.
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“Who is supposed to take us seriously anymore?” she wrote.
Lambrecht on Sunday shared a video on an Instagram account marked as private, in which she took stock of the year 2022.
Referring to “a war raging in the middle of Europe” while also thanking emergency workers, her sentences were at times difficult to hear due to the whistling of New Year’s Eve rockets and firecrackers going off nearby.
