Saturday Morning Briefing: Merz at the JU, Klöckner Absent, Dehm Convicted

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents Saturday Morning Briefing: Merz at the JU, Klöckner Absent, Dehm Convicted.

Today three topics converge to shape Saturday. CDU leader Friedrich Merz is traveling to Bonn – for what promises to be a less-than-comfortable gathering of party friends. Bundestag President Julia Klöckner sends word that she has no time for a Holocaust commemoration. And a court has issued a penal order against former Die Linke member of parliament Diether Dehm. Here is the briefing.

Merz in Bonn: From a Comfortable Date to a Friction Date

Friedrich Merz is expected today at the Junge Union's »Deutschlandtag« in Bonn. On paper, a date where a CDU leader can relax among party friends. Were it not for Johannes Winkel. In SPIEGEL, the JU chief went on the attack against government policy and the Chancellor – criticism of the pension commission's proposals was »unrealistic and irresponsible,« and Merz's communication was »brusque and devoid of empathy.« His message to the SPD-led camp: »My patience is at an end.«

Winkel's threat carries weight. Last autumn, 18 young Union lawmakers around Winkel wanted to refuse to back the stabilization of the pension level after 2031 – because it would require €120 billion in tax revenue. Merz had to deliver an ultimatum to prevent the Social Democrats' signature project – and with it the black-red coalition – from collapsing at the hands of his own party's young guard. In the Bundestag, the coalition has a majority of just twelve votes. Winkel still sees himself as a power factor and, together with the 17 other members of the Junge Gruppe, is ready to rebel against any legislative project that, in their view, bears too much of an SPD stamp.

Today the focus is on pension reform as a whole and on the »Rente mit 63« in particular. Merz is likely to strike a conciliatory tone – along the lines SPIEGEL already put in his mouth: he understands the anger, would love to govern decisively, but is unfortunately trapped in a coalition. Arguably more interesting would have been Bärbel Bas, who told the Jusos in Gelsenkirchen last year that the debate over how to finance the welfare state was – pardon the expression – »bullshit.« Or Labor Minister Alexander Schweitzer, who defended the statutory pension as the product of hard work and emphatically »not a charity project.« What the final compromise will look like is unclear – Winkel could sweep it off the table.

Klöckner Sends Word: Doesn't Fit the Schedule

This weekend marks the 85th anniversary of a dark date. On 18 October 1941, the Gestapo drove 1,013 Berliners in broad daylight through the districts of Moabit, Charlottenburg, and Halensee to the Grunewald station. The first train carrying deported Jews rolled from there to the Łódź Ghetto – then known as Litzmannstadt. In the bureaucratic language, officials spoke of »evacuations.« In reality, men, women, and children were crammed into freight wagons of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and sent on their way to annihilation. Out of fear of further deportations, around 1,600 Jewish men, women, and children then took their own lives. By 1945, more than 55,000 people from Berlin had been deported and murdered.

On Sunday, Berlin's outgoing Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) and Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor will commemorate the victims at the »Gleis 17« memorial. Since Friday, 25 advertising columns across all of Berlin's districts have been displaying 100 victims on a large scale – part of the campaign »They Wanted to Live!,« a private initiative by director, cultural manager, and author Günter Jeschonnek, who sought to win political figures as well as Holocaust survivors such as Eva Umlauf for the project. Bundestag President Julia Klöckner was also approached for the patronage. Klöckner sent word that she must choose very carefully which patronages she accepts and concentrates on a few select events with a particular connection to her office. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was also approached and replied that he must, regrettably, exercise considerable restraint – unlike five years ago, he has no time on Sunday. Instead, in Kulmbach, he will receive a harvest crown from the President of the German Farmers' Association, Joachim Rukwied.

Dehm: 60 Daily Rates for a Repeated SS Slogan

The Amtsgericht Tiergarten has, at the request of the Berlin public prosecutor's office, issued a penal order against Diether Dehm. Charge: using symbols of unconstitutional organizations. The background is a joint interview that Dehm and Thuringia's AfD state chairman Björn Höcke gave a local TV station in Erfurt in October 2025. Höcke had previously been convicted for using the SA-SS slogan »Alles für Deutschland« during the 2021 state election campaign in Saxony-Anhalt. In the interview, Dehm sided with Höcke and repeated the slogan. The court set a fine of 60 daily rates at €150 each – totaling €9,000. Dehm has filed an objection, so the decision is not yet final.

For those who know Dehm from other contexts: as the musician »Lerryn« he released over 600 songs, including work with Joe Cocker and Udo Lindenberg; with Klaus Lage he co-wrote »1000 und 1 Nacht (Zoom!).« He was an SPD member until 1998, later served as deputy PDS chairman, and was a Die Linke Bundestag member until 2021. In the early 1970s, the Stasi recruited him as an IM (unofficial collaborator). According to SPIEGEL, in recent weeks he played a decisive role in the rapprochement between the AfD and the BSW in Saxony-Anhalt – which would mean he has finally arrived in the right-wing spectrum.