Bavaria’s Prime Minister has often and happily trumpeted the fact that he does not think much of the German capital. “Every Bavarian village has more sense than the Berlin government district,” Markus Söder once said, for example, with a clear focus on political Berlin.
But he also likes to be more general: Berlin is a “chaos city,” he complained several times, he called the New Year’s Eve riots “typical Berlin” in January 2023, and when asked what he liked about the capital a few months later, he replied: “Berliner Weisse with woodruff is the best thing about Berlin. I can’t think of anything else.”
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The man is simply not a fan of the only real metropolis in the country. He doesn’t have to be – conversely, probably only a few Berliners are enthusiastic about the Bavarian. So you could probably speak of a rather silly little war between “him” and “us”. Accordingly, Söder’s latest Instagram post is also a cause for concern.
The CSU politician had attended a concert by British megastar Adele and published a snapshot on Instagram on Saturday (3 August) showing him in front of the gigantic stage. The caption read: “Adele in Munich: Almost 80,000 on the biggest global stage. Something like this only happens in Bavaria.” This may mean: Not in Hamburg, not in Cologne – and certainly not in Berlin!
Adele herself had said that Munich was chosen “by chance”
That may sound a bit far-fetched, but it would certainly fit in with the discussions of the past few weeks. The fact that Adele had the only German concerts on her tour held in Munich and not in the capital caused surprise and displeasure. The explanation for this is relatively simple – and has only a peripheral connection to Munich, the “most beautiful and interesting city in Germany with a population of one million,” as Söder once said.
Adele explained it herself in February: In Bavaria, a pop-up stadium was built, a temporary concert location that exactly matches her stage show. The musician also wrote on Instagram: “In Munich? That’s a bit randombut still fabulous!”
“Random” – Munich only became the venue for the four Adele concerts “by chance” or “arbitrarily”; Markus Söder probably doesn’t like this wording at all. And yet: Bavaria’s Prime Minister clearly had a good time at the concert. “I met Basti Schweinsteiger beforehand,” he wrote enthusiastically on Instagram. “Poor Basti,” said one user in the comments section.
