Wolfgang Kubicki: To Hell With the Critics

Wolfgang Kubicki was supposed to be spending the summer at his finca in Mallorca, playing a little golf or writing another book. He had promised his wife that retirement would look something like that. Instead, the 74-year-old stood on a gray Tuesday evening in late August inside a brick industrial building at the port of Magdeburg.

Nearly 80 regional entrepreneurs and business representatives had been invited by the Association of the Self-Employed and the employers’ association. They wanted to hear how Kubicki, who had been leading the FDP for 12 weeks, planned to pull both Germany and his party out of their predicament.

The setting was informal. Round tables held beer, water and soft drinks, along with a bread basket, sliced vegetables and dips. The mood was friendly and receptive. Yet the old industrial building beside the Elbe could easily have accommodated several more rows of chairs.

Kubicki had never wanted the top job for long. His party pushed him into it, and he is now expected to save the FDP. The article presents him as confident in his own assessment: things are going well, at least in his view. It leaves the tension between that confidence and the modest turnout hanging over the evening.