Merz to Address Young Union Delegates While Standing on a Scaffold of His Own 2010 Speeches
At the Junge Union Deutschlandtag in Bonn, Friedrich Merz will deliver his keynote from a platform built entirely of stacked printed copies of his 2010 policy papers, while delegates pledge to march backward into the future.
BONN — Chancellor Friedrich Merz will address the Junge Union Deutschlandtag on Saturday from a three-meter scaffold constructed entirely of stacked, bound copies of his own 2010 policy speeches, after delegates voted to physically reenact the party's political direction by walking backward into the hall.
The stage, assembled overnight by JU volunteers, consists of more than two thousand printed pages glued into load-bearing columns. Organizers say the Chancellor will climb the structure at 10 a.m. and deliver his remarks while standing atop the exact documents that JU chairman Johannes Winkel described as «a compass pointing at the past.»
«We have asked the Chancellor to speak from the year 2010, so we built him a platform made of it,» said a JU logistics coordinator, who confirmed that delegates will file past the scaffold in reverse, shaking hands with the future while facing the exit. «The past was never the right compass, so we are using it as a staircase instead.»
By midday, the backward procession had grown to include several CDU state ministers who arrived to observe and were promptly issued reflective vests and instructed to walk in reverse along the Rhine promenade. A second scaffold is under construction for the afternoon session, using the Chancellor's more recent speeches, which organizers say will be stacked horizontally to form a bench.
Merz is expected to praise the initiative as «a serious contribution to the debate» and to descend the structure only after the final delegate has exited the building facing the wrong way.
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