Two days after the severe forest fire in Hürtgenwald was fully extinguished, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) returned from his summer holiday on Saturday with a visit to the emergency services in the North Rhine-Westphalian municipality. The chancellor's brief speech of thanks to the helpers was accompanied by a chorus of whistles. The fact that Merz had not made any public appearance since the beginning of his holiday in the first week of August, despite developments such as a damaging drought and fierce forest fires, had already provoked criticism.
The days-long fire in the municipality of Hürtgenwald was the largest and most damaging forest fire of the summer in Germany so far. At his first public appearance following his summer holiday, the chancellor said that without the cooperation of the fire service, the Bundeswehr, the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW), and the farming and forestry sectors, events in Hürtgenwald would "not have ended so lightly". He had come, he said, to thank all the helpers "very warmly indeed".
The chancellor's short address was accompanied by a chorus of whistles. Merz responded by saying that he would not "be impressed by those who shout, I speak with those who help".
The district administrator (Landrat) of the Kreis Düren, Ralf Nolten (CDU), stressed that he had asked the chancellor not to come during the fire, but afterwards. He quoted a firefighter as saying: "I don't need politicians, I need the kind of people who hold the fire hose." The people "shouting and whistling here", Nolten went on, would do better to join the THW, the fire service or the Red Cross. The district administrator received lengthy applause for this, including from the chancellor.
Merz announced that the government would discuss at its cabinet retreat in Neuhardenberg on Tuesday and Wednesday how Germany could be "even better" prepared for major incidents such as this severe forest fire. "We will evaluate what went well, but we will also evaluate what is still missing." Communication links, for example, were not as good as they needed to be.
Germany must reckon with an increase in the number of major disaster events, Merz emphasised, that was the "regrettable finding": "That is climate change." The government would "do everything to push back climate change. But we also have to live with climate change." Being prepared for it was a task for the federal government, the states and the municipalities.
The forest fire had broken out just over a week earlier and kept the fire service on its toes for days. The village of Gey, part of the municipality located in the Kreis Düren, had to be temporarily evacuated for safety reasons, affecting around 1,800 people. It was only on Thursday evening that Mayor Stephan Cranen declared the firefighting operation over.
Following his address in Hürtgenwald, Merz signed the guest books of the district and the municipality. The chancellor then met emergency personnel for a discussion before departing.
In a message on the online service X that evening, Merz invoked a sense of national unity. In Hürtgenwald, the joint deployment of the fire service, the THW, the police, the Bundeswehr, farmers and many volunteers had "prevented worse", the chancellor stated. "That shows once again how much strength there is in our country when we stand together."
In recent weeks, Merz had made no public appearances despite a damaging drought with low water levels in important German rivers, forest fires, and an incident involving a drone carrying explosives at Leipzig Airport. The criticism voiced in the media that Merz was taking too long a holiday was rejected this week by deputy government spokesman Sebastian Hille.
"A federal chancellor is never on holiday," the spokesman said. Merz was in regular contact with cabinet members on government matters and also with heads of state and government of other countries. The chancellor was also keeping appointments, he said, although these were not public.
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