Political Divorcees

Love affairs made public, divorce and children born out of wedlock are not taboo on the German political scene. Leaders of Germany's conservative Christian parties -- the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) -- struggled with all of the above last year. This brought them into line with the broader German population, in which about one-third of all marriages ends in divorce.

While conservative politicians once criticized former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of the Social Democratic Party and his former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer of the Green for having married four and five times, respectively, commentators have noted that CDU politicians are nowadays less likely to be extolling the virtues of matrimony.

"Marriage, in the daily lives of many CDU politicians, is no longer as holy as it is in their campaign speeches," mass-market Bild newspaper columnist Hugo Müller-Vogg wrote in December.

Too late

Baden-Württemberg's Premier, Günther Oettinger, was the most recent CDU politician to announce his divorce. After 13 years of marriage, he announced that he and his wife, Inken, were splitting up after he found out about her affair with a Porsche executive.

"Into the autumn, I had hoped that my wife and I would succeed at saving our marriage," he said on Dec. 16. "I fought for it, but it didn't happen."

The Oettingers have since both said in interviews that they agreed to the divorce and would concentrate on raising their 9-year-old son together. Günther Oettinger said his wife was increasingly displeased by their busy schedule and numerous public appearances.

Few political consequences

Even though two-thirds of Germans say they want politicians to lead traditional private lives, according to a December survey conducted by the Emnid institute, there are seldom long-term political consequences for politicians who do not.

Like Oettinger, Lower Saxony's Premier Christian Wulff remained popular in his party even after announcing plans to divorce his wife of 18 years, with whom he has a daughter, and to marry his current partner, who is pregnant with his second child.

Unlike the two state premiers, Horst Seehofer, Germany's minister of agriculture and consumer affairs, was viciously attacked by party members calling his position in the Bavarian CSU into question after he admitted in July to fathering a child in an extra-martial affair.

Despite the politically motivated attacks that came in the middle of an internal party election, Seehofer's career -- as well as the marriage in which he has three children -- has remained intact.

Ditching double standards

It hasn't always been so easy for conservative politicians to maintain their careers and marriages.

Rudolf Seiters, who would go on to become Germany's interior minister, had to fight for his parliamentary seat in 1976 because he chose to marry a divorced woman. Members of his own party even accused him of not following the "clearly laid-out instructions of the gospels."

Volker Kauder, the CDU/CSU parliamentary leader who is often regarded as a staunch defender of conservative values, told the weekly Bild am Sonntag that divorces happen, even in Christian families and that politicians should be held responsible for keeping to the statements they make.

Along similar lines, the CDU agreed last year to alter its definition of "family," which had been based on a traditionally Christian view of man and wife married with children. Now the party says "family is wherever parents bear permanent responsibility for children and children for parents."

In a rare, though somewhat veiled, indirect compliment, Greens parliamentary leader Volker Beck applauded the conservative parties' shift from a holier-than-thou attitude.

"Some Christian conservatives who paint a picture of a so-called perfect family life and then use it for political exploitation are regularly tripped up in their own hypocrisy," Beck said. "Politicians aren't angels. It's time to ditch the idea that politicians are special people."