Merkel plays it safe after star minister quits

Chancellor Angela Merkel named yesterday a trusted lieutenant as defence minister in a mini-reshuffle forced upon her by the dramatic and embarrassing resignation of Germany’s most popular politician.

“I first got to know Thomas de Maiziere in the peaceful revolution of 1989-90 in the GDR (communist East Germany),” Merkel said in Berlin.

“Since this time we have been linked personally as friends as well as politically.”

New interior minister will be Hans-Peter Friedrich, 53, parliamentary head of the Bavarian sister party to Ms Merkel’s governing conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), Merkel said.

Mr De Maiziere, 57, is seen as a safe pair of hands, having served as Merkel’s chief of staff in her first term from 2005 to 2009 before moving to interior minister after her re-election in September 2009.

“She gets top marks for this appointment,” political analyst Nils Diederich from Berlin’s Free University told AFP. Mr De Maiziere “is a quiet worker known for solving problems without making a song and dance.”