Episode 119: Voter Volatility and Political Stagnation
Eric Langenbacher
Senior Fellow; Director, Society, Culture & Politics Program
Dr. Eric Langenbacher is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Society, Culture & Politics Program at AICGS.
Dr. Langenbacher studied in Canada before completing his PhD in Georgetown University’s Government Department in 2002. His research interests include collective memory, political culture, and electoral politics in Germany and Europe. Recent publications include the edited volumes Twilight of the Merkel Era: Power and Politics in Germany after the 2017 Bundestag Election (2019), The Merkel Republic: The 2013 Bundestag Election and its Consequences (2015), Dynamics of Memory and Identity in Contemporary Europe (co-edited with Ruth Wittlinger and Bill Niven, 2013), Power and the Past: Collective Memory and International Relations (co-edited with Yossi Shain, 2010), and From the Bonn to the Berlin Republic: Germany at the Twentieth Anniversary of Unification (co-edited with Jeffrey J. Anderson, 2010). With David Conradt, he is also the author of The German Polity, 10th and 11th edition (2013, 2017).
Dr. Langenbacher remains affiliated with Georgetown University as Teaching Professor and Director of the Honors Program in the Department of Government. He has also taught at George Washington University, Washington College, The University of Navarre, and the Universidad Nacional de General San Martin in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and has given talks across the world. He was selected Faculty Member of the Year by the School of Foreign Service in 2009 and was awarded a Fulbright grant in 1999-2000 and the Hopper Memorial Fellowship at Georgetown in 2000-2001. Since 2005, he has also been Managing Editor of German Politics and Society, which is housed in Georgetown’s BMW Center for German and European Studies. Dr. Langenbacher has also planned and run dozens of short programs for groups from abroad, as well as for the U.S. Departments of State and Defense on a variety of topics pertaining to American and comparative politics, business, culture, and public policy.
__
Jeff Rathke
President of AGI
Jeffrey Rathke is the President of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.
Prior to joining AICGS, Jeff was a senior fellow and deputy director of the Europe Program at CSIS, where his work focused on transatlantic relations and U.S. security and defense policy. Jeff joined CSIS in 2015 from the State Department, after a 24-year career as a Foreign Service Officer, dedicated primarily to U.S. relations with Europe. He was director of the State Department Press Office from 2014 to 2015, briefing the State Department press corps and managing the Department's engagement with U.S. print and electronic media. Jeff led the political section of the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur from 2011 to 2014. Prior to that, he was deputy chief of staff to the NATO Secretary General in Brussels. He also served in Berlin as minister-counselor for political affairs (2006–2009), his second tour of duty in Germany. His Washington assignments have included deputy director of the Office of European Security and Political Affairs and duty officer in the White House Situation Room and State Department Operations Center.
Mr. Rathke was a Weinberg Fellow at Princeton University (2003–2004), winning the Master’s in Public Policy Prize. He also served at U.S. Embassies in Dublin, Moscow, and Riga, which he helped open after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mr. Rathke has been awarded national honors by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as several State Department awards. He holds an M.P.P. degree from Princeton University and B.A. and B.S. degrees from Cornell University. He speaks German, Russian, and Latvian.
__
Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger
Non-Resident Senior Fellow
Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger is non-Resident Senior Fellow at AICGS.
Germany votes for a new parliament on February 23. While the center-right Christian Democrats maintain a lead in the polls, the three parties of Olaf Scholz’s outgoing “traffic light” coalition all have suffered reduced support compared to 2021. A result of this volatility is that the next Bundestag could have as many as seven or as few as four parties. In any case, the far-right AfD party is on track for its strongest national showing ever. Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger joins The Zeitgeist to discuss the German political landscape, what is motivating voters, and how the elections will affect transatlantic relations.
Host
Jeff Rathke, President, AGI
Guests
Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger, AGI Non-Resident Senior Fellow
Eric Langenbacher, AGI Senior Fellow; Director, Society, Culture & Politics Program
Transcript
Jeff Rathke
Let me welcome our listeners to this episode of The Zeitgeist. It is January 13, 2025, so this is our first recording in the New Year, and we are glad to have everybody with us. We are just around six weeks away from the German Bundestag election, which is happening on February 23. We thought that was a great opportunity for us to come together and talk about where this election is heading, its significance. Let’s get started. We have with us today my colleague Eric Langenbacher, who is the senior fellow and director of our program for Society, Culture & Politics here at AGI. Good morning, Eric.
Eric Langenbacher
Good morning, Jeff.
Jeff Rathke
And we have with us from Darmstadt, if I got that right, Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger, who is a nonresident senior fellow at AGI and who for many years was the foreign editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Hello, Klaus.
Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger
Hello guys across the pond. Good to see you again.
Jeff Rathke
Good to see you, too. Let’s just start with one general observation: this is a crucial moment not only for Germany, but in particular for Germany. We have an early election that was the result of the collapse of Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition. This election is happening just as the Trump administration, with its increased antagonism and mounting demands toward Europe, will take office. At a time when there is a war still raging almost three years on as Russia tries to subjugate and conquer Ukraine. And at a time for Germany that is particularly precarious because of the difficulties the German economic model is facing, economic stagnation in Germany. This is a time that is going to have huge consequences for Germany, for its European Union partners, and for the transatlantic relationship. Against that backdrop, let’s just start with how things look—and I’ll leave it to Eric or Klaus to run down—but what are we expecting when we look at public opinion, what’s the baseline?
Eric Langenbacher
I’ll start by talking about where we’re at with the polls. Obviously, there are almost daily polls that are coming out these days. I always respect the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen poll. That came out three days ago on the tenth. It shows the CDU/CSU at about 30 percent, SPD at 14, Greens at 15, FDP and the Left Party and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance at 4 percent, and the AfD at 21 percent. And just to contextualize that a little bit, I think this shows a little bit of weakening on the part of the CDU, a strengthening on the part of the AfD. The AfD was polling well below 20 percent for several weeks, now all the polls have them at 20 percent, maybe even as high as 22 percent. So there seems to be a little bit of strengthening there. The Left and the FDP have been under that 5 percent threshold for a while, that doesn’t seem to be shifting that much. But it’s also kind of interesting that this Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance seems to be weakening a bit too, and according to some polls, is below the 5 percent threshold. I find this to be a really dynamic situation when it comes to voters’ preferences, and it makes it very difficult to predict what’s going to happen on February 23. As Jeff and others have pointed out, we could have as many as seven parliamentary groups in the next Bundestag if the smaller parties can make it over the 5 percent threshold. But we might have as few as four parliamentary groups, so there’s a lot of unpredictability this time around. Klaus, what are your thoughts on what’s going on with the polling?
Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger
That’s a strange combination of voter volatility and political stagnation at the same time. You mentioned the SPD is around 14-15 percent. It has been there for many months. The CDU has not been benefiting from the collapse of the Ampel, Traffic Light, coalition big time if at all, actually, their numbers went south a little bit. The AfD, as you pointed out, the right-wing extremists, are stabilizing at 20 and will be in any event the largest opposition party. Then we don’t know: will the FDP be in—the German Liberals, who probably were the most instrumental in bringing the downfall of the of the Ampel coalition government. Will the Left re-enter the Bundestag? You know with them, it’s always necessary for them to get three directly-elected members of the Bundestag in the Parliament. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have made it in the past. Will the Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht make it? It has increasingly become unpopular in western Germany, it’s still popular in the east, entering two new state parliaments. By the way, there’s another group, the Free Voters, who are strong in Bavaria and who at one point had thought they could gain as much as three directly elected members to the Bundestag. Now, with three directly elected members of Bundestag, they would be able and eligible to form a group in the parliament and with them being the Bundestag with 25-30 members. Now this makes all the difference if you consider a fragmented parliament or a more stable parliament, with roughly four parties (the CDU and the CSU, their sister party from Bavaria, are separate parties or independent parties forming a group together. The dynamics between the CDU are headed by Friedrich Merz and the Söder group in Munich has been very, very delicate and interesting).
A lot of things can happen until February 23. Almost to the day, it is three years when Russia invaded Ukraine, almost to the day. And this is something: The war is, not surprisingly, not so much talked about, particularly in the west. People accept it—not accept it in the sense that there’s war, but it’s not the hottest item on their priority list. It’s a little bit different in the eastern Länder, where this is a galvanizing point. So I would not be surprised if it will stay this way, but I would also not be surprised if something exploded in our eyes, something happened, a major thing, like an attack again at the Christmas market the other day, which saw the numbers of the AfD rising.
Jeff Rathke
As you said, we have a wide variation in possible outcomes. We could have a fractured Bundestag with seven parties, or even eight. Klaus, you mentioned the Freie Wähler (Free Voters), although I’m not sure what their chances are to win direct seats, how realistic they are.
Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger
They thought they had a shot at three districts, and this is the reason why Söder, the head of the Bavarian coalition government but also the head of the CSU, went really hard with almost demonizing the Greens, hard populist rhetoric in order to marginalize the Free Voters, who actually fish in the same pot.
Jeff Rathke
Let’s take a look first at the front runners, that is, the CDU/CSU. And you already mentioned that, Klaus, their chancellor candidate, Friedrich Merz, is ahead in the polls, when you look at the party vote. Merz is not the most popular politician in Germany, and if there was a head-to-head election for chancellor, then he would be about even with Olaf Scholz as well as Robert Habeck, the chancellor candidate from the Greens. But what I think is interesting, the way that Scholz’s coalition broke up was kind of embarrassing for everybody involved. It didn’t strengthen anybody. And yet the CDU and CSU have not really benefited from it in the way that you might have expected. At the same time, we now see more of the infighting that characterized the 2021 election, where Markus Söder from the CSU was constantly sniping at the chancellor candidate of the Union, Armin Laschet. There have been some flashes of that recently. Do you think those will stay under control; do you think there is the possibility of a more unified and effective message for the remaining time in this campaign?
Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger
The first observation is correct, Friedrich Merz has not benefited as much as he would’ve thought he would do and what everybody else expected. Actually, his numbers went down a few points, as we mentioned earlier. It’s difficult to say if Söder, Prime Minister of Bavaria, repeats his behavior of 2021. He was ambushing Armin Laschet all the time. He was probably more responsible for the failure of the CDU/CSU then to be back in government as anything and anybody else. As a citizen, I found it embarrassing. As an observer, that’s how voters respond if they see infighting to a point of really, really, almost violently attacking his own chancellor candidate, even though, agreed, Armin Laschet, had been at that point a weak candidate, but he would have made it if Söder had stopped the sniping. Now, will he do this again? A little bit yes, but not big time. The CDU was afraid he is returning to his old behavior. But then it would be clear that this has consequences because however we put it, the CDU/CSU will be the major party in the next German government. The only question is how strong will it be. Friedrich Merz—this will be my prediction on January the 13th, 2025—will be the next chancellor of Germany. I would be really, really surprised if this will not happen. I don’t see this in any event.
But it’s dependent on how strong he will be. Will he be in the 30s, in the upper 30s [percent of votes]? Will he be only in the upper 20s? This makes a hell of a difference because you would maybe need at one option you need two additional coalition partners or just one? That’s a hell of a difference.
Eric Langenbacher
Well, that brings us right back to the unpredictability and the variability. If we only have four parliamentary groups, then a lot the parties that make it into the Bundestag are going to get a lot more seats compared to their share of the vote, right? A lot of this is going to be mathematical, a lot of this is going to be a consequence of the electoral law, and especially that 5 percent threshold. We could be in an unprecedented situation where more than one-fifth of German votes don’t result in seats. If you take these three small parties, if they make it, or if they’re under the 5 percent, and then there’s still another 8 percent or so of people that are voting for other parties, including the Freie Wähler and others like that. There’s a lot of instability.
But if I can get something else out there as well, I think one of the other things that is confusing me a little bit about this election is, well, what do the voters actually want? What are the issues that they care about? When you look at the polling, it’s the economy, number one. Now again, it’s asylum, integration, and everything like that, right? If we talk about the economy for a second, 90 percent of Germans think that the overall economic situation is bad. But another 90 percent think that their own personal situation is just fine. So there seems to be a lot of uncertainty in terms of the path forward and I think this might also be affecting how the CDU and other parties are doing as well. It’s hard to know what issues to put forward in your platform when the electorate seems so unsure of what they think or what they even care about?
Jeff Rathke
By the way, there’s a similarity there to the United States election campaign where the assessment of the economy varied dramatically from individual voters’ assessment of their own personal economic situation.
Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger
One thing is clear. Large majorities of the voters do not like repetition of the Ampel. They are fed up with the Ampel. Some are more fed up with the Greens, others are more fed up with the Liberals. A different group is more fed up with the SPD. But altogether they are fed up with the Ampel. They don’t want to see a return of the Ampel one way or the other. None. Zero. That’s a constant. This has not changed. There’s around 80 percent plus, who say, this was the worst ever in history, rightly or wrongly, but this is how voters feel.
Then you’re right. A lot of voters say, my personal finances and my personal economic and financial outlook is pretty good. The whole country is in bad shape in terms of the economy. And this is no wonder. We hear about de-industrialization, we hear of a loss of competitiveness on major markets. We hear about the German model, the German business model eventually has run its course. It’s over, now the bad times, the hard times begin, the harsh times begin or are back as Borrell from the EU has said. That’s what worries voters. They see flagship companies are prepared to lay off tens of thousands of people. Volkswagen, for example. Or chemical—
Jeff Rathke
BASF.
Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger
Major suppliers for the automotive sector. And this worries people. All the flagship companies say, we may have to lay off people. The thing with bringing in multinationals from the United States for the semiconductor production or from Sweden, plans fell flat. Disastrous results. Subsidies are going down the drain. That’s what people are worried and they complain about bureaucracies. They complain about high taxes; they complain about the enormous cost of energy production in the manufacturing sectors and this is reflected in a mindset.
What do you do for it? Do you go then for the policymakers? Let’s say Friedrich Merz. He is against bureaucracy. He has a supply-side agenda like the Liberals, the German Liberals. The SPD is more a traditional social democrat, the welfare state, but also a little bit debt relief for the companies. The fragmentation of party preferences is an overt reflection of the disintegration of social and cultural milieus. 50 percent SPD, 50 percent for the Greens, 25 plus percent for the Christian Democrats and so on and so on and so on will be ever more difficult to put forward with a coherent, solid position that will allow a majority of voters to approve and support come what may. I find it pretty difficult at this point of time to imagine what it will be after the Ampel experience that another coalition, either the SPD or the Greens, or maybe both will have to be part of a future coalition, so to speak. The culprits of the failure, how they will hammer out a coherent concept that finds the approval by the majority of the voters.
Jeff Rathke
To pick up a comparison with 2021. At that time, as you mentioned, Klaus, the CDU/CSU candidate Armin Laschet went from being in the lead to finishing second. Olaf Scholz was one of the only people in Germany who believed he could win the election in 2021, and he was proved right. Now, as many observers have pointed out, 2025 is not 2021. But do you see any path for Scholz finishing first in this election so that the SPD could form a government?
Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger
Our Social Democrats think, and the critics also agree, that their road to have the number one position might be to present themselves as the Peace Party. Trying to do again what Schröder—then-Chancellor Schröder—achieved in 2002 when he was really ranting against the Bush plans to invade Iraq. And he made it. Barely, but he made it. I don’t think this will work again, because now the anti-war vote is split: Sahra Wagenknecht, AfD, and the Social Democrats. And it failed miserably some months ago, when we had European elections. I don’t think it will work, and it cannot be so bluntly because Scholz at one point is a strong supporter of Ukraine and basically what he would have to do is to distance himself from his own record of support and providing of weapons—In my point, I’d think it was not enough and it was often too late. But for an SPD chancellor, he provided probably as much as he could possibly do. And then it’s even more difficult for him because voters now have seen and experienced a Chancellor Scholz. In 2021, they had just seen a Finance Minister Scholz and being also active in other portfolios and now we have—
Jeff Rathke
And he represented a certain continuity with Merkel’s style and substance of government.
Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger
Yes. But now we see in in the eyes of many voters, a disastrous mess. He’s the one who is responsible for, in the eyes of many voters, a disastrous record. So the road to—I don’t know what—to victory is for him very, very difficult.
Jeff Rathke
Moving on to another novelty in a German Bundestag election campaign. We’ve talked about the AfD, which is at around 20 percent, as high as 22 percent, as you mentioned, Eric. They’ve gotten a boost recently from Elon Musk. Elon Musk in December in a tweet said that the AfD was the only party that could save Germany. This then led to basically an endorsement op-ed that was published in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, one of the center-right broadsheets that had never really shown sympathy for the AfD before. And then just this past week, the AfD’s chancellor candidate Alice Weidel did a session, a conversation, with Musk on X. Germany is not the only country Musk is paying attention to. He’s been firing off even more social media posts at the UK and trying to weaken Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer. But his friendship also with Giorgia Meloni, the Italian Prime Minister, is well-known. Two questions here. One, what is he trying to accomplish with these interventions in European politics? Second, will it affect the German public in the way that he presumably hopes for, that is, strengthening the AfD?
Eric Langenbacher
If I can just pop in for a sec, one of the things that really struck me about Musk’s interventions in German politics with the AfD is that it’s almost like a disinformation campaign. He’s trying to say stuff like, “Well, they’re actually not extremists. If you actually look at what they want to do, they’re not against immigration, for instance. They just think that there’s been too much, and it needs to be controlled, and the nation’s identity needs to be maintained, and stuff like that. Oh, then they have a pragmatic approach toward energy.” I find it really curious that he’s trying to defang the AfD and make it seem like, rebrand them as just another mainstream, legitimate party. Of course, completely ignoring the true radicalism of their platform and their agenda, for instance getting rid of the euro, bringing back the Deutschmark, massive reductions in the number of immigrants, even though everybody knows that Germany needs at least 400,000 newcomers a year just to maintain the economy. I find it really quite dangerous. And I’d be interested, Klaus, in your reactions of whether you think this is going to work. Do you think that him trying to rebrand the AfD as just another kind of real center-right, and not an extremist party is going to get any traction?
Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger
I don’t know what the interest of Elon Musk is in trying to reach out to the hard right in Europe, a populist in England in the UK, hard right in Germany, Meloni in in Italy. If there’s a strategic concept or if simply pleases his right libertarian ego of recent discovery. I don’t know that. Probably he thinks, well, Europe is not totally opposed or skeptical or reserved toward a second Trump administration, thinks he can cough some segments out that actually support it. I would say, the premise is the majority of Europeans are very, very skeptical of the incoming president. With a third, three-fourths, most of the countries, not all, but most of the countries there are majorities who are skeptical, and this has consequences for the future of our transatlantic relationships because usually the quality of the relationship is mostly defined by how at least Europeans view the U.S. president. Do they view him favorably? Relations are good. Do they view him negatively? Relations are not so good. And this has consequences for the incumbent government, what kind of projects they can and should pursue.
I’m not so sure if actually the AfD got a boost by Elon Musk’s intervention. This conversation you mentioned between Alice Weidel and Musk, this was an embarrassment, actually, for her. I mean, now she’s with the oligarch of America on a global stage. What they said and particularly what she said, with all due respect, was a scandal, was frivolous. It was embarrassing. It didn’t help. Actually, it solidified the opposition against Musk and Trump by the majority of the Germans, that we don’t want to have that oligarchs define the outcome of our election. Yes, the AfD at the moment are at roughly around 20 percent plus, minus. This has to do more with migration, immigration, with the recent attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg and other such things. Those segments of the electorate that might be attracted by the AfD pay attention to what an oligarch that is close to the incoming president says, I doubt it. I must say I doubt it.
Jeff Rathke
Last topic, I want to come to, because we’ve already talked for a while, and that is just to remind listeners we have the vote happening on February 23. There will be probably a clear victor in the sense of a party that has achieved the plurality of seats, but coalition negotiation will take some time. I would imagine at the earliest we would see a government in office would be late April, probably more like May or June, depending on how complicated the negotiations are and how many parties are involved. And what does that mean for the early months of the Trump administration, where they are not going to feel like they should wait to see who becomes chancellor and with what coalition agreement. They are going to be marching forward with whatever they’ve set as their priorities. How much of a hindrance is this going to be for a constructive, productive relationship across the Atlantic?
Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger
From my point of view, it’s rather obvious we have a lame duck government in Berlin. Maybe in office two months, three months. It won’t do anything major; it cannot do anything major. It will be sidelined. Germany as one of the crucial players in European politics, in particular, vis-a-vis Russia and the war in Ukraine, won’t engage in any new material or important project or it will sustain the ongoing assistance to Ukraine, but nothing more. We won’t see any major change from that, but we won’t see any initiative either.
The point is, it all depends—how complicated it will be, how long it will take—all depends on the number of needed coalition partners. Now if I think for the CDU, the best option would be as little parties in the Bundestag as possible because it would immediately enhance their strength beyond actually what the party gets. The more parties in the Bundestag, the more difficult it will be, the more complicated the coalition negotiations, and so forth. It’s not something that is not known of that the chancellor, the party that brings a chancellor into office, has less than 30, a third of the votes, and less than one-third of the members, last time it was 26 percent roughly; it’s not big, and the government collapsed because there has not been a strong personality in office. Scholz didn’t have a strong base to be a forceful chancellor, to discipline the colleagues from the other parties, and it showed right away after taking office. It’s a very difficult situation for my country—you mentioned it at the beginning—the international backdrop or the challenges from within and without our country, from within and without Europe and beyond, and the delicate state of the transatlantic relationship. Actually, we needed a strong government, but I don’t really see it coming. If Merz becomes the chancellor, he may have the right instincts, but Merz is someone—we should not forget that—not the most popular figure. He is disliked by the female Merkel voters. They may probably go back to the Greens in the last minute. If he is below the 30 percent line, this would be for him a little bit of an embarrassment. The active, strong, forceful outward-looking leader who brings Europe together, who formulates a strong and coherent policy vis-a-vis Russia and who sustains Ukraine in its war for preserving its independence and national sovereignty, will be difficult.
Eric Langenbacher
Getting back to the Trump administration, as always, we’ll have to wait and see. They’ve said so much. There are so many things that they could throw at the Germans, at the Europeans. Are they going to push 5 percent defense spending right away? Are they going to have a summit with Putin and bring peace within 100 days, which he’s also said. I don’t know. It’s hard to predict what the consequences are going to be because there’s just so much uncertainty about what they’re going to actually put forward, what they’re going to be able to do. I guess we’ll have a better idea in two weeks, once Trump is back in office. And remember, it’s going to take a while to get Cabinet picks confirmed, to get officials into position. It might be lucky for Germany, by the time they actually start to roll out the kind of policy initiatives, there could very well be a new government in place.
By the way, I’d also say that according to some predictive things that I’ve seen, there’s two possible coalition governments right now, which would be CDU/CSU/SPD or CDU/CSU/Greens. I would think that another grand coalition is probably the most likely. That could be negotiated pretty quickly, I would think.
Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger
One point I might add, I find it interesting that Robert Habeck, the Green leader, has spoken in favor of increasing the defense budget to 3.5 percent. Now, when we go back, let’s say ten years, eight years, and the SPD said, “Oh my goodness, 2 percent! Obsession! Craziness! That’s just a bonanza for the arms industry!” And now the Green guy comes here and says we need 3.5 percent because the geopolitical circumstances have changed dramatically, and we will have to do something. Here you find are a lot of common space with the CDU. They have not spoken out in for 3.5 percent, but they are willing to, should be willing to, increase. But here could be something, that they find a common place. But again, but as Eric rightly said, my hunch would be a grand coalition. How small the grand coalition would be, that’s another matter.
Jeff Rathke
We’ve left ourselves enough to talk about in the future, and we will be watching carefully how this election takes further shape. All of the parties have had their electoral nominating conventions, including a couple this past weekend, and so I think we are now going to be in the sprint to February 23, and we will look forward to keeping all of our listeners informed and encourage you to visit our website, americangerman.institute, where we will have content on German politics and so much more. And with that, let me wrap it up and thank you, Klaus, for being with us, and Eric as always. I look forward to having our listeners with us again on the next episode of The Zeitgeist.
