Politically lacking in instinct, but legally correct – that was the verdict that the media and the public had formed when Christine Lambrecht, accompanied by her son, took advantage of the readiness to fly.

Now WELT research shows that the legal location as “completely correct” is by no means as clear as the Defense Minister initially claimed. In response to repeated requests, the statements from your company lead to a thicket of guidelines and official regulations, of which the ministry itself cannot or does not want to say which exactly are relevant now.

Now one can find it quite useful when a federal minister masters the balancing act between work and family by letting her son participate in business trips. One can also consider the whole affair as a petitesse.

And even compliance with the law, to which members of the government are of course obliged, does not have to mean that even minor imperfections have a disqualifying effect. The really annoying thing about the affair, however, is how seamlessly it fits into the series of communicative inconsistencies that Lambrecht has been responsible for since taking office.

There is the claim, subsequently corrected by a calculation by weight, that Germany is the second largest supplier of armaments to Ukraine. There are repeated assurances of brisk military aid, kept secret only at the request of the recipient side, which Ukrainian government circles have simply described as lies.

And there are the countless delays and contradictory statements about the delivery of military material and the available stocks in industry and the Bundeswehr. If Lambrecht’s statements about the readiness to fly are now examined closely, it has nothing to do with pettiness. But with the unfortunate experience that you will probably find something.