Federal Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht does not want to switch to the position of Federal Interior Minister – at least not during this electoral term. “I’ve taken on the job of Secretary of Defense. And anyone who knows me knows that I also fulfill the tasks I have taken on,” she said in an interview with the news portal “T-online”.

There were repeated rumors that Interior Minister Nancy Faeser would be the SPD’s top candidate in Hesse next year and that Lambrecht could then move up to the Interior Ministry. It is “no secret” that she has “always been interested in legal and domestic politics,” according to the lawyer Lambrecht.

Nevertheless, she agrees with the wishes of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “My goal at the end of the election period is that, looking back, you can say: You finally made sure that the Bundeswehr is properly equipped,” said Lambrecht. However, she assumes that Faeser will be the top candidate: “I’m counting on Nancy Faeser not only becoming the top candidate, but also the first female Prime Minister in Hesse.”

Lambrecht has been criticized for a long time, most recently because her son flew in a government helicopter. CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz called on Scholz to dismiss Lambrecht in the Bundestag on Thursday.

She also commented on the cause to the news portal. “What I can understand is that my son accompanying me on a flight met with a lack of understanding from some people. I will handle this differently in the future and organize my appointments differently. But it remains important to me that everything was legally correct and that all rules were observed.

Lambrecht took her 21-year-old son with him in a government helicopter to a military visit in northern Germany in mid-April, without him taking part in the military visit himself. The next day and after an overnight stay in a hotel, the car and bodyguards drove to the nearby island of Sylt.

When asked that there was allegedly “great resentment” in the ministry itself about her administration, she countered: “(…) Unfortunately, there is a certain lack of culture among a few people who feed the media with rumours, gossip and street radio. This is an unfortunate development, especially for a ministry that is responsible for security policy.” She is aware of allegations that she is showing disinterest, but some of these allegations are “so absurd that I no longer think about them”.

Instead, Lambrecht defended the balance sheet of her first few months. She had “implemented a lot in a very short time”. Lambrecht referred, among other things, to the decision to arm Bundeswehr drones and to the fact that in future 20 percent of all orders from the Bundeswehr would no longer go through a bureaucratic procurement process.