The mayor of Tübingen, Boris Palmer, has resigned from the Greens. The state party announced this on Monday in Stuttgart. Palmer confirmed the departure to the German Press Agency. Previously, Palmer had stated that he wanted to take a “time out”. At the weekend there had been major discussions about Palmer’s controversial statements in Frankfurt am Main. Because Palmer had repeatedly caused a stir with his choice of words in recent years, his membership in the Greens was recently suspended.
In his personal statement Monday, Palmer apologized to the people “I’ve let down” and stressed that as mayor he “never should have talked like that.” “I’m incredibly sorry” that he gave the impression that he was relativizing the Holocaust. It can’t go on like this. “I can no longer put up with the recurring storms of outrage from my family, my friends and supporters, the employees in the city administration, the municipal council and the city society as a whole.”
Palmer wrote in his personal statement: “When I feel unfairly attacked and react spontaneously, I fight back in a way that only makes things worse.” As a politician and mayor, Palmer writes, he should never have spoken like that. He can only try to change himself. “I will therefore seek professional help and try to work through my part in these increasingly destructive entanglements.” He will therefore avoid all confrontations with obvious escalation potential through abstinence.
Palmer caused a stir on Friday with a verbal argument with a group in front of a migration conference in Frankfurt am Main. In front of a building at Goethe University, he had taken a stand on the way in which he used the so-called n-word and had repeatedly used and defended the word, which was considered racist and highly discriminatory (a previously common term for black people).
In a recording of this that was circulated on the Internet, a black man in the crowd asked him if he wanted to say that to his face. Palmer then repeats the N-word by repeating a sentence that has already started. When confronted with shouts of “Nazis out,” Palmer said to the crowd, “It’s nothing but the Star of David. It’s because I used a word that you guys frame everything else by. If you say the wrong word , you’re a Nazi. Think about it.”
During the conference afterwards, too, he said the N-word several times and insisted on his point of view that it depends on the context of use whether the word is racist, as a video also circulating on the internet shows.
Palmer had been heavily criticized for his statements in Frankfurt am Main. There was a lack of understanding not only among those involved in the city, but also in Baden-Württemberg. Lawyer Rezzo Schlauch turned his back on Palmer, the Tübingen Greens city association distanced itself, and the group “Vert Realos” – an association of so-called real politicians in the Greens – wants to continue working without Palmer in the future.
A spokeswoman for the Baden-Württemberg state party then announced on Monday evening: “Boris Palmer declared his resignation from the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen party today, Monday, May 1, 2023. His declaration of resignation was received by the Baden-Württemberg state association, his resignation applies immediately.”
This article has been updated since it was published.
