Bärbel Bas, after resigning, says Union attacks weighed on her and regrets her criticism

Timeline of the resignation

Bärbel Bas's stepdaughter died of cancer at the end of September 2026. Bas announced her resignation from her two posts on 12 October, and an ARD interview with Markus Feldenkirchen, broadcast on Monday, 2 November, is her first public account of her reasons. She remains a member of the Bundestag for the Duisburg I constituency. The sequence is set out below.

Personal reasons

Bas said her relationship with her stepdaughter had been very close for many years, and the hospice care in the final weeks drained her. She told ARD that she had not been able to clear her head for official or political matters and knew she needed more time than a senior political office allows. She added that she had sensed since September that her strength was running out, so the decision was less surprising to her than it was to others. Describing her state in recent weeks, she said it was sometimes hard to get out of bed in the morning.

“It is sometimes hard to get out of bed in the morning when you ask yourself: what for?”

Bas said she felt she could not return to her posts quickly. She had made the decision public on 12 October and had hoped to step back in order to recover, as she put it in the interview. She also described German federal politics as relentless, and said she had no strength left to absorb the attacks after her stepdaughter's death.

Criticism from the Union

In her resignation statement Bas listed, as a second reason, the public attacks from the CDU/CSU, the coalition partner, which she said continued during her personal crisis. In the interview she said that, looking back, she would probably not have worded that criticism the same way. Had she known how far the coalition dispute would escalate, she would have left out her criticism of the Union. She still stands by naming the attacks, because she wants the coalition to work and for its members to trust each other more.

Bas accused CDU politician Christian von Stetten, who had called for her removal in interviews, of running a campaign against her and the SPD. She said the attacks were unfair because, in her account, the timetable had been agreed in the coalition committee. According to Bas, the leaders of the coalition, including Chancellor Friedrich Merz, had decided that a draft of the pension reform would not be presented before the state elections at the end of September, and everyone knew the package would come in October. She said she had nonetheless been told every day that she was holding it back.

Merz and the coalition

Bas said she had informed Merz about her private situation and had complained to him about the attacks from his party. She told the ARD interviewer that Merz had assured her he would take care of it, but that this had found no resonance. She also said she had told the chancellor that she would not put up with this for much longer, because the attacks were unfair given the agreements already made. Asked about the coalition quarrel her words had set off, she said the dispute had grown beyond what she expected and that she would not repeat the wording.