Olaf Scholz’s wife resigns as state minister

POTSDAM — Britta Ernst, the wife of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, is stepping down as education minister of the east German state of Brandenburg, the state chancellery announced Monday.

Ernst, also a member of Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party, had held the mandate since 2017. Her plans to combat the shortage of teachers in the state “had unfortunately not found the support of the SPD parliamentary group in the state parliament,” Ernst explained in her resignation statement.

In recent weeks, there had been tensions between the minister and her own parliamentary group. She wanted to cut 200 vacant teaching positions and staff them with social workers instead. Ernst also planned to reduce funds for additional school social services.

SPD colleague and lawmaker Katja Poschmann openly criticized Ernst and her plans at the end of March, saying that every teaching position and school service was “indispensable.”

The state premier, the SPD’s Dietmar Woidke, thanked Ernst in a statement for her work: “She has carried out the office in difficult times … with foresight and a steady hand.” Ernst will be replaced by the current state secretary, Steffen Freiberg.

It is not yet known whether the ministry, with its new leader, will now withdraw the plans.

Ernst has been married to Olaf Scholz since 1998. They are rarely pictured together, but in 2021 Scholz said: “Britta is the love of my life, unchanged for so long. Positions come and go, love remains.”