Until the refugee autumn of 2015, Boris Palmer was a Green mayor and a good specialist politician for transport and climate protection. He often came to Green party conferences by bike, he didn't pay much attention to the agenda, and then gave a party conference speech in his previously sweaty bicycle clothes. The delegates celebrated "Boris", Palmer served the deep need for the rebellious, which still exists from time to time even among the otherwise well-behaved Greens in Baden-Württemberg.

Helene Bubrowski

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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Rüdiger Soldt

Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.

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In 2010, with his appearance as a Green in the Stuttgart 21 arbitration, he laid the foundation for his party's twelve-year government responsibility. He could have become anything – for many years he was considered the darling of Baden-Württemberg's Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann.

With the refugee crisis, Palmer then became radicalized, he took a liking to the role of provocateur: books, cue givers of the "Bild" newspaper for many theses on Corona and refugee policy, constant comments on Facebook. Some party friends say Palmer began to exploit his populist talents the moment he was no longer a member of the party council.

Discussions, quarrels and a party expulsion procedure were announced from 2015 onwards. Now Palmer has fallen over his appearance in front of Frankfurt's Goethe University on Friday as low as ever: On Monday, he announced that he would get "professional help" to come to terms with his traumas, and resigned from his party. In June, he wants to take a four-week "break".

In Frankfurt, Palmer had wanted to take part in a conference on migration policy ("Managing Migration, Promoting Plurality"). In front of the doors of the university, there was a war of words with demonstrators. Palmer, who was reviled as a racist, insisted on his right to use the word "Negro." When a black protester asked him if he would say that word to his face, Palmer repeated the phrase without hesitation. After shouts of "Nazis out," Palmer said that if the use of that word was enough to be labeled a racist, it was "nothing more than the Jewish star."

Kretschmann: It's quite a drama

On Tuesday, the Greens experienced what has been happening for years when the party has to come to terms with a provocation or Palmer's steep thesis: the worst statement itself is condemned and the hermeneutics of the latest Palmer thesis is judged very differently by party leftists and ultra-realists. It ranges from absolute condemnation to the confession that such a "clever head" is indispensable for the Greens in itself. And it was and is always similar with the classification of Palmer's future: The left longs for the political end of the "racist" and "green reactionary", the realists believe that the ability of the arch-conservative Greens to win a majority, especially in Baden-Württemberg, depends.

Its Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann appeared dull and tired in the government press conference on Tuesday, he spoke more quietly than usual, also to emphasize his pain over the latest volts of the pupil: "Such a statement must not be made under any circumstances. You have to find your own way out of the situation." Personally, he is sorry: "This clever mind has always gone hard to the limit, now one step beyond." The decision to leave the party commands respect from him. He was still happy to have such a mayor in the country, who had "contentiously enriched" his party.