\n\tStromberg 2 \u2013 Wieder alles wie immer (Everything as Usual Again) rolls out as sly counter-programming to the holiday tentpoles (Zoomania 2, Wicked: For Good, the upcoming Avatar 3) expected to dominate the German box office. Amazon Prime Video, which is backing the film with Banijay Media and Pro7, is betting that audiences \u2014 many of whom weren\u2019t even born when Stromberg first aired \u2014 will happily indulge in a bit of fremdsch\u00e4men (\u201csecond-hand embarrassment\u201d) as the world\u2019s worst middle manager tramples his way through awkward office politics.<\/p>\n
\n\tThey could be right. Two decades on, Stromberg is enjoying a full Gen Z revival. Nowhere is this clearer than online, where Herbst has become a meme as social media users seize on parallels between his fictional character\u2019s cringey, politically incorrect demeanor and that of Germany\u2019s real-life Chancellor, Friedrich Merz.<\/p>\n
\n\tOn TikTok and Instagram, the hashtag mash-up \u201cStrommerz\u201d has become a sub-genre, remixing news clips of Merz with the Stromberg theme and classic office reaction shots. Many use AI to sync Herbst\u2019s voice \u2014 delivering some idiotic or sexist aside \u2014 to Merz\u2019s image.<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t\t(L to R): Christoph Maria Herbst as Bernd Stromberg, German Chancellor Frederich Merz<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tProSieben, Omer Messinger\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Chancellor has supplied plenty of \u201cStromberg-isms\u201d of his own. In one now-infamous Bundestag elevator clip, Merz greets a Green party colleague with, \u201cWith us, things are moving up,\u201d then adds the elevator will be \u201ca bit heavier\u201d with her aboard. Cue awkward laughter from Merz\u2019s entourage. \u201cStromberg couldn\u2019t have come up with a better line than that,\u201d said Herbst this week.<\/p>\n
\n\tSpeaking to The Hollywood Reporter on the set of the new film earlier this year, the German actor said donning the Stromberg goatee a dozen years after the series wrapped, and a decade after the first Stromberg film, felt like coming home.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s just insanely fun to play this character,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s been like a family reunion, reconnecting with the cast and crew. Even the guy behind the camera is the same as back then.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tFor creator Ralf Husmann, the revival was sparked by a pandemic-era rediscovery of the show online.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt started during COVID, when younger people were finding it on YouTube,\u201d he says. \u201cThen after COVID, we showed the first film again at the Cologne Comedy Festival, and suddenly, there were all these 18-year-olds in the cinema reciting entire Stromberg dialogues.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHerbst admits his biggest fear was that, in a post-#MeToo, post-woke era, Husmann might soften the edges of Germany\u2019s most inappropriate boss.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI was really scared Ralf would betray the character, given everything that\u2019s happened in society,\u201d he says. \u201cThat would have been a catastrophe. It would have completely discredited Stromberg. And it wouldn\u2019t have been funny anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Stromberg 2\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMadeFor Film GmbH\/Willi Weber<\/p>\n
\n\tInstead, the new film leans into what has always made Stromberg both horrifying and liberating: his total lack of self-censorship.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cPeople love Stromberg because he doesn\u2019t censor himself,\u201d Herbst says. \u201cWe watch him slowly form his thoughts while he\u2019s speaking. He suddenly remembers the camera is there and just talks. He says and does things we barely dare to think these days, even after a beer, or a crate of beer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tDespite The Office DNA and the \u201cinspired by\u201d credit (which Pro7 added only after the BBC threatened legal action), Stromberg is its own, distinctively German beast.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhen we started, the term \u2018mockumentary\u2019 didn\u2019t even exist in German,\u201d Herbst recalls. \u201cI can still barely pronounce it. I deliberately didn\u2019t watch The Office<\/a> to avoid doing a Ricky Gervais<\/a> impression. This is our own, very German figure, not a translation of the British one.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIn the beginning, the idea was just to adapt the original scripts,\u201d adds Husmann. \u201cI always said: That makes no sense. Working life in Germany is different from that in England, Spain, or France. We don\u2019t have Red Nose Day in offices here. You know the two thinnest books in the world? Great British cuisine and the big book of German humor,\u201d he quips. \u201cIf you want to make people laugh here, you have to do it differently.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWhere the BBC and NBC series mined social embarrassment and kitchen-sink realism, Stromberg pushed things darker and more grotesque: suicide attempts, heart attacks, brutal corporate backstabbing.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\u2018Stromberg 2\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMadeFor Film GmbH\/Willi Weber<\/p>\n<\/p>\n