The CSU's 'Politischer Aschermittwoch' speeches have received little research attention to date. In this book, the author uses qualitative content analysis to analyze the structure, functions, content and symbols of selected speeches. The starting point is the speech by Franz Josef Strauß as the CSU's aspiring minister-president at the 1978 Political Ash Wednesday, with which the subsequent speeches by the later minister-presidents Edmund Stoiber and Markus Söder in 2003 and 2018 are compared.