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Rheinmetall boss Armin Papperger has met many defense ministers in his 32 long managerial years at the Düsseldorf armaments group. But the Bavarian only discovered the "handshake qualities" that are particularly important to him in two of them, as he revealed in a stern interview: in the former incumbent Peter Struck (2002 to 2005) and his new successor Boris Pistorius. Many people in the political establishment even see the new man as a kind of revenant of the robust Lower Saxony, who has retained a legendary reputation as the last real decision-maker in the most difficult department of the government even after his death.

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