Rudolf Scharping, former party leader and now defence minister, is accused of ambition and obstinacy.
If this is a good-luck talisman, then Mr Scharping needs it now more than ever.
And so, when Mr Scharping appeared before the press with his American counterpart, William Cohen, something revealing happened.
With perhaps 30% of voters undecided, Mr Scharping's sacking was a distraction the chancellor could have done without.
The CDU's defence spokesman Paul Breuer said Mr Scharping's position had become untenable.
Nor was Mr Scharping's the only name in Mr Hunzinger's contacts book.
At the press conference, Mr Scharping waffled about Germany's nuclear thinking.
Neither he nor his most likely foreign minister, Rudolf Scharping, needs his memory jogged about what happens when Germany tries to dominate or go it alone.
He was keen neither to let his old sparring partner Mr Scharping keep his parliamentary stronghold, nor to let Mr Lafontaine extend his pervasive influence there too.
Truth to tell, though, it is respect for symbolism and recent history rather than belief in lucky charms that makes Mr Scharping hang on to that chestnut.
Thirty years ago, Mr Schmidt felt in his element as leader of the Social Democrats in parliament, just as Mr Scharping did in the same job until last autumn.
And the head of the armed forces association, Bernhard Gertz, said that Mr Scharping had lost the trust and respect of soldiers by playing out his love life in public.
Chancellor Schroeder has continued to stand by his minister, but some Social Democrats have blamed Mr Scharping for the SPD's poor showing in local elections in Lower Saxony at the weekend.
Since ousting the previous chairman, Rudolf Scharping, in a brilliantly executed coup in 1995, he has imposed his will on one party body after another, ruthlessly securing his position much as Mr Kohl has done in his party.
Rudolf Scharping, the defence minister, who is conducting an internal review of his own and has fought hard to prevent the planned cuts, could, the chancellor said, keep any savings, perhaps as much as DM2.6 billion a year, by shrinking the armed forces' bureaucracy.
Top Social Democrats who look bound to nose into his patch include Rudolf Scharping, the incoming defence minister, who fancied himself in the foreign-affairs job, and the acquisitive Oskar Lafontaine at finance, who is carving out a role for himself as the new government's Mr Europe.
ECONOMIST: Joschka Fischer, Germany’s reluctant statesman | The
应用推荐