It was rather a project by then Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to make sure he had a nice retirement fund and was indeed hired by Russian Gazprom right after he left office. Now the question is whether Germany honors these arrangements or not.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream#Nord_Stream_2
Vorsitzender des Verwaltungsrats der Projektgesellschaft ist Gerhard Schröder.[75] Wie auch schon bei der ersten Pipeline wirkte Schröder als Wirtschaftslobbyist und organisierte wiederholt Treffen zwischen dem Geschäftsleiter von Nord Stream Matthias Warnig und Schröders SPD-Kollegen und Außenminister Sigmar Gabriel sowie zwischen Gazprom-Chef Alexej Miller und Wirtschaftsministerin Brigitte Zypries (SPD).[76][77]
[75] http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/nord-stream-2-neuer-job-f... [76] https://www1.wdr.de/daserste/monitor/sendungen/nordstream-10... [77] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/themen/agenda/pipeline-nord-stre...
I guess you made the joke for me...
Not really, at least not in the last 15 or so years. It has become pretty common for senators to later end up in similar (through less powerful) positions then him.
Let's be honest Germans goverment is supper screwed over currently by laws which allow forms of lobism which should be treated as corruption and handled with multi year prison sentence.
There is a reason why Germany is on some corruption indices pretty high in the top (of most corrupt countries).
I guess I have been out of the for longer than that :(.