Sigmar Gabriel (L) and Martin Schulz (R) | Sean Gallup/Getty Images Schulz to Gabriel: ‘You’re a bread roll of emotions, just like me’ Former German SPD leader accepts apology from foreign minister.

Former German Social Democrat leader Martin Schulz and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel have buried the hatchet over a feud that left their party in disarray, Der Spiegel reported Friday.

Gabriel lashed out at the former SPD chief last week over his plan to take over the foreign ministry. Things got personal when Gabriel brought up comments made by his young daughter Marie, who had tried to console him by saying: “You don’t need to be sad, daddy. Now you have more time with us. That’s better than being with the man with the hair on his face.”

That remark was widely seen as a crass attack on the bearded Schulz. But Gabriel's intervention increased pressure on Schulz — who had already announced he would step down as SPD leader — to give up his plan to run the foreign ministry. Schulz duly abandoned his ministerial ambitions last Friday.

Schulz reportedly accepted Gabriel's apology at an event on Tuesday in Berlin. "You're just as much of a bread roll of emotions as I am," he reportedly told Gabriel, using (and perhaps inventing) a word — Emotionsbrötchen — that was new to many Germans.

"I've said that I'm leaving without resentment or bitterness," Schulz also told his predecessor as party chief. "That goes for you as well."

The SPD's 463,000 members will vote on whether not to enter into a new "grand coalition" with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative bloc in a postal vote over the coming weeks, with a decision expected to be announced on March 4.