November 23, 2024 - 1:30pm
The title of Angela Merkel’s newly-published memoir consists of one word: Freedom. As it happens, “freedom” was also the name and central motif of Kamala Harris’s failed campaign for the US presidency — and the comparisons between the two female politicians don’t end there. In an interview this week for the German magazine Der Spiegel, Merkel laments Donald Trump’s recent election victory, while her overall tone is closer to that of a Left-leaning US Democrat than a European conservative.
Who, then, was the last conservative German chancellor? Certainly not Merkel. One would have to say, paradoxically, that it was Gerhard Schroeder. The Social Democratic leader, who left office in 2005, advanced labour and welfare reforms which saved the country from economic decline. Though his government began Germany’s nuclear phase-out, this mostly happened on paper and was planned as a long-term process. Installed capacity for nuclear power barely changed during his tenure, but declined precipitously under Merkel, his successor and the second-longest serving chancellor in German history.
While Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) took over from a coalition between the Social Democrats and the Greens, in hindsight her policies were largely borrowed from the Green playbook. It might even be fair to call her the first Green chancellor of Germany.
This might sound hyperbolic yet, more than any of her predecessors, Merkel pushed through the energy transition which was largely responsible for the ongoing collapse of German industry. When she came into office, there was a solid 20 GW of nuclear power; by the time she departed, this had dwindled to a little over 5 GW. While Schroeder was derided as “Gas-Gerd” for his links to Russian energy companies, it was his successor who sealed German dependence on Russian gas with Nord Stream 2 and a general ban on fracking in 2017.
All of this happened at a time when Russia’s intentions for Eastern Europe were entirely obvious. Wars in Georgia and the annexation of Crimea in 2014 sent a clear signal to the West that Moscow maintained its own vision of a post-Cold War order. Whatever one thinks of Russia’s motives, smart foreign policy would have prioritised a reduced dependency on Vladimir Putin, if only for Germany to hedge its bets. Instead, Merkel went all in, holding a permanently ambiguous position on Ukraine that neither allowed for Nato membership nor the necessary rearmaments in case of Russian aggression.
When asked about this in the new Der Spiegel interview, Merkel gives no sign of remorse. In her telling, she always knew how dangerous Putin was, but cannot explain why she then proceeded to provide him with an effective veto on German industrial policy.
There are other issues on which her responses provide more questions than answers. When pressed about her decision to open the country’s borders to mass migration in 2015, Merkel asserts that the main problem is the unwillingness of the German people to learn about foreign cultures. In perhaps the pithiest line of the interview, she claims: “Life in Germany isn’t great for migrants either.”
The former chancellor argues that her policy was a balancing act between those who “are justifiably afraid of terror attacks by Islamists” and those who fear that Germany could become “too intolerant and tough”. After reading the interview, one is left with the impression that it is not the Germans who should be disappointed in their old leader; rather, it is Mutti Merkel who has reason to be annoyed with her naughty children.
Filled with scorn for average Germans who want to preserve the country they remember from their adolescence, Merkel’s comments in the interview go some way in explaining why the AfD has done so well in recent years. Unsurprisingly, the former chancellor scolds her successors in the CDU and CSU for being too hard on the Greens, whom she obviously prefers as prospective coalition partners for the conservatives after elections in February next year.
If the CDU and CSU continue in Merkel’s footsteps, the AfD looks set to become the new conservative force in Germany while her former party fades into irrelevance. After all, there is already a Green party in Germany; nobody needs another one.
Ralph Schoellhammer is assistant professor of International Relations at Webster University, Vienna.
Raphfel
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SubscribeIt is amazing how her behavior, down to the smallest detail, resembles the behavior of today’s US Democrats.
As E.O.Wilson said, “Great Idea. Wrong Species.”
We all are wrong species for these overeducated but fundamentally unteachable idiots.
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PS. It’s interesting to compare this excellent article with another one here: “Democrats refuse to change course on trans”. Apparently, the only way to be “progressive” is to deny reality. You must claim that everything in the world is subordinated to your desires, and the more idiotic your desires, the more aggressive your madness in realizing them.
Merkel is exactly like Harris, or Biden, or Starmer, or the last half dozen Tory leaders. Is it fair to say Merkel was the mother who first gave birth to the wave of radical progressive leaders across the west, who have all pursued destructive policies driven by luxury beliefs?
She became the German leader in 2005. We are fortunate in North America because Trudeau wasn’t elected until 2015, and Biden wasn’t elected until 2020.
Obama was already an extremely progressive leader… Merkel and Obama liked and praised each other at every occasion. They were both “empty chairs”( Clint Eastwood‘s funny sketch in 2012 ) in their own ways.
Merkel always tried to be in tune with the whole left wing media. You could predict her actions, the day there was an article or sob story in the newspaper, she would follow up accordingly. Once, when she explained to children, that war refugees will have to eventually return to their home country, a young refugee girl started crying. The next day the entire German media was full of sentimental stories about this girl. Sure enough Merkel changed her policies shortly afterwards. In my opinion, it was also the trigger for her open door policies in 2015 to prevent “ugly” pictures in the press.
After the Earthquake in Hukoshima, there were massive protests demanding to close down all German Nuclear plants as the pictures of the Japanese disaster were plastered across the entire German Media, claiming, that something similar could also happen in Germany. Sure enough Merkel, a physicist, knew perfectly well about the safety of the German nuclear plants, but nevertheless decided on early closure dates a few days later. There are many more stories were she caved in to the progressive MSM, showing no spine. Merkel was probably the worst Chancellor of the new German Republic, and many believe, she was the perfect “Avenger of Honecker”, the former head of East Germany, out to destroy the successful former West Germany .
Between the two of them, Merkel (‘Frau Frump’) and Obama caused untold damage to western democracies. Their legacy continues to undermine and destabilise our existence today.
Maybe she’s just an unreconstructed East German who never really subscribed to Western ideals. She came to maturity in the Cold War east. Did her heart ever leave?
She only ‘came out’ as a progressive once the damage was done.
Merkel was a KGB/FSB plant. Nothing else can explain such extraordinary folly.
“Wir schaffen das” and effective nuclear phase-out. The two most irresponsible decisions of this century, both with devastating long term effects for Europe.
I don’t know whether Merkel is a green in disguise, but an alternative hypothesis is that she was a soviet sleeper agent, whose mission was to utterly destroy Germany and thereby leave the rest of Europe weakened to such a degree that the Russian empire could rise again largely unopposed.
When a German chancellor takes office they solemnly swear to dedicate all their power to the benefit of the german people, increase its profit, protect it from harm, to maintain and defend the constitution and laws of the federation, be dilligent in my duties and show justice to all. So help me God. (not a perfect translation I know). Merkel has stood this oath on its head and the press for 16 years kept quiet. Merkel was selected as Kohl’s successor because she was from the former GDR. This was Kohl’s biggest mistake and miscalculation. His thinking was that a person from the “old east” would be needed to unify the nation after the two countries were uinified in 1990. This is stupid. People should be chosen because of their abilities, not their history or background. Apart from that Merkel never participated in any of the public protests against the GDR government or stuck her neck out. Which reveals another of her shortcomings; she is and has always been an appeasing coward. History is just a word to her and she was and is entirely unable to understand its teachings. She has a worm’s eye view of the world when a bird’s eye view is needed. Cowardly and afraid of conflict she spent 16 years delaying almost all neccessary reforms not foreseeing in the slightest what challenges the immidiate future would bring. Many commentators seem to think that someone who has managed to stay in the job for 16 years must have some qualities one way or another but that is not true. Especially not in her case. She lead a coalition of the two biggest parties in the country. Such a government cannot be defeated in elections. She was also responsible for literally destroying the Bundeswehr and gave that job to Ursula von der Leyen who has shown since then what a self-serving, clueless and thick individual she is. Merkel is single-handedly responsible for almost all of Germany’s current existential problems and has deliberately broken her oath of office many times over. She should be tried for treason.
Frau Mucked-Up.
History will judge her abysmally.
I shan’t forget the disgraceful New Year attacks in 2016 after her open door immigration policy, and her feeble response to it.
Although Merkel was mediocrity personified, her decision to expedite the shutdown of nuclear power was probably based on her understanding, as a scientist, of the dangers associated with nuclear power. Chernobyl and Fukushima should have taught everybody that. The real puzzle is why the EU is not pressurising IRL to engage in oil and gas exploration to take the pressure off Europe.
As an Ossi by birth Merkel will probably be well aware of Bertolt Brecht’s poem satirising the socialist government in the 1950s:
“…the people has lost the confidence of the government. They could only win it back by redoubled work. Would it not in fact be simpler for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?”