This book grabbed my attention because
Angela Merkel had been Chancellor
of Germany for a big part of the 21st
century and had evidently been
a political leader who was good in many ways
including for the wider world. Kati
Marton writes for the New York Times and has
written several books so I read
her The Chancellor: The Remarkable
Odyssey of Angela Merkel, Simon and
Schuster Paperbacks, 2021. The Prologue is the author’s
introduction, commentary and summary. Merkel
grew up in East Germany in the Soviet era to
earn a doctorate in physics. After
1989, she moved to politics and was noticed
in the centre-right Christian
Democratic Union, CDU, which she then led
for 16 years! The German electoral
system requires assembling a coalition of
different parties to govern –
something Merkel handled deftly. And she
produced some liberal results: she
appointed an openly gay foreign minister,
held an open vote on same sex
marriage – which passed, and she made
Germany a leader in Europe both financially
and morally. She upheld the post WWII
liberal democratic world order, fiercely
confronting authoritarians from Putin to
Trump using her near photographic
memory and scientific ability to martial and
use facts. The chapters take us
through periods of Merkel’s story, not
always strictly chronologically, emphasising
her style and person. I was taken aback when a friend
pointed out she was right wing. True, she
joined and governed a right of centre party.
But she managed to lead Germany into
constructive and personally costly
initiatives – like absorbing an enormous
number of Syrian refugees. She was
successful at remaining an immensely private
person. She began as Chancellor when she was
a divorced woman living with her boyfriend,
also a doctoral Physicist, in a modest
apartment in the former East of Germany
near Berlin. She showed integrity and an
ability to face challenges constructively.
She was more than the typical leader of a
right-wing party. In the end she was
a leader of Germany, a leader of Europe and
a leader of the free developed world. Merkel was born Angela Dorothea
Kastner in the storied city of Hamburg in
1954 as it was recovering from the
devastation of WWII fire bombings. By this
time East Germany was a repressive Soviet
satellite producing waves of
refugees. Merkel’s father accepted a call
from the Lutheran Church to serve in
the East of Germany and, followed by his
wife and Angela, moved to Templin, a
small town in a region of pristine lakes and
pine forests. Here small child Merkel
could explore freely and rely on herself.
She came to love it and call it home.
Here in a small cluster of Lutheran
buildings, was the seminary where Merkel’s
father trained clerics. As he became
accepted as other than a threat to the
government, their situation became stable if
tenuous. When Merkel was 7, in
1961, the wall went up and her family was
suddenly cut off from her mother’s
relatives and their friends back in Hamburg.
Angela enjoyed that countryside. She
learned about plants, but also read books
like the Russian classics. Her mother, a
former English teacher, gave her
passable English. She read about great
European statesmen and scholars, including
the physicist Marie Curie who won two Nobel
prizes. Curie’s life in science and
the Bible, offered Merkel inspiration. Early
on she showed leadership with
caution and self-control. At school she was
highly motivated and did well –
winning a trip to Moscow for her achievement
in the Russian Language Olympics.
Although a clergyman’s child in Eastern
Germany, her straight A performance got
her into an academic secondary school.
Longing for companionship she joined the
Young Pioneers. In 1968 she and her parents
went to Czechoslovakia to see what
was happening – a reformed version of
socialism seemed possible. The invasion
by Soviet troops ended that in late August,
perhaps preparing Merkel for a reaction
to the Soviet invasion of Ukraine in 2014. In 1973 Merkel went to Leipzig
University aiming for a PhD in Physics. She
was an excellent student. A Lutheran
Christian, a scientist and a member of the
communist youth, she found an ability to
compromise and adjust. She was not
particularly attracted to men until she met
Ulrich Merkel in 1974. After 2
years they moved in together and married the
next year. Ulrich and Angela got jobs at her
second choice – the East German Academy
of Sciences in East Berlin. She was
finishing her thesis and working the 3
years to pay for her education. She became
bored with the work. Scientific research
on a shoestring was not attractive. At home,
over 3 years she became convinced
her marriage had been a mistake. The divorce
was amicable and she kept the
Merkel name. Divorced and on her own at 30,
she expanded her circle of friends,
later discovering that her lab partner and
friend was an agent of the Stasi –
secret police. In 1985 she befriended Schindhelm, a
scientist returning from Russia with
tales of Gorbachev, a leader bringing
reforms. The two could talk about things
and shared an interest in the West. She
learned a different history of the end
of WWII, about the Holocaust, and heard a
West German government plea for
Germany to confront its past. She went to
Hamburg for a cousin’s wedding and
found the West an agreeable place, returning
with gifts for a boyfriend, Joachim
Sauer, a quantum chemist, with whom she had
travelled to Prague 2 years before.
He was married to another chemist with
children 12 and 14. The two became close
and both remained in East Berlin. Angela Merkel experienced the fall of
the Berlin wall on 9 November 1989.
She flowed into West Germany with the crowd.
She was shocked by the glittering shops
and new apartment buildings. The East German
state run by police and Stasi
collapsed. Within weeks Western nations
adopted German unification as proposed
by West German Chancellor Kohl. Merkel did
not want to be doing theoretical
physics for life. East Germans faced alien
practices – health care, education
based on competition and merit, freer but
more regulated. Within a year, as German reunification
was celebrated, the economy in the
East crumbled and a third of the people
there were unemployed. In December 1989
Merkel was at her first political meeting.
Democratic Awakening or DA was male,
Catholic and conservative but serious minded
and nonideological. It was soon to
merge with the larger West German Christian
Democratic Union, CDU. At her first
DA meeting she set up the boxed computers
for DA and the politicians were
impressed. By Spring 1990 she had resigned
her job at the Academy and had been
asked to serve as DA’s spokesperson. Stasi connections took down Merkel’s
East German mentors. The well-known
East German reformer De Maiziére offered her
the job of Deputy Spokesperson for
East Germany’s first – and last –
democratically elected government. In
October
1990, DA merged with the CDU. Merkel
was
excellent at her job, but did not come to
Maiziére’s aid when he was accused of
links to the Stasi. Meanwhile, Maiziére had
recommended Merkel to Chancellor
Kohl of CDU for an entry level cabinet
position – Minister for women and youth –
and Kohl appointed her. She moved to Bonn
1990 to 98 where she met foreign
officials – befriending Kissinger. She was ambitious but aware that she
lacked charisma and that wearing her
familiar baggy pants and a jacket was usual.
She won a seat in parliament. Kohl
made her a protégé and put her on the world
stage by taking her to the US in
1991. She had showed her ability for hard
work, loyalty and discretion and was
offered the position of Minister for the
Environment in 1994. She resisted labels,
seeking the right of a woman to shape her
own life, and worked to be an
excellent Minister in a position requiring
international meetings. She polished
her English and dumped her second in
command! The 1995 Berlin Climate Conference was
one of her great achievements, but
she was typically self-effacing. Her large
scale speeches were German, but she
tested her English in small groups where she
revealed a warmth rarely shown in
public. She knew and marshalled facts and
had a phenomenal stamina for hours of
relentless diplomacy. The outcome was the
Berlin Mandate calling governments to
set legally binding targets and timetables
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
It led to the Kyoto Protocol. She could be warm, but she could be
tough. In 1998 Kohl was defeated after
16 years. A year later he was caught in a
financial scandal dating back to
1982. Social Democrat Schroeder was now
Chancellor and Kohl, leader of the
powerful CDU, stonewalled and refused to
name his financial donors. Merkel was well
known and took one of the most daring steps
in German politics. She released a
newspaper article headlined “Kohl’s Actions
Have Damaged the Party”, shocking
Kohl and his likely heir Schäuble. Merkel
declared her loyalty to the future of
the party. “The time of Chairman Kohl is
irreversibly over”, she said. She called
the scandal a tragedy. No
one else had
the courage to put down the old warhorse and
save the CDU. In the wake of the
scandal, Schäuble, also compromised,
resigned. Merkel put her name forward for
Chairman of the CDU in 2000 and was elected
without opposition. That
year Berlin became the capitol of the
Federal Republic, where she and Joachim
settled in a modest apartment in former
East Berlin. In 2005 Chancellor Schroeder called
for early elections. The CDU chose Merkel
to maintain its centrist profile yet offer a
fresh start as the first woman
Chancellor. The election was too close to
call and in that case it is the members
of parliament who decide the Chancellor.
Merkel challenged Schroeder’s attempt
to bluff his way to continue after he lost
ground in the election, and was
sworn in as Chancellor on November 22. Chancellor Merkel drew a sharp line
between public life and her private
life. She was demanding, avoided inspiring
oratory and favoured foreign policy,
where she made singular contributions. She
told Israel’s Knesset that the Shoah
(Holocaust) fills Germans with shame and
that Israel’s security is non-negotiable.
She worked for the 2015 international
agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons
program. She became a friend of the then
Israeli Prime Minister - a link that
ended in 2009 when Netanyahu became Prime
Minister. Merkel showed sensitivity to
Germany’s Jewish population. Her own scientific background helped
her react to the nuclear explosions
at Fukushima in 2011. She told the Bundestag
that the risks inherent in nuclear
power cannot be mastered and can only be
accepted if you believe human error
can never occur. Nobel Prize winning
economist Stiglitz agreed. He noted “no
nuclear facility has ever survived without
government subsidies in the market
place. And when they blow up, governments
and societies bear the cost. Nor can
we figure out what to do with the nuclear
waste.” A political component to her
decision was cutting off the Green party by
using their platform. She inherited policy that accepted
NATO and the role of the US. She and
President
George W Bush clicked and at the first
meeting she used her English internationally
for the first time. She worked for good
relations with the US. The two leaders
exchanged visits -- one to Merkel’s
electoral district and one to Bush’s ranch
in Texas. However, her partner Sauer did not
enjoy the role of consort and followed
his own agenda if travelling with Merkel. At
the 2007 G8 meeting in Germany,
Bush recognized climate change publicly and
acknowledged that halving emissions
by 2050 should be seriously considered. Two chapters discuss special activity.
“Dictators” is a discussion of her
skill in responding to dictator Putin and to
leaders of super-power one-party China.
“Privacy” is about her insistence and
success at keeping her private life – well
– private. Putin had served the Soviets in
Germany and was linked to the Stasi
system that Merkel had lived under and
deplored. She spoke Russian. Putin spoke
excellent German. Few leaders could deal
with Putin’s lies, deception and attempts
to humiliate. Merkel patiently and
ruthlessly applied reason in her dealing
with Putin. She publicly embarrassed him
over sudden deaths of journalists and his
other Soviet style actions. She supported
dissidents and a free press. Sadly,
that wasn’t enough to help Georgia and then
Ukraine. However, Merkel allowed
Nord Stream to sell gas to Germany - a blind
spot hard to square with her
principled positions. Merkel recognized China as a rising
star and she spent time visiting various
leaders there. She developed agreements that
made China one of the top three
markets for German cars. However, she was
exposed to the dark side of the
economic miracle - the lack of human rights.
And she learned that her critical comments
could cost contracts. Merkel remained
pragmatic – she could see the economic
reforms in China had benefitted millions of
its people. Her private life with Joachim Sauer
was kept out of the public eye. He
gave no interviews but they were close and
he was a trusted sounding board for
her decision-making. Their simple weekend
country cottage was between Berlin
and the Polish border and there were few and
distant security personnel when
they were there. Merkel’s friends were people in
unrelated areas of work – artists or
professionals who could keep her privacy. In
addition to theatre and opera
Merkel had an interest in soccer and loved
to read. She made time to talk with
other women achievers. Unlike Thatcher whose
aides were men, Merkel surrounded
herself with other brilliant women. She did
not advertise herself as a feminist
or make a point of supporting women’s
issues, seeing herself as the Chancellor
for all Germans. International politicians
who dealt with her said they felt in
the presence of a great leader rather than
in the presence of a woman leader. There are chapters on issues and
historical moments. “Limited Partners” covers her
relationship with Obama. Both were highly
educated
and favoured briefing books and charts. Both
like music – if different music. She
was suspicious of his power to use oratory
to move a crowd. She was a dull
factual speaker with skills of using reason
to bring groups together around issues.
However, his delivery of the Affordable Care
Act overcame her suspicions. Obama
admired her. They were friends. They
collaborated over 8 years – with
differences.
Obama gave up reasoning with Putin amid his
lies. Merkel did not and urged Obama
to continue. They also differed in political
elements like infrastructure
spending or tax cuts. More seriously, they
differed on the use of force to
resolve crises like the no-fly zone for
Libyan ruler Gaddafi bombing his own
people. She correctly saw this as an act of
war with war’s unforeseen
consequences. Chaos continues in that world
area. A low point between Merkel and Obama
came in 2013 when Snowdon released secret
US security papers to two media outlets and
fled to Putin’s Russia for asylum. Among
Snowdon’s revelations was one showing the US
administration had monitored
Merkel’s private phone. There was uproar in
Germany. The rift took time to
pass, but it did. Merkel pointed out her
years in a surveillance state led to very
strong feelings on spying. Obama vowed there
would be no more spying on allies. Next came the uprising in Syria where
the ruler Assad had gassed children,
Obama had said chemical weapons were a red
line and Assad has to go. He sought
Merkel’s moral support. She offered to work
for a European response – but not
to support a military response. Obama backed
off. Merkel had been a loyal
honest ally on Obama’s early call on Assad.
But that flip flop hurt Obama’s presidency. “Germany is speaking German now” sets
out Merkel’s strengths and weaknesses
following the 2008 financial crash. The Euro
zone is limited. There is no
central banking system. Workers cannot
easily find work in other countries. A
small German bank in the US got caught up in
the huge financial collapse around
derivatives and real estate mortgages. That
spread to Europe where 5 million
people lost their jobs. Germany did better
than most because Germans were less
tied into the debt-fueled consumption boom.
Worst hit were Greece, Portugal,
Spain and Italy. Merkel as a person wanted to help out
without creating financial dependency.
But she found herself caught between a need
to assist and resentment within
Germany against bailing out the south of
Europe. Some wanted to drop Greece
from the Euro zone while it sorted out
finances. Merkel wanted Greece to remain
in Europe, but there would be no bailouts
unless earned by responsible
behaviour. She offered austerity and not
spending, seemingly punishing ordinary
Europeans. International experts argued
otherwise. At the 2011 G7 Merkel pointed
out that Germany’s constitution prevented
her from affecting the independent German
central bank. As Greece sank into double
digit unemployment, Merkel was burned
in effigy. The book suggests a defter
politician might have calmed Greeks with
oratory and promises. During this time Merkel’s chief
European partner was Nicholas Sarkozy of
France – despite Sarkozy’s flamboyant style.
In 2008 Sarkozy celebrated her
winning of the prestigious Charlemagne prize
in the German city of
Aix-la-Chapelle bordering France and the
Netherlands. The meeting was significant.
Merkel pointed out that saving Europe and
the Euro meant keeping Greece in the
fold. The two leaders formed an awkward
united front that made an ultimatum to
Greece and Italy: accept EU financial
monitors to supervise your countries’
finances in return for any bailouts. Merkel agreed to several bailouts, but
lost the PR battle. Her methodical
approach did not work when the many lives
affected called for rapid response.
She appeared impervious to human suffering.
Perhaps she deserves more credit.
In 2015 the Greeks elected Alexis Tsipiras,
a young socialist as leader who had
promised to bring release from the harsh
Berlin regime. According to his finance
minister, Tsipiras was won over by her
“psychological manipulation and remarkable
diligence.” After an EU dinner in Brussels,
Merkel sat down with Tsipiras to
discuss his document on EU-imposed
austerity.
They spent hours going over every
sentence. At the end she congratulated
him. The long night ended with Tsipiras
accepting conditions for the third
bailout. Merkel appeared on TV at the EU
headquarters in Brussels to say Grexit
had been averted, Greece was staying in the
EU. She then flew to Berlin to get
a night’s sleep. The most dangerous
bi-product of the period was the birth of
the first far right German party,
Alternative fur Deutschland, AfD, founded in
opposition to that Greek bailout. The twelfth
chapter describes how she became political
leader of the West with Russia’s war
with Ukraine in 2014. standing up to Putin
and maintaining dialogue when others
could not or would not. Ukraine is the
second largest country in all Europe.
Putin asserted old Russian claims on
Ukraine. Things
go back to when Ukraine was on the brink
of signing wide-ranging political and
economic agreements with the EU. At that
time Russia pressed then pro-Russian
President Yanukovych for an alternative
package with Russia. Massive and persistent
protests erupted ending with Yanukovych
fleeing and a power vacuum. Within a week a
motley assortment of men in
unmarked uniforms seized the capital of
Crimea and the Black Sea port
Sevastopol where there is a Russian navel
base. They declared independence from
Ukraine. The Ukraine army was small and
poorly equipped. The US was
psychologically unprepared for this
declaration or for accepting that Putin’s
Russia was now no longer part of Europe but
in opposition to the West. Until
2014 Merkel had let the EU deal with
Ukraine. Putin
continued saying the population of Crimea
had asked for Russian intervention.
Obama lacked patience or credibility to deal
with Putin whom he had derided.
Merkel’s Germany faced Kiev only 750km from
Berlin. She argued for diplomacy
and realized she was best suited to
negotiate although Putin had troops.
Washington
could have supplied arms, but Merkel still
favoured diplomacy. She cancelled
the 2014 G8 summit, knowing that Putin cared
about a global platform. Then came the
shooting down of a Malaysian airline
civilian flight by a Russian missile.
Obama was all in. NATO was to be stronger.
But he let Merkel take the action. She
gathered other European leaders in Minsk,
Belarus, to discuss the future of
Ukraine. She mastered all Russian daily
troop movements. She pushed for a cease
fire and pull back of heavy artillery from
front lines. On September forth, she
announced a cease fire had been agreed in
principle. The cease fire was to be
monitored.
Merkel also
worked for sanctions against Russia. They
would hurt Germany, but she persuaded
German companies the sanctions were “for the
future of Europe”. Over 18 months she
persuaded other European leaders to also
adopt sanctions. The EU held together
and Russia began hurting. She hoped the
cease fire agreement would hold as she
travelled in 2015. All the same, 19
Ukrainians per month were dying defending
their country. However, by 2021 2021 when
Merkel ceased to be Chancellor
Ukraine was more unified. Unfortunately,
Putin was now on the world stage and was
testing new weapons in Ukraine. Because war
simmered, NATO’s bylaws prevented
Ukraine from joining it. [The war took on a
formal nature with the invasion and
now the Russian army strengthening in early
2024.] “The Summer
of Reem” tells of Merkel’s breathtaking
decision to make Germany an immigrant-taking
country. As nations were increasingly
closing borders to refugees and migrants,
Merkel met a 14 year old Palestinian girl at
a town hall meeting who wanted to
stay in Germany. Merkel said Germany
couldn’t take everyone not fleeing wars.
The girl cried and something changed. Merkel
invited her to Berlin to talk
about her story. During Summer
2015 stories of fleeing Syrian refugees
dying in container trucks and unsafe
boats abounded, together with other
governments’ stories of hordes of refugees.
In August, Merkel announced Germany would
not turn away refugees, telling Germans
that if Europe fails on the question of
refugees, it will not be the Europe we
wished for. She called other countries to
take higher numbers of refugees
according to their capacity – saying she
didn’t want to be in a competition for
who can treat them worst. The policy
was not fully discussed with others in
Germany. She did the right thing, but sosome
thought it was politically unwise. Merkel
was honest in telling Germans this
would not be easy, but initially things went
well. Volunteers welcomed new
arrivals. Towns converted buildings to
dormitories. Yet there was no clear
explanation of the advantages for a country
with an aging population. And there
were serious downs as well as the ups.
Nonetheless by 2018 half the 800,000
refugees in Germany were employed or in job
training. The initially
Eurosceptic AfD party now became more
nationalistic and anti-immigration.
Merkel faced some angry nationalists as
early as August 2015 in areas affected
at the end of the former East Germany. No
other country followed Germany’s
example. Merkel adjusted her policy, making
a deal with Turkey to prevent
arrivals passing on from there to Germany.
But then came a terrorist attack in
Paris and a terror incident in the US that
stopped Syrian refugees from being
accepted there. Finally, Germans celebrating
New Year’s Eve in the plaza of
Cologne were attacked by “Arabs”. Public
opinion shifted. The AfD called the
immigration
policy folly, but still most Germans
remained in favour of it. “The Worst of
Times” chapter begins in 2016 and covers the
floundering of the European Union,
terrorist attacks, and the election of
President Trump in America. It also was
the time when Chancellor Merkel became
leader of the Free World. In the summer of
2016 the UK voted to leave the EU, and with
it the EU lost 40% of its military
capacity. Then came a terrorist attack in
France where a bus ploughed into
crowds in Nice. In Würtzburg an ax-wielding
refugee attacked people on a train.
There was a shooting in a crowded Munich
shopping mall by an Aryan inspired by a
Norwegian far right mass shooter. Merkel’s party
lost in regional elections. Trump won the US
election. Merkel had to choose
whether to run for another term with her
weakening coalition of parties. She
had a final dinner with outgoing US
President Obama in Berlin where they talked
and he urged her to run. Not long after,
Merkel announced she would run for an
almost unprecedented fourth term in 2017.
The alternative would be to leave the
world scene to Putin, Trump and Xi. Her
party supported her aim for a fourth
term, but it would not be easy. Then, just
before Christmas, a large truck
driven by a rejected Tunisian asylum seeker
ploughed into a festive crowd in
West Berlin’s Christmas market. “Enter Trump”
tells how getting the Western alliance to
act together became Merkel’s primary
goal. She went to extraordinary lengths to
understand Trump, listening to her
US contacts, looking at videos of events,
reading interviews and more. His dismissal
of NATO was particularly distressing for
Germany because the two countries had
worked together closely in the post war
period. She did not rush to congratulate
or to meet with him. When they met, Trump
challenged her that she owed money to
NATO. NATO is not a dues paying club, she
replied. The US bases in Germany are
staging grounds for US operations in the
Middle East or Afghanistan. Challenged
that allowing refugees into Germany was
insane, Merkel repeated the international
law concerning the displaced and refugees.
Trump wildly changed topics. Four months
into Trump’s presidency she used a Munich
Beer Garden as a context for her
announcement
that the US was no longer a reliable
partner. She made a similar announcement
after a depressing G7 summit in Sicily in
the same month, noting that Europeans
must take their destiny into their own
hands. Of course, they would benefit
from friendly relations with the UK, the US
and Russia, but they needed to
fight for their future themselves. There is
a US president who believes ‘America
First’. We must defend our own principles
and values in Europe. Coming from a
Germany and a Chancellor that had been a
staunch ally of the US, Merkel’s words
were heard. The irony that two highly
globalized countries, Britain and then
the US, would turn to nationalism was
striking. However, she was far too
cautious to consider breaking with the US
and its security umbrella in a
dangerous world. A second meeting
with Trump in 2018 involved his saying the
EU was set up to take advantage of
the US. When media asked her about the
proposed tariffs on European steel and
aluminum, she simply said the President will
decide. Later that year the G7
meeting was in Quebec. Merkel, whose ego
never came between herself and a task at
hand, was elusive and deprived Trump of the
satisfaction from his usual bully
tricks. And her team on the sidelines made
progress with US counterparts on
things that didn’t interest Trump. However,
on issues related to NATO, Iran,
Russia, China and Climate change, relations
were frozen or worse. Trump pulled
out of the nuclear deal with Iran and the
2015 Paris agreement on climate
change. Reporting to Germans, she told them
she believed in win/win situations
and that Trump believed only one person
could win. She was finished with trying
to maintain a transatlantic partnership and
settled for trying to outlast the
situation he created. In early 2019
her mother died and it likely affected her
deeply. On the other hand, 2019 brought
her the opportunity to give the commencement
address at Harvard where she felt again the
America she had revered, and it pulled
the best from her. The introduction as
leader of Europe, promoting marriage
equality, providing Germany’s first minimum
wage, and opening her country to
over a million refugees had students on
their feet cheering. She smiled. It
drew her strongest answer to the divisive
White House. “We have to think and
act globally, not nationally; together, not
alone. Take nothing for granted.
Our freedom is not guaranteed. Democracy,
peace and prosperity aren’t either.
Stand firmly by your values, not your
impulses. Stop for a moment. Keep quiet.
Think.” Turning to policy she continued:
“Protectionism and trade conflicts
endanger free world trade and our prosperity
… climate change and resulting
rises in temperature are caused by humans.
Going it alone will not succeed. Don’t
build walls. Break down walls. Lies should
not be called truth, nor truth lies.”
Again, the audience jumped to their feet
applauding a statement that would have
seemed self-evident in normal times. For
Merkel, this was affirmation of the
best kind. Later that month
the G20 met in Osaka, Japan. Days before,
Putin had made headlines for
announcing the death of democracy. Trump
trampled democratic values and
traditions. Merkel balanced her values with
this shift. No country needed the Chinese
market, Russian energy and US security more
than Germany. The EU was supposed
to curb destructive nationalism – but
without the UK, without the US? Her fourth
term in office was less about issues she
cared about than crises she had to deal
with. Another crisis was coming –
Alternative für Deutschland, AfD. The chapter
“Something
has changed in our country” tells of the
losses in the 2017 election – only the
AfD gained and Merkel’s CDU support fell
from 41.5 to 33%. It was the first
success of the far right after 1945. She
managed to remain chancellor, but forming
her coalition took 6 months of negotiation
and was no longer so grand. She
aimed to carry on as before – likely a
mistake when she might have connected
with people with real or imagined grievances
– particularly those in her own
former East Germany. AfD posed
challenges
for a person expert in finding common
ground. Its one issue was hatred -- of
Merkel and refugees, the women’s
empowerment, marriage equality, the EU and
NATO. When the AfD appeared in opposition to
the EU bailout of Greece, she
tried to ignore it. Although she would not
join them under any circumstances,
she belatedly did reach out to their
constituents. The former East Germany
still lagged behind the West and the refugee
arrivals had turned resentments about
that toxic. This fact was exploited by the
AfD. Resentment over circumstances
in the towns of the former East had some
justification. Merkel underestimated
the difficulties that unification had
brought to many others in the East. From
2017 the AfD became the main opposition
party. At her
swearing in, Merkel followed the AfD opening
speech of angry accusations with her
proposals – a summit to address housing
shortages, new day care centres, improved
care for the elderly and digital access for
rural areas. She outlined a need to
catch up with global competitors from
Silicon Valley to Shenzhen, ending with
her fear that liberal order is under threat
and that the idea that nations can
succeed on their own – nationalism – is
false. The Bundestag applauded. The AfD
had entered parliament, but was isolated
there. But there was more … In Chemnitz,
the killing of a Cuban Carpenter by an
asylum-seeking Middle-Eastern man
provided an excuse for riots by AfD and
neo-Nazis. Markel did go there, but after
a long 3 months. She spoke with a silent 120
people in a defunct locomotive factory
with much more understanding of what “we”
faced, but a hateful large crowd
continued yelling outside. In December
2018 she stepped down as leader of the CDU
and made clear her intention to
leave after this term as chancellor. She
thanked them, made self-deprecating comments
and in the end brought them to their feet in
applause. Her attempt
to appoint her successor did not work out.
In 2020, the successor negotiated
with the AfD – an agreed no-no. That came
too close to memories of 1919 and the
early Weimar Republic which was fragile, and
despite a conservative minority
antisemitism broke out as the Republic
ended.
Merkel used her prestige to kill the
agreement. But the AfD was not
going away. Merkel was. “A partner at
last” tells how Merkel, over personality
differences, managed to work with
French President Macron in her final two
years. She was no longer alone on the
world stage to hold back the tide towards
authoritarianism. They shared a dream
of a united states of Europe - but Macron
wanted that now. Pace
yourself, counselled Merkel. Macron called
for a more integrated eurozone with single
banking system and common Euro Bond.
But Merkel lacked Macron’s presidential
powers and she worried about Germany
having to prop up a European banking system.
Macron’s European self-sufficiency
extended to an army and less dependency on
NATO, which went further than Merkel’s.
France was more concerned with symbols of
power than Germany. As she struggled
to form her coalition government, Macron
held the European limelight. They first
met at the historic site of Compiègne just
outside Paris to commemorate the
centennial of the end of WWI. The next day
they marched with other leaders down
the Champs-Élysées. Trump and Putin arrived
late, but in time for Macron’s
speech: “The old demons are returning …
Nationalism is a betrayal of
patriotism. It says, our interest first, who
cares about the others”. A few
days later, Merkel arrived at the EU and
surprised many by announcing that the
time had come for a real European army –
endorsing one of Macron’s core ideas!
The two countries agreed on a joint program
to coordinate and integrate their
defense and security tasks and to
collaborate in a new generation of European
fighter jets. The program would be outside
the EU and NATO and would share
intelligence and operational capabilities.
(Twenty-one other European nations
subsequently
joined.) Trump and Putin can be credited
with Merkel’s difficult shift in
position. Macron applied
public pressure on Merkel to which she could
not immediately respond. A month after
one incident, she accepted his banking plan
to prevent future financial crises –
another endorsement. But his activism kept
the relationship somewhat rocky. Friction
exploded When Macron gave an interview to
the Economist that lashed out
at NATO – something which she called
unhelpful because she felt it weakened the
Western democratic order. They had dinner at
Bellevue Palace in Berlin to air
differences. She was not amused by his going
out on a limb. However, the
celebration of 1989 and the end of the wall
going on at the time became a
transformative event for them in which
Macron got a taste of that recent German
history with its Leipzig mass protests akin
to Tiananmen Square. They parted
with a renewed sense of Europe’s common
history and shared fate. The end of
2019 came with a damning take on her career
in the Guardian by UK
historian Timothy Garton Ash, who said
Merkel had to go and attacked her
caution and failure to endorse Macron’s
attempt to revolutionize Europe and
inspire Napoleonic ambitions. Change did
arrive in 2020, and Merkel’s continued
presence was good for Germany. “Towards the
end” tells of Merkel’s last two years in
office, in which she secured policies
that would continue after her departure. She
also devoted time trying to
connect with people she had given short
shrift to in earlier days. In 2019 she
spent time with people in East Germany,
acknowledging her origins and sharing her
affection for the good aspects of her
earlier days there - such as some good
movies. Nonetheless some remained unbending
in their harsh judgement of her. She
increasingly called out the absence of women
in high places, for example the
few women among the Young Leaders chosen at
the Baltic seaport of Kiel. She
appointed Ursula von der Leyen as defense
minister, paving the way for Ursula to
win the presidency of the European
Commission. At the end of 2019 she visited
Auschwitz in Poland when antisemitism was
being stoked by populists including
the AfD. She repeated this was a German camp
run by Germans and that Germans
owed it to victims and to themselves to keep
the memory of crimes alive, to
identify perpetrators and to commemorate
victims. In her 2019
New Year’s Eve address she told Germans that
climate warming is real and it is
threatening. She promised to be a climate
chancellor. Early in 2020 she was
exploring quantum computing and artificial
intelligence where she was aware of
China’s interests and was concerned for
Europe’s innovative edge. Then came
Covid 19. In March 2020, she delivered a
televised address concerning the
greatest crisis since WWII. This is serious.
She spoke as if to family and she
promised transparency. We are shutting down,
she said. It will be hard. We will
miss human encounters. How many loved ones
we lose is in our hands. Her
chancellor’s power is limited in domestic
affairs, but her power of persuasion
convinced all sixteen states to school
closing and stay at home orders and lock
down quickly. She was present throughout the
crisis, flanked by a health
minister and other officials. Deaths were a
third of those in France, hospitals
were not overwhelmed. Germany
entered the Covid crisis with a budget
surplus. Family payments, tax cuts and
business loans were given - four times those
in the USA. An old state system to
allow companies to keep workers was brought
back. Germany expected only a 6%
drop in GDP compared with France’s 10%. Her
popularity rose to a historic 80%.
She turned to Europe. She and Macron made a
split screen announcement of a 500
billion euro recovery fund. Other countries
went along, with details to come
later. It was not a loan fund, but a grant
fund. The global crisis had become a
locus for a new solidarity among European
nations. AfD support fell. Merkel
arrived on July 17, 2021 at the EU Council
in Brussels for a historic debate on the
grant details. Since 2021 was to be
her last year in power there was a sense of
history. But the EU member leaders’
work of getting agreement was long, tedious
and frustrating. At 2 in the morning
on July 18 champagne was opened to
congratulate Merkel on her 66-year birthday.
Talks got more intense the following day. Hour by hour
Merkel and Macron brought the factions
closer. Frugal countries were faced with
badly hit countries like Italy, Spain and
Greece. Tempers frayed at the end of
the second long day. Merkel and Macron had a
glass of wine at 3 in the morning the
next day. Merkel’s sense of the possible led
them to hang in together. They slowly
wore down the holdouts until a deal was
reached at 5:30 the morning of July 21!
The $859
billion spending plan to rescue some of the
most Covid-ravaged EU states was
joint action - $400 billion outright grants
and another $360 in loans without
strings, avoiding burying poorer countries
in debt such as Merkel’s Germany had
after the 2008 financial crisis. The money
would come from the collective –
bonds sold on behalf of the EU with Germany
contributing the lion’s share.
Merkel said the 500 Euro loans should be
paid back over the long term and that her
country would shoulder a third of the funds.
Getting Europe quickly back from
this crisis was their aim. Merkel spent
the rest of her time asserting Europe’s need
to take its future into its own
hands. But she was clear: Europe is not
neutral but is part of the political
West. At this point, by chance, it was her
turn for a six-month rotating term
as president of the EU’s executive. She
turned to China. She was under no
illusions that China would become more
democratic and more aware of human
rights issues. She was also aware of the
importance of trade terms with China.
That, continuing Covid and inefficient
vaccine roll-out in Europe filled her
last months. Her final diplomatic triumph
was a historic agreement between
Beijing and the 27 states of the EU. She
persuaded all 27 to accept the deal
opening Chinese markets and leveling the
playing field to some degree and beginning
to tackle the issue of high tech security.
The incoming Biden administration
had wanted a hold off, but Merkel saw her
chance for a legacy for Germany and Europe.
She saw the chance for rival countries to
collaborate on borderless issues like
health and climate. Admittedly it was in
Europe’s interest, if not risk free. Doing
this she was sending a new message to
Washington: The EU can act unilaterally in
its own interest. For Merkel, it was a
bitter legacy of the Trump era. “Epilogue” is
a handful of pages about Merkel’s last
months as chancellor. A small German
firm founded by Turkish immigrants,
BioNTech, was among the first to get its
vaccine approval. But Covid’s second wave in
winter 2020 hit Gemany hard. The EU
was inexperienced for a massive
continent-wide rollout. Germany’s diffuse
authority made decision making slow – even
in an emergency. The population was
exhausted by curfews and quarantines and she
couldn’t repeat her initial blend
of passion and humanity a year later. Still,
Merkel was seen as above politics
and did not become a lame duck. However, she
did resent the lack of time to
ponder her future. She had become efficient
and self-sufficient – not needing
public affection like some others She left a
Europe reeling from Brexit but
more united than ever. In her last
days in office she reflected on her last
days as a postgraduate student in Prague,
her fondness for Czech poet Jan Skacel.
Merkel’s interest in the world beyond
politics never abated. Her experience did
not make her a cynic – she remained
an optimist, she said. Morevoer, she was not
moving from a palace because she
had never left her rent controlled apartment
in central Berlin. She looked
forward to sleeping in, a relaxed breakfast,
time to get fresh air and chat.
She looked forward to the theatre, the opera
and concerts and reading a good
book. And she might cook dinner – because
she likes cooking. She is still fit
enough to enjoy country rambles, leisurely
meals with friends, music and books
She will enjoy nature in the place she
learned to love it, but she still has a
desire to fly over the Andes – to travel. Although she
dislikes retrospection, she will now have
time to think on her legacy – perhaps
the astonishing transformations - the
refugee policy and the fact that Germany,
country responsible for the Holocaust, is
now regarded as a moral centre in the
world. But then there is the AfD … The world is now
a rougher place than when she began as
chancellor. However, she was likely
pleased that in early 2021, the CDU picked
Armin Laschet, prime minister of
North Rhine-Westphalia to be her successor.
Laschet had been a fierce defender
of her refugee policy and an advocate for a
strong united Europe. Her final act
during the Trump administration was
coordinating the single note from the EU in
reaction to Joe Biden’s victory – quietly
signaling that the effort to divide
the West had failed. But
she was aware
that Putin, in
power
since 2000, was still openly brutal. And she
was disturbed by the mob attack on
Congress in Washington and the Big Lie of a
stolen election. She knew about Big
Lies from the beginnings of the Nazi era.
Democracy is fragile. Trumpism still
survives. Insofar as it
is possible for the most powerful woman in
the world to remain herself, Merkel
has done that. She leaves no worldview –
except perhaps “We are all part of the
world”, as she reminded an enraged AfD
member. She knows no country can survive
long behind a wall. And she achieved her
desire to retire before she became a
political wreck. Her legacy?
Pew research in September 2020 found Merkel
to be the world’s most trusted
leader – leaving little doubt about the
capabilities of a woman in charge. Perhaps
that came with her skill in negotiating,
which did not need the immediate
attention or credit often desired by other
politicians – she only needed an outcome. Other
women
and men will follow. None will repeat her
singular odyssey from the hamlet of
Tempin in Soviet controlled East Germany
to the centre of the global stage.
What did she want history to say about
her? “She tried”.