Kdid we announce them? Angela Merkel claimed that it was so – and decided the federal election eight years ago. And also her fourth in 2017. Merkel advertised herself like a detergent manufacturer advertised its detergent: You know what you have. If the Germans had not believed that, then she would not have remained Chancellor for 16 years – an eternity in the democracies of the West. Perhaps it would even have been confirmed again in September if it had not come to the conclusion that it was enough.
Those who wanted her to go to the moon were also convinced of this, at least. But as evidenced by her three re-elections and the popularity polls, which she almost always cited, the majority of Germans felt that they were in good hands with their first female chancellor. The tenor of the verdict was: She already knows what she is doing and what is right for this country in a world that is changing rapidly in so many fields.
The pandemic even feared the Chancellor
Merkel did not acquire this reputation as a visionary, but as a crisis manager. Each of their predecessors had to do with crises, but they dealt with a particularly large number of severe crises. The last of these, the as yet unresolved pandemic, even feared the Chancellor. Crisis was the aggregate state of politics that Merkel liked best. In the financial and euro crisis, she was able to play to her strengths: her analytical mind, her pragmatic pragmatism and the ability to remain calm in difficult situations – and to exude them.
In her crisis management it became clear what drove the politician Merkel: to preserve systems, structures, achievements that she believed were essential for the maintenance of security, prosperity and peace in Germany. In this sense, Merkel was a conservative. To the disappointment of many Union supporters, she did not believe that she would be able to redirect the social mainstream. The role of moderator in the middle and a policy of small steps were sufficient for her. The grand plan, the “historical project” was not their business. She suspects ideologies of all kinds.
Some critics even said it had no values at all. But even this accusation did not prevent a career that is unique in the history of the republic: a physicist from the defunct GDR, “Kohl’s girl”, throws her discoverer from the pedestal, takes over his party and then rules for as long as the record chancellor. Nothing and nobody can stop them, not even the “Andean Pact” of the CDU men, who underestimated Merkel like many others.
The CDU never became an affair of the heart for Merkel, it was her means to an end. But the party was also satisfied that Merkel’s popularity kept the Union in power. The CDU paid the price for having made itself completely dependent on the Chancellor in the first election without her. Merkel’s pity, who had been forced to give up the party chairmanship, was limited. But she, too, is to blame for the downfall of the CDU.
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