MAIL ONLINE: Angela Merkel does not look like a conqueror. She is no great speaker, has little physical presence and hardly exudes charisma. Indeed, to the casual observer, this short, unprepossessing woman might be a suburban German housewife.
Yet according to one of Germany's most distinguished intellectuals, Mrs Merkel is 'the uncrowned Queen of Europe'. In the European power stakes, no one comes close to competing with the German Chancellor.
Most recently, faraway Cyprus has fallen under her sway, with Mrs Merkel ordering a stunning raid on savers' bank accounts in return for an £8.5 billion bailout of the island's ailing economy.
In countries such as Cyprus and Greece, which have felt the lash of German-imposed austerity, the German Chancellor has become a public hate figure, with protesters regularly likening her to the war criminals of the Third Reich.
But in a sense, the hatred is a tribute to her success. For in just a few years, using the European Union as her vehicle, she has succeeded where Bismarck, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Hitler failed - turning an entire continent into a greater German empire. Melodramatic? Perhaps.
But this is the implication of a devastating new book by the eminent sociologist Ulrich Beck, who teaches at the University of Munich and the London School of Economics.
According to Professor Beck, one of the most respected scholars of his generation, Germany is now the undisputed master of Europe. And at its head is Angela Merkel, a former chemist from East Germany and a political mastermind of extraordinary cunning, subtlety and ambition.
No politician of her generation, Beck argues, better incarnates the cynical values described by the Italian thinker Niccolo Machiavelli, whose treatise The Prince was a primer in how to win and wield power.
Hence Beck's nickname for Germany's Iron Chancellor: 'Merkiavelli'. » | Dominic Sandbrook | Friday, April 19, 2013
