Angela Merkel: Europe's Saviour – Or Biggest Problem?

THE GUARDIAN: The German chancellor holds Europe's economic fate in her hands. But critics say she is not up to the job

On 22 December 1999, a letter appeared on the front page of Germany's leading conservative daily, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung [*]. It contained a searing attack on the country's most highly regarded statesman, Helmut Kohl, recently retired chancellor and much-feted architect of reunification. Kohl, then mired in an ugly party funding scandal, had to be cut loose, the letter urged, as teenagers must jettison their parents to grow into adults. The only way forward for his Christian Democrats was a complete break with their past.

It was a remarkable letter, a clinical and very public coup-de-grace delivered to an eminent, mortally wounded elder. What made it more remarkable was that the person who signed it was not one of the obviously thrusting young pretenders to Kohl's CDU throne, but a moon-faced and oddly unmemorable protege [sic] whom he used to refer to, dismissively, as das Mädchen: the girl.

Some like to see in this episode – which duly launched Angela Merkel on the stratospheric trajectory that would see her elected head of the centre-right CDU the following year and Germany's first woman chancellor barely five years after that – proof positive that she is a sharp, maybe even a ruthless opportunist, eminently capable of bold, decisive and, if necessary, dirty deeds to achieve her ends.

Others construe it more as an uncharacteristic moment of madness from a politician who otherwise has constructed an entire career on caution and consensus; a public figure so superficially unremarkable, so singularly lacking in passion or charisma that in nearly 25 years in politics she has (as her biographer puts it) "not made a single speech that stayed in the memory". A moderator, not a leader; a tactician, not a strategist.

She could, of course, be both. But what's becoming increasingly clear, as the euro teeters on the precipice and economic disaster beckons, is that if she is, a great many people – most of them, it has to be said, outside Germany – would actually quite like to see a bit more of the former, and rather less of the latter. A touch more of the bold and decisive, somewhat less of the calm and methodical. If possible.

Merkel is, after all, about the most important person in the world right now. As leader of the eurozone's undisputed economic powerhouse, she in effect holds the future financial wellbeing of all of us in her hands. And the worry is she's not up to the job. For all her undoubted qualities and undimmed domestic popularity (the pollsters, certainly, see no hint of a rival who could threaten her re-election in 2013, for a third successive term), Merkel – a pale, irredeemably frumpy, maddeningly hard-to-pin-down shadow of an Adenauer, a Brandt, a Kohl – is totally not what's needed, say her critics. Read on and comment » | Jon Henley | Tuesday, November 22, 2011

* FOCUS ONLINE: Der Bruch des „Mädchens“ mit Ziehvater Kohl: Inmitten der Spendenaffäre empfahl Angela Merkel vor zehn Jahren der CDU die Abnabelung von Kanzler Helmut Kohl. Durch ihren Gastbeitrag für die „FAZ“ wurde der Alt- und Ehrenvorsitzende zum Geächteten der eigenen Partei. ¶ Angela Merkel hätte die Kernbotschaft ihres kühlen Artikels vom 22. Dezember 1999 für die „Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung“ auch in zwei Worte fassen können: „Tschüß, Kohl“. Stattdessen schmiedete sie aus Vokabeln schlichter Laien-Pädagogik Sätze von ungeheurer Sprengkraft: „Die Partei muss also laufen lernen, muss sich zutrauen, in Zukunft auch ohne ihr altes Schlachtross, wie Helmut Kohl sich selbst gerne genannt hat, den Kampf mit dem politischen Gegner aufzunehmen. Sie muss sich wie jemand in der Pubertät von zu Hause lösen, eigene Wege gehen.“ » | Von FOCUS-Korrespondentin Margarete van Ackeren, Berlin | Dienstag 22. Dezember 2009

Obama’s Mistakes: Chancellor Merkel Visits the Debt President
SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: The occupant of the White House may have changed recently. But the amount of ill-advised ideology coming from Washington has remained constant. Obama's list of economic errors is long -- and continues to grow.

The president may have changed, but the excesses of American politics have remained. Barack Obama and George W. Bush, it has become clear, are more similar than they might seem at first glance.

Ex-President Bush was nothing if not zealous in his worldwide campaign against terror, transgressing human rights and breaking international law along the way. Now, Obama is displaying the same zeal in his own war against the financial crisis -- and his weapon of choice is the money-printing machine. The rules the new American president is breaking are those which govern the economy. Nobody is being killed. But the strategy comes at a price -- and that price might be America's position as a global power.

In his fight against terrorism, Bush had the ideologue Dick Cheney at his side. "We must take the battle to the enemy," he said -- and sent out the bomber squadrons toward Iraq on the basis of mere suspicion. The result of the offensive is well known.

Obama's Cheney

Obama's Cheney is named Larry Summers. He is Obama's senior-most economic advisor, and like the former vice president, he is a man of conviction. The financial crisis may be large, but Summers' self-confidence is even larger. More importantly, President Barack Obama follows him like a dog does its master.

The crisis, Summers intoned last week at a conference of Deutsche Bank's Alfred Herrhausen Society in Washington, was caused by too much confidence, too much credit and too many debts. It was hard not to nod along in agreement.

But then Summers added that the way to bring about an end to the crisis was -- more confidence, more credit and more debt. And the nodding stopped. Experts and non-experts alike were perplexed. Even in an interview following the presentation, Summers was unable to supply an adequate explanation for how a crisis caused by frivolous lending was going to be solved through yet more frivolity. >>> Gabor Steingart | Thursday, June 25, 2009

Muslim Headscarves Test the Limits of German Tolerance
… [the headscarf debate is a] "religiously motivated political offensive being waged under the veil of religious freedom. Islam is conducting a cultural war in pursuit of ‘a different set of political and social ideals.’ Islam is ‘not tolerant itself, but takes advantage of the tolerance available to it through our legal system in order to grow.’’ – Nekla Kelek, a sociologist of Turkish descent

SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: For years, Germany's legal experts have been arguing about whether Muslim public officials have the right to wear headscarves. The issue raises difficult questions about religious tolerance and constitutional rights in Germany.

"When you do something," Brigitte Weiss says, "you need to do it right."

It's a motto she knows from home. She remembers people saying it where she comes from, a coal-mining area in Germany's western Ruhr region. Later, as a grade school teacher in Mettmann, a small town near Düsseldorf, she tried to pass the homespun wisdom on to her students. Whether it was their homework in German, Geography, Home Economics, or whatever else they were doing -- the main thing was to do it right.

"All of my students," Weiss says, "were happy to have me as their teacher."

Now this is no longer entirely the case. The reason is Brigitte Weiss's conversion to Islam. Now she has a new name, Maryam, and she dresses differently: She wears a headscarf. Muslim Headscarves Test the Limits of German Tolerance >>> By Thomas Darnstädt | June 20, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Taschenbuch)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Gebundene Ausgabe)

Angela Merkel as You’ve Never Seen Her Before!
“German Chancellor Angela Merkel turned a lot of heads on Saturday, April 12, when she wore a very low-cut dress. Here she speaks with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.”
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)