I think this piece by Maria Schmidt at Brussels Signal is perhaps the harshest criticism of Angela Merkel I have ever read. Here’s a sample:
Merkel was an emotionless, heartless, cold, cruel, pragmatic and vindictive political operator. She did not truly lead Germany, or Europe, because she lacked the necessary imagination, creativity and commitment. She managed things. She was sunk in day-to-day politics, adapting her positions and opinions to the findings of focus groups and opinion polls. As a result, she fatally failed to take any decision that had medium- or long-term consequences. She took no risks, ran every conflict into the sand, blunted them and damped them down. Her guiding principle was, “After me, the flood.”
and
Merkel did not create anything, and did not build anything. Her time in power was marked by wasted opportunities, missed chances and irredeemably bad decisions that have squandered the future of Germans and Europeans. She robbed them of 16 years, because she diminished both Germany and Europe with her dilatory, indecisive, shiftless, soporific policies. She tore the continent’s societies apart, condemned its economies to stagnation, stifled its capacity for innovation, and extinguished its ambition.
While this, if true, is a scathing indictment:
In Merkel’s sixteen years as Chancellor, both she and Germany aged into shabbiness, greyness and ungainliness. In her monotone, dull and inelegant jackets, pants and shoes, she was the personification of the former GDR, in whose image she moulded the whole of Germany. She abolished freedom of speech, rendering the media uniform, boring and decrepit, and the country’s public figures slovenly and unkempt. Today Germany, once a better place, has become one big GDR.
This is much what I’ve been saying for some time:
She acted against the German army, and in the process she eviscerated it. She permanently weakened it, and suffocated its fighting spirit with the help of her protégé, the incompetent Ursula von der Leyen. She abolished universal conscription and reduced the armaments and equipment of the troops to the point of absurdity. In 2022, at the time of the shamefully precipitate US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the German army was unable to bring home its contingent there. They had no transport aircraft, and the task was beyond their logistical capabilities.
which is why achieving the “2% guideline” for NATO members is irrelevant, misdirection. Germany’s problem is lack of preparedness. 2% of GDP might not be enough to remedy that. 10% if GDP might not be enough. And if Germany with a quarter of total European GDP is not prepared, Europe is not prepared.
There is one particular on which I disagree with Dr. Schmidt. If her observations are true, did she not read her own piece? If Ms. Merkel’s every policy position was the outcome of a focus group, the problem with Germany is not Angela Merkel but Germany. Angela Merkel is only the symptom not the disease.
Read the whole thing.
She opportunistically (not pejorative) left E Germany. Don’t you think her demeanor and thinking were forever shaped by that?
That’s not a defense of her, its an observation on psychology and human experience. Maybe that’s the point of your last sentence.
She kept winning elections and she kept doing what was polling as popular in Germany so I think your summation is mostly true. If the premise is correct she was more of a manager than a leader. The two arent mutually exclusive IMO as you certainly run into leaders with great visions and ideas but no idea how to manage anything and managers who are willing to change when they realize its necessary or the right thing to do. Still, at some point you need the support fo the people.
Steve
She kept winning elections. Exactly. Germany is still a Nazi state.
“As a result, she fatally failed to take any decision that had medium- or long-term consequences.”
Her decision to shut down all of Germany’s nuclear power plants had significant long term consequences. The high cost of electricity in Germany had made many of their industries uncompetitive,
It also made Germany highly dependent on Russian fossil fuels.
Merkel was in power from 2005-2021; and maybe the real lesson is Merkel stayed in power too long.
If she had retired in 2013; she be lauded as the chancellor who had the saved the Eurozone and set Europe on the course towards fiscal union. But her legacy during 2013-2021 is what’s most contested.
As an example, the rise of Chinese industry which is an existential crisis to German industry. When Merkel came to power; Germany was making a lot of money selling into China and wasn’t challenging German industry. But from 2015 on, the Made in China’s 2025 plan explicitly aimed at many of the sectors Germany specialized in (see China’s acquiring Kuka); but Merkel stayed the engagement course. A failure to see circumstances had changed.
Its not acknowledged many lucky US Presidents that the 22nd amendment saves them from the saying; “all political careers end in failure”.
The Germans were unconcerned about China until relatively recently. While the Chinese were building their factories, they ran a substantial trade deficit with Germany. But, consistent with Chinese national objectives, that ended a few years ago, China began running a trade surplus with Germany, and the Germans became concerned. A bit late.