By the time I paid any attention to global politics, Angela Merkel was already the chancellor of Germany. I’m a few years too old to belong to ‘Generation Merkel;’ nevertheless, her leadership has been a constant during my own years learning about and living in Germany. After the German parliamentary elections later this month, pending the transfer of power to a newly formed government, Merkel’s fourth and final term will come to a close. And as it does, there’s a lot of talk about her ‘legacy.’
Plenty of biographical profiles of Merkel are making the media rounds right now, often focusing on her key decisions and the steadiness that has characterised her leadership. They list the global crises through which she has steered the country (financial, social, and geopolitical alike) and her humanising nicknames (Mutti, the Iron Frau, and by Helmut Kohl, mein Mädchen). Her most famous appellation to the German public, “Wir schaffen das” (We can do it), echoes like a slogan for her entire career. Tenacious, principled, and stalwart seem to be the conclusions about Merkel.
Merkel has been the face of German and European politics for more than 15 years, after negotiating her way into the chancellorship in 2005. The election results that year were almost too close to call; she ultimately headed up the ‘grand coalition’ of the centre-right CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union) and centre-left SPD (Social Democratic Party) parties. Maneuvering of this stripe typifies Merkel’s politicking throughout her career. Time and again, she’s gained and maintained power through dialogue rather than charisma, strategy instead of personality.
The story of shifting German identity in the twilight of the long 20th century and the dawn of the 21st is embodied by Merkel, complete with her own contradictions and protractions: an East German woman with roots in the West, a political career lit by the sparks of societal transformation as both the Berlin Wall and the East German state collapsed from within, a trailblazing female leader who shied away from calling herself a feminist, a social and fiscal Conversative who has sought compromise across party lines and in doing so has led her own party to drift leftwards.
As pointed out elsewhere,1 Merkel also embodies the project of German unification, which still drags on psychosocially and economically. The gaping disparity between the systems of East and West was forced closed by the structural imposition of Western economics and social organisation immediately post-unification, often at great disadvantage to the eastern states.2 Merkel is yet another East German woman - and it has statistically been women - who reshaped herself amidst the tumult of this project and achieved success by Western rules. To many Germans in the predominantly socialist and atheist East, conservative, Protestant Merkel looks and talks more like a ‘Wessie’ than a girl from small-town Brandenburg. To the ‘Wessies’ themselves, her figure has retained an aftertaste of otherness that decades of unification hasn’t erased.3
Merkel is an inspiring example of female leadership at best, an old-guard conservative or an out-of-touch globalist at worst.
What interests me most about the transition to a new government without Merkel at the helm is the effect it may have on the collective narrative of German society. Now that the country is guaranteed a change in regime, to whatever extent that may be, how will its choice of political representation reflect changing socioeconomic priorities?
Merkel has been far less attentive to the climate, education, healthcare, and social care than the German left wants their government to be. For all of its strengths, there are widening fissures in the state structures meant to care for citizens. The elderly, single mothers, the working class, and immigrants are among those particularly left behind; issues of structural inequality, misogyny, and racism plague this country, too.4
Through both action and inaction, Merkel’s politics have helped to shape the circumstances of life for a large cohort of young Germans. These young people are Fridays for Future activists and citizens of the European Union. Many are immigrants; even more are second- and third-generation Germans. They are globally aware but often inexperienced in the kind of existential struggle that Germans lived through during the 20th century. For young people, Merkel is an inspiring example of female leadership at best, an old-guard conservative or an out-of-touch globalist at worst.5
Whoever takes up the chancellorship has the pressure of her example but also the opportunity to cut the apron strings.
Despite my own political positioning, I find myself an admirer of Merkel. At a house party several years ago, a young German woman scoffed at the idea that Merkel was a good leader. With Brexit and Trump’s election still fresh in our rearview mirrors, the international contingent at the party chorused our defense of Merkel.6 At Christmas dinner in 2015, my grandfather predicted that Merkel would regret her position on accepting Syrian refugees and that Germany would turn against her for it. I retorted that I thought she didn’t have a choice, with people dying off the shores of Europe.
Perhaps she really is Germany’s Mutti - your mum who doesn’t understand the Black Lives Matter movement but who is strong and comforting when you’re unwell. I rolled my eyes at Merkel’s tepid and all-too-recent admission that she is, yes, a feminist.7 Equally, I’ve been grateful for her guiding hand and reliance on scientific expertise throughout the pandemic. Whoever takes up the chancellorship has the pressure of her example but also the opportunity to cut the apron strings.
Merkel saw united Germany through its young adulthood. Her legacy is that the country now has a fresh - and, in many ways, urgent - chance to grow up.
Questions to Ask in a voting booth.
See: this illuminating 2018 article in the New York Times.
Petra Köpping’s book, Integriert doch erstmal uns!, is a fascinating and politically charged perspective on the East German experience post-unification. (DE)
Consider Merkel in contrast to other high-level female German politicians like Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Annalena Baerbock, and Ursula von der Leyen, who were all born or raised in West Germany.
This video reportage from DW does a good job of enumerating these fissures and challenges.
For more on ‘Generation Merkel,’ I highly recommend this piece in the Financial Times.
Her popularity, high in Germany again at the end of her chancellorship, is equaled or outstripped by the positive perception of her in neighbouring countries like the Netherlands and France. (DE)