Antonio Navalón
Yesterday, Germany held general elections. For the first time in 16 years, an election in which a particular name did not appear on the ballot. In terms of conditions and term of office, Angela Merkel, the woman who can only be compared to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, has relinquished her position. It is worth mentioning that the difference between Kohl and Merkel is that while the former said goodbye to power after losing the elections, Angela Merkel chose to pass the baton of power voluntarily.
Germany will always be an enigma. A country invented on the mythical tales of the Rhine tribes; with the great thoughts of Otto Von Bismarck; with the sounds of Richard Wagner’s operas; and, with the romantic and worthy of Disneyland deviations, such as those of Louis II of Bavaria, it is a country where the most outstanding intellectual leadership of the development of science and knowledge coexisted and still coexist with the most colossal demonstration of brutality ever achieved by the human being as was the Holocaust.
Angela Merkel grew up and developed in Communist Germany. She was another daughter of the consequences of German reunification. It was the best proof of the consequences of the pact that Kohl signed with the then Prime Minister of the German Democratic Republic, Lothar de Maiziere, in which the equivalence of the German mark was allowed and accepted since it did not have the same value in West Germany than in Communist-occupied Germany. This action started a new process and caused a true internal revolution and a tsunami in Europe. To begin with, because the Germans themselves continued to doubt what would happen when they became Germany again. The big one. The united. The country that Napoleon referred to saying: “who rules Germany rules Europe.”
Despite the wars, the Germans have survived for more than a century. Today Germany is a country that has very little to do with the nation that the Führer sought to bring to glory at the cost of the Holocaust and the near destruction of the entire planet. Today Germany is also a country that has had to rebuild based on overcoming and despite complexes, feelings of guilt, and the desire or awareness of needing to be different and with a political structure that – deep down – is always very conservative.
Before, when you visited the Berlin of Communist Germany, I remember that you could realize clearly that those who were really Communists were the Germans, even more than the Soviets. The order that prevailed in the way of carrying the ideological content to the last detail, the last gesture and the way of walking, gave it not a conformity, not happiness for its people – for that was the Stasi – but the coherence of behavior that the Soviet Union or Mao Tse Tung’s China would have wanted for themselves.
It is not about establishing or defining which regime was more brutal. Nor to specify where it was most complicated or most challenging to be a communist. It is simply a matter of recognizing that the German essence and its connection with communist dogma were perfectly compatible. Angela Merkel emerged from this context and place. From that place, she had to get up, little by little, to a normality that was partly inflated like the price of the German mark. And all with one goal: the integration of the two parts of Germany. Nobody could imagine that she could grow so much in her historical stature over time, especially if one considers the environment in which she had to live. An environment in which world leaders had and have continued to decline so much.
Germany has lost more than a Chancellor, who is also the first mother to serve. From Kaiser Wilhelm II to Helmut Kohl, the German leadership position was reserved solely for men with strong personalities or physical attributes. Until Angela arrived. The popular ones, those who play at being Democrats – as was the case with Willy Brandt – did not last long as Chancellor. Brandt’s short stay at the head of the German leadership was short not only because of the penetration of Soviet spies in his inner circle but because deep down, power in Germany needed to be exercised from a very strong iron structure. German power is exercised from a position of internal cohesion and very measured gestures, where body language plays a greater role than words and where the only creed that truly works is that of the permanent example to do the things that people know that made Germany great.
In my opinion, Angela Merkel’s greatest contribution to the greatness of Germany was that, on the one hand, she alone has managed to stabilize her country and carry out a policy of anticipation in the face of crises, taking the necessary measures before the situation became a matter of sheer survival. And second, the fact that Merkel knew how to understand that Europe was an essential element for Germany in the current scenario and that Germany had to become the determining element of the European continent.
After the disappearance of the greatest, after characters such as François Mitterand, Margaret Thatcher, or Helmut Kohl left, if the European Union had not had Angela Merkel, it would surely have also disappeared. Merkel was a leader who did her job exceptionally, betting on fiscal discipline and austerity programs. Despite the European longing and suffering to become the United States of Europe, this entire dream was replaced by a draconian system of controlling expenses and not getting carried away in any way by joys or emotions. Angela Merkel managed to do all this by building an undeniable leadership, not only because of the power of the economy or the discipline of her country but also because she used all those experiences to try to discipline spending or budget abuse of some political formulations. Some formulations not only included the promise of financial discipline but were, above all, based on offering an impossible dream.
In the North of Europe, they think that they spend a lot in the South and work little. It is undoubtedly true. What the European Union currently needs – beyond a fiscal austerity program – is a route that allows the political project to consolidate or ensure that the interests of the countries it comprises are met. At the time, the establishment of the euro achieved the most challenging thing, which was to have a common currency. However, the euro’s arrival also meant sacrificing the ideal of building common policies that could create a structure where development and economic stability were accompanied by the promise of a better world or the possibility of dreaming.
Angela Merkel has already left. Whether it’s Olaf Scholz, Armin Laschet, or Annalena Baerbock, it matters little who will replace Merkel. Above all, because it is known that power in Germany is extremely difficult to handle unless one finds the exact tone on how to exercise it and become invincible. Today, Germany is entering a time of rediscovery. The geostrategic element of losing at this time a great statesperson who was able to maintain order and stability in Europe is a tough blow.
Merkel not only ensured European stability but was also able to keep characters like Vladimir Putin at bay while negotiating with Donald Trump or Xi Jinping to ensure compliance with German interests and, in a sense, the Europeans. Her departure will be an absence that we will not take long to notice.
The giants – not those of the 20th century, but the politicians who won and lost wars, who also built unions and shaped today’s world – have undergone an inevitable mutation. A mutation that is not based on the fact that any past time was better. The past always had different scenarios and the people who had to govern in those times were sometimes better, although there were also worse leaders than the current ones. In the case of Angela Merkel, it can be said that an era of giants is ending with her. Giants who were the ones who gave birth to the world as we know it and who – although at this moment it is continuously changing – Merkel’s departure continues to be one of the essential components of today’s reality. Without Angela Merkel, German history and European history would have been very different. Today, her shadow, the shadow of a giant, walks through the German streets.
