Angela Merkel

by Stefan Kornelius

  Merkel seems to be at ease with herself because she has managed to rise above the pettiness of everyday politics in what are difficult circumstances. She now rules largely unchallenged, particularly in foreign policy. While her first election in 2005 put her under an enormous amount of pressure, physically as well as mentally, she looks forward to the run-up to her potential second re-election in an intriguingly relaxed mood. She has nothing more to prove. She wants to be seen as a safe harbour in stormy seas. The PR strategists and spin doctors are lucky: at last they can use their candidate's qualities to their advantage.

  In this disregard for the duties of electioneering, Merkel appears almost dull. And yet that has been the secret of her success for at least eight years. Perhaps needs will change and people will yearn for a voluble, exuberant chancellor. That would not be Merkel's style. No one can imagine her being photographed in a victorious pose, like Gerhard Schröder, with all the trappings of success, such as a cigar and a long, flowing coat. The most important thing is self-control, keeping things in check, moderation. Money is not important to her, and she dislikes ostentation – whether in her predecessor or the former President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. All she needs is the privacy of her country cottage and her rented apartment in Berlin.

  At the centre of this private world is Joachim Sauer, one of the best quantum chemists in the country, and renowned as such throughout the world. If in spite of the public exposure Merkel still exudes a certain mystery, Sauer really does live in a different world. This is exemplified by the way he greets any unwanted enquiries about himself: “I made the decision to have no conversations with journalists that are not about my work as a university lecturer and researcher, and which concern only my wife's political activities.”

  This leaves one with no choice but to respect his decision, because Sauer shuns all publicity. His political views are unknown: it is impossible to estimate what influence he might have on his wife's work. His scientific CV is nonetheless impressive, bearing witness to considerable creative powers. For example, he might be happy to talk about the interaction between gold atoms and thio-aryl-ligands on a gold surface.

  Angela Merkel has hardly ever mentioned the part played by Joachim Sauer in her political life. If we remember her preference for calm, analytical men who keep their distance, men like the Indian Prime Minister Singh, then her husband embodies all these qualities. She once called conversations with him “vital” in her life, and has described him as a “very good adviser”.

  Because of the code of discretion they impose upon their lives, as a couple Merkel and Sauer have set new standards for political relationships. In doing so they have also brought the diplomatic protocol of international statesmanship into the twenty-first century. Long gone are the days when a politician and his wife had to go on foreign trips together. One reason for this might be because the politician is no longer necessarily a man, and the politician's partner not necessarily of the opposite sex. During Merkel's time as Chancellor the requirements of protocol have decreased even further, particularly regarding the antiquated tradition of “first ladies’ entertainment”, which is now called “spouses’ agenda” – if it still exists at all.

  Merkel's G8 summit in Heiligendamm in 2007 was Joachim Sauer's first and last attempt to conform to protocol. Everywhere in the world, like-minded partners of both sexes have all followed his example. No president is now automatically accompanied by his or her spouse – Hillary Clinton put an end to that. Merkel makes only a small number of state visits, choosing to leave this highest honour to the President of the Republic. As Chancellor she prefers rigorously organized working trips, when anything that needs saying is said in the space of a few hours.

  On the few trips he does make with Merkel, Sauer will sometimes engage in minor diplomacy. He has twice been on tour with her: in 2006, soon after she first took office, he went with her to Vienna, although probably just for the music. And then he accompanied her when she was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama. Like the Chancellor, he feels a great affinity for the United States, and his work often takes him across the Atlantic. At the state dinner in the White House he managed to shake hands with 208 guests without appearing overwhelmed. He had travelled separately, arriving late – a conference in Chicago took precedence. He had decided where his priorities lay, not American protocol. Besides, as he says himself, “I'm of no interest to the public.”

  Merkel's Concept of Freedom

  If Joachim Sauer holds the key to Merkel's personality and values, the inner world of her ideas is often revealed by people with whom she is less closely connected, such as the football managers Vicente del Bosque and Jürgen Klinsmann. Merkel thinks very highly of both of them. Firstly because she likes football and admires both men's work, and secondly because they embody attitudes and beliefs that she regards as exemplary. If there is such a thing as a popular version of Merkel's articles of faith, then these two football managers provide access to it.

  Merkel was an enthusiastic fan of Jürgen Klinsmann well before he produced the magical summer of 2006 – the World Cup euphoria that swept through the entire country and even allowed politicians to share in the national high spirits. What Merkel admires about Klinsmann is his logical approach to putting his ideas into practice, the way he returned from exile in California to run the national team, the way he shook up the German football league with his modern tactics and training methods, eventually creating a side that was a model of effortless strength and performance.

  It is much the same with the Spanish national manager, Vicente del Bosque, whom Merkel doesn't know personally. Del Bosque has not only made the Spanish team virtually unbeatable, but he has also united the players (who are traditionally loyal to their own regions) by giving them a sense of nationality and community, imbued them with a philosophy based on freedom and respect.

  In studying Merkel's values, sooner or later we have to talk about freedom, because it is the driving force behind them. “Values” is a much used term in an era when political correctness has a whole catalogue of ready-made beliefs and convictions at its disposal, where we can expect to be given a lecture on tolerance and human dignity by members of our local council, where every import-export firm publishes its ethos and mission statement on its website. So when politicians put on their best clothes and talk about values, voters usually take little notice. They know that they are living in a post-ideological age in which politicians have to be prepared to tone down their convictions if they want to win elections. Angela Merkel would not have become Chancellor if she had rigidly stuck to one position and had not shown flexibility in adapting to the views of both left and right.

  Nonetheless, there is a big difference between talking about values and values themselves. Perhaps convictions can only be tested once they have settled, rather like sediment. So are values just a form of fossilized convictions? Heads of government like to talk about their values, especially when discussing foreign policy. Yet all these words mean very little unless they are tested in the real world and survive the rough-and-tumble of political decision-making. Early in her political career, Angela Merkel spoke frequently about her principles – but it is only now, after two terms as Chancellor, that a pattern begins to emerge.

  At the top of Merkel's scale of values is freedom. In terms of pure credibility she has an advantage, having lived for thirty-five years under a regime in which there was no freedom. The only surprising thing is that it took almost ten years before freedom appeared as a verbal weapon in her vocabulary – almost surreptitiously at first, at the 2000 CDU Party Conference in Essen, where she was elected Party Chairman and no doubt deemed it wise to be more specific about principles. So she went through a catalogue of values – not her own, but those held by the CDU, around which the delegates could rally. Freedom, responsibility, security: one of the holy trinities that the CDU and other parties liked to use during the post-war era.

  The word freedom reappeared in full
force three years later, in perhaps the most programmatic speech that Merkel has ever made. “Quo vadis, Deutschland?” was the somewhat old-fashioned theme when, as leader of the opposition, Merkel called the conservative camp to arms on 1st October 2003, a year after the re-election of the Red-Green Coalition. She castigated the country's fossilized institutions, its stagnation, and produced something like a work schedule. Yet at the heart of it was her concept of freedom, or rather a combination of the values of freedom, solidarity and justice. What at the time sounded like a crowd-pleaser from the Ten Commandments of the CDU was to be repeated many times.

  “Without freedom there is nothing!” declared the Chairman of the CDU to her audience in the German Historical Museum. “Freedom is the joy of achievement, the flourishing of the individual, the celebration of difference, the rejection of mediocrity, personal responsibility.” This was the sermon that Merkel preached as a politician dealing with domestic issues – and who wanted to shoehorn her party into modern values. According to her, democracy and the social market economy are the offspring of freedom. “If we are to be able to live in justice and solidarity again, freedom must be restored to our hierarchy of values, written clearly on every line.”

  In 2005 freedom hit the headlines again, when Merkel took her oath as Chancellor and delivered her first policy speech from the podium in the Bundestag. “Let us dare to want more freedom” was a nod to Willy Brandt as well as a tactical move to dominate her SPD coalition partner. As in her quo vadis speech, she used the motif of freedom mainly with reference to domestic politics – stressing the individual's role in society and the need for everyone to take responsibility for his or her own life.

  To Merkel, values are something very personal, so it is not surprising that – given that she is always sparing with details of her private life – she has never tried to capitalize on her GDR past. It is also worth noting that the idea of Merkel as a symbol of freedom has largely been imported from abroad. President George W. Bush was the first to fall under the spell of this tale of Cinderella from Eastern Europe. Merkel's life has been quite dramatic, so it seems only natural that she should be more readily understood in the land of Hollywood and political celebrities.

  When Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, it wasn't to recognize the fact that she had decided to phase out Germany's nuclear programme, but for her own life story, which had deeply touched the Americans. Yet for Merkel, freedom has clear boundaries. She does not want to be an icon of liberty, refusing to carry the banner of freedom that she has been handed. But to an observer this is only visible on closer inspection. For instance, the daughter of the former Ukrainian Prime Minister, Yevhenia Tymoshenko, asked to meet Merkel, hoping to play on the theme of freedom in order to persuade her to plead her mother's cause. Merkel declined: she felt she was being manipulated. The fate of Yulia Tymoshenko is one thing, her own past is another. On this occasion Merkel was the Chancellor of Germany rather than a sister in the struggle for freedom.

  Yet it is striking to see how successful a narrative this association between herself and freedom is, particularly outside Germany. When she is abroad, Merkel is less disinclined to use her story to break the ice. When a new head of government is elected somewhere, or she wants to make a personal connection, she will talk about her early life – receiving a personal reminiscence or some other disclosure in return. All these things help forge bonds.

  Now, after over seven years as Chancellor, freedom is more than ever the leitmotiv of her foreign policy. Freedom, she said in one of her early variations on the theme, is above all else the chance to discover one's own limitations. Translation: as a young physicist, Angela Merkel was prevented from realizing her potential by the restrictive GDR system. Only the fall of the Wall allowed her to discover and develop her abilities. And she has now risen to the position of Chancellor. Even now, this experience of freedom in itself represents fulfilment to Merkel: “Freedom is the happiest experience of my life. There is nothing that fills me with more enthusiasm, drives me farther, makes me feel more positive than the power of freedom.”

  There is an important message to the world in this experience: a system that prevents men and women from developing freely is neither free nor just. Individuality – within the context of the rule of law – is the driving force behind democracy. Only those who have fulfilled themselves are free. It is convenient that this message also suits the CDU's core values. In the last few years, however, the party has had to take second place to the international audience to whom Merkel is now performing. Her message of freedom suits China as well as Latin America or Russia. It is directed both at indebted countries, whose restrictive regulations are an obstacle to freedom and creativity, as well as at the European Commission, which smothers diversity in Europe in its obsession with the community.

  To Merkel, freedom is less a political dogma than a personal experience. Yet the Chancellor sees it as one of the most powerful driving forces in the world. Whenever there is an effort to make reforms – she said just before her election in 2005 – freedom must play a central role in political decisions, even in international conflicts. And later she said: “It was an incredible victory for democracy to stand up to the Soviet Union and thus put an end to the Cold War. And I would like to make my own contribution by helping freedom and human rights to spread throughout the world. We have the tools to do it.”

  “We” in this case means the West, with its understanding of the values of freedom. The tools consist of democracy, a belief in emancipation, self-fulfilment, openness – all products of the Enlightenment. Indeed, if – after seven years as Chancellor, six visits to China, numerous conflicts over war and peace, violent arguments with the President of Russia, ideological disagreements with Turkey over questions of tolerance, after all her experience of revolution, oppression and injustice – one idea has taken root in the Chancellor, it is this: Angela Merkel cares about the West.

  She fears that the free systems of government might not survive, that democracy and the market economy might ultimately prove to be too weak. Merkel, who adores comparisons and studying systems, has a clear message: the hardest test of freedom is something that the West has yet to undergo. The supremacy of its values is not guaranteed. Everything could yet degenerate into a war of values. “I am afraid that open societies in the post-Cold War world are in more danger than we realize,” she once said.

  Merkel seldom speaks of her concern for the system. In fact she has never dwelt on it at length. There are occasional clues, such as in her speech after the signing of the reunification treaty twenty years ago. “Sometime my greatest fear is that we have somehow lost the inner strength to stand up for our way of life. To which one can only say: if we have lost that, then we might also lose our prosperity and success.”

  On another occasion she acknowledged her “responsibility to recognize when systems are going to collapse”. She later said in an interview: “It is very important for us not to deceive ourselves. The current situation in Germany and Europe is not a law of nature.” Or, to put it in more positive terms: “We must move away from a bipolar world, based on mutual deterrence, towards a multipolar world. In this new world there will be stability if there is international agreement on basic values and we respect each other on that basis.”

  If we unpack this phrase, Merkel is saying that the world faces a clash of values, a conflict for the superior political system and way of life. This conflict could become unpleasant or – in political terms – create instability. Perhaps water and raw materials will be at stake, perhaps zones of influence, trade regulations or property: it will be a conflict between systems that are free and systems that are not. Because, as Merkel says, “We have no inherent right to democracy or to lasting prosperity.” Threats are always possible, history is an ongoing process.

  On her trips abroad, the Chancellor likes to assemble the journalists accompanying her in the conference cabin of the Luftwaffe airbus. They meet once on the flight
out, once on the flight home, and they sit on sofas arranged in a rectangle round a coffee table attached to the cabin floor. They have to sit close together, knees bent, because there is never quite enough room. The Chancellor squeezes herself in among them: it is pointless to try and avoid touching. Meanwhile the large monitor in the cabin shows the pictures taken by a camera mounted on the tail fin: you can see the plane in flight, the fuselage shooting along above the clouds like a torpedo, the earth far below. It is a time for fundamental, strategic thinking. Merkel's colleagues can recognize the moment when she looks far into the future – ten, twenty years ahead. What she says publicly remains in your memory. “For thirty-five years I lived in a dictatorship that followed in the footsteps of the previous one. So I am always sceptical when people say: it can never happen again.”

  Merkel shares this experience with many other heads of government from Eastern Europe, and during the euro crisis she never tired of telling the group of EU leaders: “I know what living in a collapsing system feels like, and I don't want to go through that again.” There are times when Merkel turns her East German gaze on the Western model that she has always admired. On one occasion she said: “The market economies have used the economic struggle to their advantage, but that doesn't mean that they have won the competition between the different systems once and for all.”

  She will examine the rapid growth of the Asian countries, compare demographic data; she can describe the age distribution in Germany and Europe from memory. She knows the growth targets that must be achieved if European prosperity is to be at least maintained, and asks, “Can we keep up in a global environment, or do we have to learn to live with the weaknesses caused by our demography and lack of growth?” She complains about the decision-making processes in Europe, the atrocious length of time it takes to discuss propositions, and embrace or reject them, whereas on the other side of the globe an autocratic machine hungry for growth sets about gobbling up the world.