If Angela Merkel clears her desk in a few months, she will have been Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany for 16 years.

In the political discipline of “term of office” she draws level with her Christian-democratic predecessor: Helmut Kohl was also in office for 16 years;

exactly 16 years and 16 days.

Unlike the “Chancellor of Unity”, who exclusively led coalition governments with the FDP, Merkel headed a grand coalition three times, that is, a government alliance with the SPD.

Inevitably, this arrangement had an impact on the content of their policies. 

Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger

Editor in politics.

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Who, let's say, would have predicted in the spring of 1990 that Merkel, who was Lothar de Maizières' deputy spokeswoman in East Berlin at the time, would one day be Chancellor;

that she would hold this office for 16 years;

and that she would even once be proclaimed the alternative leader of the West, which would have been met with pitying incomprehension and doubts about his political mind.

But it did so because she took it courageously when the opportunity arose.

Merkel passed many political competitors - and became a respected and respected politician on the European and global stage.

In Europe it became a kind of anchor in stormy times.

The symbolic power of the flood

During her chancellorship, Germany's political influence in Europe grew, and with it her influence and authority. This is primarily related to the major crises that had to be mastered: from the banking and financial crisis to the corona pandemic. In a way, Merkel was a crisis chancellor who consistently, with one or two dents, had comparatively high approval ratings in the population.

So what is her political legacy like? In what condition will she hand over the land to her successor? Angela Merkel also recently got a personal impression of the regions in western Germany that were hit by the flood. Some wanted to see a kind of parable about the situation in Germany. We get the assessment of a political scientist and sharpen the question for him: Is Merkel leaving a country in decline, Professor Korte?

Karl-Rudolf Korte, professor at the University of Duisberg-Essen, does not believe in interpreting a visit to the disaster area as symbolic of decline. Rather, he sees it as confirmation of Merkel's role as a “crisis pilot who faces every crisis”. She took the role offensively. From her appearance and her clothes, Korte deduces her habitus and style: “She comes across as a walking understatement, does not value the pretentious appearance. A policy guided by reason is translated in a business-like manner. ”Also and especially in situations that couldn't be more devastating or gloomy.