Angela Merkel was in Rome on October 7th.

The Chancellor, who, with few exceptions, did not send any domestic political messages from abroad during her 16 years in office, let her Christian Democratic party friends know that her successor would presumably be a Social Democrat.

Eckart Lohse

Head of the parliamentary editorial office in Berlin.

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Merkel was happy when Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer replaced her at the top of the CDU in 2018, and would probably have been happy if she had proven to be suitable for chancellor - or another Union applicant. Merkel allegedly did not have a plan with this goal. At least that's how it is reported. She only wanted one thing: an orderly handover to her successor. It looks like it so far. A handover to Olaf Scholz, who she admires.

The Bundestag election was less than two weeks behind the Germans when Merkel flew to the Italian capital.

In the morning she visited the future anthropological institute at the Gregorian University, which deals with the processing of child abuse.

There was an “important discussion” there, said Merkel at noon.

Not an everyday appointment, but part of the everyday work of a Chancellor, even a departing one.

Darkness falls on the party

Meanwhile, at home in Berlin, the ground under Merkel's party, the CDU, was shaking more and more violently. After the Union had landed in second place with a historically poor election result, the Social Democrats, Greens and FDP met in threes for their first preliminary meeting. In the Union, only very great optimists nourished the belief in a Jamaica coalition led by Union candidate Armin Laschet. On the evening of October 7th, he still pretended to believe in this possibility. But he also said that forming a government would not fail because of himself. The political twilight that had fallen over the CDU on election day went into the darkness of the night.

Merkel was already one step further than Laschet. After a conversation with the Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, the Chancellor spoke about the situation in Germany through the detour of European financial policy. She is not the spokeswoman for the Federal Minister of Finance and SPD candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz. "He will have the opportunity to comment on this in the new coalition agreement - perhaps if the negotiations lead to success."

She predicted something else: It would soon be time.

She will continue working together until she is "replaced by a newly elected German Chancellor".

“This time it will certainly go faster than it was when the government was last formed.

I am absolutely convinced of that. ”Then another wish of Merkel seemed to be fulfilled: no long interregnum, but a reasonably quick change of power.

The first half of her life

October 7th is the anniversary of the founding of the GDR.

It is absurd to bring this fact into a causal connection with the planning of Merkel's trip to Rome.

However, the coincidence of both dates fits in with a discussion that the Chancellor herself had started four days earlier.

It was about the first half of her life, about her past in the GDR.

Strictly speaking, the value of this past.