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Angela Merkel, almost no longer there (archive picture from 2018)
Photo: Markus Schreiber / AP
On Wednesday, Olaf Scholz will be elected Chancellor, it will be December 8, 2021, which is why several cabinet members of the old government are four or five days away from pension entitlement as ministers and Angela Merkel less than 14 days from the record term of office of all Chancellors.
It takes three years and 273 days in office to qualify.
And Helmut Kohl keeps the record.
As a journalist, I accompanied and appraised Angela Merkel's term of office, some say era, for the first ten years from the privileged perspective of a »Chancellery correspondent«. I've been able to ask her more questions and spend more time with her than other journalists, and that kind of thing doesn't stop bothering you. For example this last thing now, the 14 days missing from the tenure record after 16 years. In spite of all these years of questioning watching, I couldn't be sure whether she seriously annoys that. Angela Merkel would reply, "Well done," but you shouldn't believe her because she is not that simple.
So it would be one of those questions that not only would I like to ask (that's easy), but I would like a clear answer from her (that was rare).
I have more of such questions, and if it's a bit personal, I'll write them down here now.
So, dear Ms. Merkel:
What did you smoke when you told a few journalists the story of the "crooked German submarine" on a government plane that the Greeks didn't want to pay because it was crooked - and you laughed so much that we thought: So, the German Chancellor is about to suffocate before our eyes.
Who can do first aid?
Why did you get out of nuclear power and not sit out the German Fukushima furor like so many other things? Just because a Bavarian environment minister (Markus Söder) lost his nerve? Just because a flabby Baden-Württemberg MP (Stefan Mappus) implored her because of his state election? It may well be that you wanted to get off a horse that you thought was dead. But if the nuclear power plant had continued to run, we would now have a better carbon footprint instead of Luisa Neubauer.
What did you really think of Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg? Sometimes you eyed him like an entomologist, distanced through a magnifying glass, but fascinated by the dazzling colors and abilities. They thought he was an exciting political experiment until he fell over his vanity. But what the hell did you show Annette Schavan on her cell phone, smiling smugly, there is a photo of Guttenberg resigning? You are welcome to take the old cell phone bone with you, but the chip with the SMS, we would like to have it for evaluation and then in Bonn's House of History.
What did you think of the low neckline that you wore at the Oslo Opera House in 2008?
Or more precisely: What did you think others would think (about you), have you only done it once?
Your deputy government spokesman said behind the scenes that you had "just stung the oats".
I still don't believe that to this day.
In my world, your world is made up of compromise and calculation, not pungent oats.
Oh dear, now I sound like Franz-Josef Wagner.
more on the subject
Farewell to Angela Merkel: Tschingderassabumm and WinkewinkeVon Arno Frank
Up to the last day there were still questions: Why Hildegard Knef and the "Red Roses" for the big tattoo? Have you shed a tear or not? And what did you and your husband do for the rest of the evening when they drove off in the armored limousine?
Finally, why didn't you step down in 2015? That would undoubtedly have helped my reputation as a political clairvoyant, and the prognosis was really not made out of thin air, but based on the statements of some of your closest relatives. Well, in the summer at that time, the euro crisis (Greece is not going to be kicked out) and the refugee crisis (the borders remain open) followed each other, certainly not ideal for leaving, but nevertheless: ten years you always found enough, you followed Roland Koch or Ole closely von Beust, who got the corner after ten years. And if you look back with today's knowledge, you have to say: It would have been better.
At the end of our conversation about the Chancellor, I played a game with my interlocutors for the little book “Angela Merkel, die Zauderkünstlerin”: 'What question would you ask Angela Merkel if you had the guarantee that you would get an absolute answer to this question honest answer? ‹Most of the people I spoke to, including some high-ranking party friends of Merkel, asked me in slightly different ways this question:" Why CDU? " as Joachim Gauck once put it. It stayed that way until the last of their political days.
You never go so completely, sang the divine Trude Herr.
Will that also apply to Angela Merkel?
One thing is certain: if she had told us more about herself, we would have more to remember.
