The Making of chancellor Merkel

Abstract

As a woman and an East German, Angela Merkel beat long political odds to become chancellor of Germany in November 2005. In addition, she overcame her party's poor electoral performance, out-manoeuvring political rivals in negotiations for a ‘grand coalition’. Merkel's rise to power can be divided into three phases. Like many other female political leaders of her generation in Germany, she was initially apolitical. She only became politically active during the dying days of the German Democratic Republic. The second phase was her apparently unremarkable political ascent as ‘Kohl's Mädchen’ (girl), when she had little independent standing of her own. The final phase began when a major finance scandal propelled her to the top of party ranks. She benefited from a gendered stereotype as a Trümmerfrau who could rebuild the conservative's moral standing out of the affair's ruins. But her continued success had much to do with successful political learning of how to turn critics' attacks against themselves.

Notes

1. Joanna McKay, ‘Women in German Politics: Still Jobs for the Boys’, German Politics 13/1 (March 2004), pp.56–80.

2. As usual, the Bild newspaper of 2 Nov. 2005 could not resist punning about the situation: ‘Ossis sind die Bossis’ (The East Germans are the bosses).

3. This project is funded by a German University Science Programme (HWP) grant for gender research awarded by the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg.

4. Mark R. Thompson and Claudia Derichs (ed.), Frauen an der Macht: Dynastien und politische Führerinnen in Asien (Passau: Passauer Beiträge zur Südostasienkunde, Band 10, 2005).

5. See, for example, Ingrid Reichart-Dreyer, ‘Warum tun sich Frauen schwer mit der aktiven Politik?’, Die Frau in unserer Zeit, 3 (1987), pp. 20–32 and Angelika von Wahl, Gleichstellungsregime (Opladen: Leske + Budrich Verlag, 1999). There are fewer studies about women already exercising political power. See, for example, Christina Schenk, ‘Feministische Politik im Bundestag – Erfahrungen und Perspektiven’, in Elke Biester, Barbara Holland-Cunz and Birgit Sauer (eds.), Demokratie oder Androkratie (Frankfurt/M.: Campus, 1994), pp.35–51, and Waltraud Cornelißen ‘Politische Partizipation von Frauen in der alten Bundesrepublik und im vereinten Deutschland’, in: Gisela Helwig and Hildegard Maria Nickel (eds), Frauen in Deutschland 1945–1992 (Berlin: Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung, 1993), pp.321–50.

6. Evelyn Roll, Das Mädchen und die Macht: Angela Merkels Demokratischer Aufbruch (Berlin: Rowohlt, 2001), 2nd edition with the title Die Erste: Angela Merkels Weg zur Macht (Reinbek: Rowohlt, June 2005).

7. Jacqueline Boysen, Angela Merkel: Eine deutsch-deutsche Biographie (Munich: Ullstein, 2001), 2nd edition with the title: Angela Merkel: Eine Karriere (Berlin: Ullstein, Aug. 2005).

8. Wolfgang Stock, Angela Merkel: Eine politische Biographie (Munich: Olzog, 2000, 2nd edition July 2005).

9. Nicole Schley, Angela Merkel: Deutschlands Zukunft ist weiblich (Munich: Knaur, Aug. 2005).

10. Gerd Langguth, Angela Merkel (Munich: DTV, Aug. 2005).

11. Matthias Krauss, Das Mädchen für alles: Angela Merkel (Anderbeck: Anderbeck Verlag, 2005).

12. Angela Merkel and Hugo Müller-Vogg, Mein Weg (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 2004).

13. Langguth, Angela Merkel, p.25 and Schley, Angela Merkel, p.12.

14. Langguth, Angela Merkel, p.32.

15. Merkel was involved in a school graduation play in which the ‘internationale’ was sung in English (the language of the ‘class enemy’), a poem by Christian Morgenstern that made illusions to the Wall was read, and the proceeds went not as wished to Vietnam but to Mozambique: Boysen, Angela Merkel, p.24.

16. Merkel and Müller-Vogg, Mein Weg, p.51.

17. Langguth, Angela Merkel, p.307. One illustration of this quest for independence was her decision, after her divorce, to keep the name Merkel, and not go back to her maiden name Kasner.

18. Stock, Angela Merkel, p.50, reports Merkel's father visiting on her thirtieth birthday, criticising her for ‘not achieving much’ in the first three decades of life.

19. Stock, Angela Merkel, p.46.

20. Stock, Angela Merkel, p.47.

21. Schindhelm, Michael, Roberts Reise (Munich: DTV, 2002), p.283.

22. Merkel and Müller-Vogg, Mein Weg, p.42.

23. Merkel and Müller-Vogg, Mein Weg, p.71.

24. Platzeck became active somewhat earlier, founding a dissident environmental group in 1988.

25. Heide Simonis, Unter Männern (Munich: Beck, 2003), pp.54–55.

26. Mark R. Thompson, ‘Female Leadership of Democratic Transitions in Asia’, Pacific Affairs 75/4 (Winter 2002–2003), pp.535–55.

27. Merkel and Müller-Vogg, Mein Weg, p.78. It is interesting to note in this context that at about same time her brother joined Bündnis 90 (Alliance 1990) while her mother joined the Social Democratic Party, indicating that there was also no clear party allegiance within her family.

28. Boysen, Angela Merkel, p.102.

29. Boysen, Angela Merkel, p.101.

30. Stock, Angela Merkel, p.23.

31. Boysen, Angela Merkel, p.119 and Langguth, Angela Merkel, p.133.

32. Langguth, Angela Merkel, p.135.

33. Merkel and Müller-Vogg, Mein Weg, p.82.

34. Her husband, the physicist Joachim Sauer, was an exception to this rule, as he retained a leading scientific position.

35. Merkel and Müller-Vogg, Mein Weg, p.84.

36. Roll, Die Erste, p.215.

37. Simonis, Unter Männern, p.107.

38. Langguth, Das Innenleben der Macht: Krise und Zukunft der CDU (Munich: Ullstein, 2001), p.233.

39. Boysen, Angela Merkel, p.141.

40. Merkel and Müller-Vogg, Mein Weg, p.87.

41. Ibid., p.88.

42. McKay, ‘Women in German Politics’, p.59.

43. Linda K. Richter, ‘Exploring Theories of Female Leadership in South and Southeast Asia’, Pacific Affairs 63 (Winter 1990–91), p.526.

44. John Kane, The Politics of Moral Capital (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

45. Angela Merkel, ‘Die Zeit Kohls ist unwiderbringlich vorüber’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, internet edition, 22 December 1999.

46. Stock, Angela Merkel, p.133. Boysen, p.205 refers to Merkel in this period as ‘Jeanne d'Arc’.

47. Roll, Die Erste, p.278 (authors' translation).

48. Simonis, Unter Männern, p.83 (authors' translation).

49. Langguth, Angela Merkel, p.212 and Stock, Angela Merkel, pp.146–47.

50. For an example of the press echo see the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, internet edition, 11 Aug. 2005, ‘Das war ja Stoiber im Bierzelt in Bayern’.

51. ‘Die Mechanik der Macht’, Der Spiegel, 21 Nov. 2005, p.21.

52. Merkel and Müller-Vogg, Mein Weg, p.109.

53. This was the answer to one of the questions in a popular quiz about Angela Merkel on a prominent television station's internet site (tageschau.de), catering to Germans' thirst for information about their new chancellor.

54. See, for example, ‘Merkel = Thatcher’, Wall Street Journal, internet edition, 6 June 2005 and ‘Germany's Merkel: Thatcher Lite’ Business Week Online, 25 July 2005.

55. Henry A. Kisssinger expressed such hopes in the article ‘Chancellor Merkel: A new generation in Germany’, International Herald Tribune, 22 Nov. 2005, p.8. Disagreement about US policy towards terrorist suspects overshadowed Condoleezza Rice's visit to Berlin in early December 2005, suggesting that tensions in German–American relations will persist under Merkel.