She refuses to use her feminine label and to compare herself to others. Silence, she said, is a beautiful thing.
| Author: Cui Jun
On the 27th local time, the German Federal Election Counting Agency announced the final results of the Bundestag election, the Social Democratic Party won the Bundestag election with 25.7% of the vote, and the CDU/CSU ranked second with the lowest vote rate ever 24.1%.
With the election results out, the parties have entered the stage of cabinet negotiations, the new prime minister is ready to be selected, and the prime minister Angela Merkel, who has been at the helm of the country for 16 years, is about to step down.
Telling Merkel's story is not an easy task.
She is like a silent sculpture, rarely talking about herself, rarely dissecting her heart. Prudence, calmness, restraint, and the primacy of reason are the qualities of her 16 years at the helm of Germany. But the process of shaping and sculpting her is so complex: the life experience of East Germany, the logical training of physicists, the empathy and flexibility of the priest's daughter, the conservative blood of the German nation... In the end, a furnace is smelted together, and it is a unique style.
Between public life and the private world, Merkel draws a clear line. Ever since she entered politics in the early 1990s, people have been curious and confused: What does the real Merkel look like? Now, more than 30 years later, the time of farewell is approaching, and many scholars, journalists, and ordinary people who have followed Merkel have a similar feeling: politicians always have multiple faces, but this side of Merkel may be a result of being loyal to herself, perhaps more real than imagined.
"Silence is a beautiful thing for me"
"merkeln" is a verb invented by the Germans for Merkel, meaning, to say nothing, to do nothing, not to publish an attitude, to summarize Merkel's political style and human nature. In China, some people translate this as "silent speech and silent action.".
"Silence" sends a signal of stability that many Germans have longed for since the end of World War II. Her short blonde hair hadn't changed much. She is always dressed in color and is wearing black trousers. Her hands and five fingers are often facing each other, posing a "Merkel diamond" in front of her. She often shops alone in berlin's supermarkets and hikes to the same place in South Tyrol, Italy, every holiday.
She admired the virtue of silence: "Silence is a beautiful thing for me. "In our society, people are too reluctant to remain silent." Merkel once said on a TELEVISION show: "As a society, we are too noisy. ”
Gradually, the people and the prime minister formed a tacit understanding that governance could talk less. In 2006, Then SPD president Pratzeck told Merkel in a study that Germans did not like to hear too much argument about policy, and since then she has rarely talked about similar details or made promises easily. In 2013, during a televised debate with her then-main rival, former German Finance Minister Steinbrück, she told voters why she was chosen in just one sentence: "You know me." "It couldn't have been more concise.
Even anger is silent. The people in the Chancellery knew that when Merkel was quiet, it was dangerous. If she is getting quieter, it means that she is about to explode, and the way to express anger is cold. At one meeting, Merkel, who did not know much about the numbers and facts, asked an official, and the official's unbridled answer made Merkel very dissatisfied. "What a remarkable review." Merkel let out a mockery. After the meeting, she calmly "comforted" the dead-faced other party: "You answered correctly, but it didn't help me." ”
Merkel often shops alone in supermarkets in Berlin.
Public speaking and lyricism are Merkel's weaknesses, and the atmosphere when she speaks is always dull. She was wary of the outspoken genius orators. When Obama, who was still a U.S. senator, visited Berlin and spoke enthusiastically, she told her staff: "I want to see if he can put it into action." ”
She's certainly not a robot. She loves Wagner and will sit quietly with her husband Sauer into the lights-out opera hall and enjoy the melody of pathos. She is a regular in the German football team's dressing room, and in the stands she can raise her arms and roar with excitement. She has high requirements for humor, is a master of cold humor, and has also laughed because of the small things that poke the laughter point... But similar details would not appear in the reports of the time, and her rule was not to disclose, not to record, and to keep silent with the public.
In the personal world, when important turning points are encountered and big decisions are made, Merkel is usually silent. For example, on November 9, 1989, the day the Berlin Wall opened. Merkel was 35 years old and a physicist living in East Berlin. She saw the news, but instead of immediately following the ecstatic crowd to the Berlin Wall, she calmly went to the sauna, which was her routine every Thursday. After taking a sauna, she walked to the nearest checkpoint and decided to go to West Berlin to have a look. She wandered with the crowd, drank a few beers in one house, and then went home, citing the fact that she had to go to work the next day.
Later, many people ridiculed Merkel's performance that night, criticizing her lack of enthusiasm. But Merkel-esque enthusiasm is never so superficial. A month later, the young East German woman walked straight into the offices of the Democratic Awakening party, sat there and began typing, and soon became the party's press spokesman, starting her second life.
From scientist to politician, Merkel behaved as if she had changed into an ordinary job. No one knows how she thought about it and how she made her decisions. And this quiet, cautious way of thinking and making decisions is what Merkel learned from her childhood in East Germany. Karl Feldmeyer, a reporter for the Frankfurter Allgemeer, once said: "The GDR (East Germany) shaped Merkel in a powerful way that no one who grew up in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) could have imagined." ”
The "Merkel diamond" on the CDU campaign poster.
East German girl in jeans
Merkel's father, Horst Castleor, was a Christian clergyman who, in 1954, a few weeks after Merkel's birth, followed the Arrangement of the Archbishop of Hamburg and moved with his family to the small town of Templin in the northern Berlin state of Brandenburg, which lacked a priest. Merkel grew up there.
"I had a wonderful childhood." Merkel once explained, "What the West often overlooks is that life in the GDR is not all about politics. ”
This conclusion came to her at a very young age, with a ruler in her head for observation and comparison. "Every year when my cousins and aunts came to East Germany, I always used the opportunity to compare whether the children in the West were happier than the children in the East. They have something that I may not have, but we have large areas of forest and lakes. I often say to myself: Aren't you pretty good too? Merkel once said in an interview.
In tenth grade, Merkel began the "backpacker" experience. She and her friends traveled to Prague, Bucharest, Budapest, Sofia and other places on the Central European route. As an adult, she hitched a ride to Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. During the trip, she was still using that ruler to compare the people she saw to complete a kind of confirmation. "I keep testing to see if I can align myself with them intellectually," she said. If I reach the same level as them, then even if I can't go to the Mediterranean, it won't be so uncomfortable. ”
Her innate cautious personality and acquired environmental factors have made her develop the habit of making careful decisions, and she will not reveal how to do it until she understands one thing. It's like taking a swimming lesson in middle school, where she stands in front of a diving board for a lesson and no one knows what she's thinking. It wasn't until the last moment before the end of the class that she jumped decisively and calmly. Also on the day the Berlin Wall opened, according to her habits of thinking, perhaps she realized that politics would be the most dynamic area of the new Germany. She may have hesitated and seized the historic day with action.
In East Germany, Merkel's grades from childhood to adulthood were excellent. In secondary school, she was a member of the school's Youth Math Club and won prizes in both the Math Olympiad and the Russian Olympiad. She was admitted to the Physics Department of the University of Leipzig with full marks.
Merkel as a student (left).
But Merkel is not a nerd. She was lively and gregarious, often attending parties in jeans and responsible for bar mixing when organizing disco balls. During college, she met her first husband, Ulrich Merkel, and later experienced a 4-year marriage.
Upon graduation, she entered the Center for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences and became a "little scholar" of quantum chemistry. There, she met Dr. Achim Sauer, also her second husband.
In the 1980s, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the Polish crisis had broken out, and unknown upheavals were brewing. At the Academy of Sciences, Merkel's critical views of East Germany have gradually become clear, but she has never given the impression of a fighter in her life. She later said: "I took a more intelligent action, deciding not to deviate too much, including when some people seemed completely or necessary to resist." ”
The years of the Academy of Sciences had another profound impact on Merkel's political life, and the typical instrumental rationality of scientists will always be traced later. "She's the best analyst." A senior German official said in an interview with The New Yorker. During the European debt crisis, she delved into Greece's complex and inefficient pension system, and then took them out one by one to discuss with then Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. One aid who witnessed her conference call with Mr. Obama described it as "like they were doing a master's seminar." Ministers in Merkel's cabinet were intimidated by her powerful ability to memorize the details of official documents.
According to Merkel's vision at the time, she would work at the Academy of Sciences until the age of 60, that is, in 2014, when she received her pension, she would apply for a vacation in California. At that time, she would never have imagined that the 60-year-old herself not only did not retire, but was in the third term of the chancellor, continuing to stand at the peak of power in Germany.
On November 9, 1989, East Germany announced the opening of its borders. For the first time, the Berlin Wall, which has separated East and West Berlin for 28 years, has been cut through a slit.
"Cole's little girl" was waiting for the right moment
When a young East German female scientist enters politics, it unfolds as a story of patiently waiting for the opportunity and constantly searching for territory.
When she first entered politics, the distinct political labels of East Germany, women, young people, Christians, and scientists allowed Merkel to break through quickly in the short term, but it also made her face resistance in the longer term of the leap forward.
The real upture was in 1990. That year, Merkel's "Democratic Awakening" party merged with the CDU organization in East Germany, and Merkel subsequently became a member of the CDU. At the end of 1990, in the first general election after German reunification, Merkel became a bundesman. Soon after, she was added to the cabinet by Helmut Kohl, the "father of German reunification." In 1991, Merkel became vice-president of the CDU and minister of the federal ministry for women and youth, becoming the youngest federal minister.
In 1992, Merkel, then Minister for Women and Youth of the Federation, attended a cabinet meeting.
At the same time as the rapid leap, Merkel was called "Cole's little girl" and was regarded as a "political vase" that was all carried by Cole. The media also targeted her. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung commented that she "did not have the demeanor of a minister at all". The Stuttgart Daily described Merkel as "sometimes tired-eyed, preferring wide skirts and rustic shirts at the hem, and not liking grease and powder, which makes observant men quickly come to the conclusion of 'gray rats'." ”
Even Cole has similar words and deeds. When visiting the United States, he often regarded Merkel as the "mascot" of German reunification. All this annoyed Merkel and embarrassed her.
Merkel at this stage was even so fragile that she cried several times. During a visit to Israel in 1991, she was in the airport lounge and nearly burst into tears because she was neglected. Another time was at a cabinet meeting, where she was embarrassed and wept because of the crowding of her colleagues. In today's Merkel, this is unimaginable.
In 1991, merkel and former German Chancellor Kohl (right) were newcomers to the political scene.
For a long time, Merkel was waiting for the right moment, while studying politics and learning to grasp power.
Within the department, Merkel was respected for her ability to absorb information efficiently and earned the nickname "Angie the Snake" for her outspoken personality. She was concerned about abortion, equality laws, kindergarten education, unemployment and other issues. She is an energetic workaholic who figures out one problem and immediately moves on to the next.
In 1994, when Merkel was transferred to the position of environment minister, she quickly fired a pretentious senior civil servant as a sign of spite. In 1996, during negotiations on a nuclear waste law, Gerhard Schroeder, two years before becoming prime minister, called her performance "regrettable." Merkel responded with a rare sharp response in an interview: "I will push him into a dead corner, just like he treats me." I still need time, but one day it will come and I'm already looking forward to it. ”
In 1994, Merkel, who was already minister of the environment.
When to go up against the waves, when to turn around, in the democratic game formulated by West Germany, the former East German girl slowly became a surfer. She told herself: "I have to be tough or nothing will happen." ”
In 1999, CDU Party Chairman Kohl and his successor, Wolfgang Schaeuble, were embroiled in the "black gold case." Merkel, then CDU secretary-general, saw an opportunity. She commented in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, decisively calling on the CDU to break with Kohl.
The following year, Merkel stepped on Kohl's legacy toward the party presidency. Cole later told friends that supporting the young Merkel was the biggest mistake of his life, "I brought my killer."
In 2005, Merkel became the CDU's candidate for chancellorship, with then-Chancellor Schroeder in her place. On election night, Schroeder announced himself as the winner in advance: "When Merkel said she wanted to be chancellor, did you really believe my party would accept her?" Stop dreaming. Merkel seemed amused, and she said only coldly: "Simply put, you didn't win today." ”
• In Berlin, Germany, November 22, 2005, Merkel, who is about to become chancellor, is at the handover ceremony of the Chancellery.
As she had predicted, she pushed Schroeder into a dead corner, and she turned around and jumped to become Germany's first female federal chancellor.
During Merkel's administration, there were many female politicians around the world who shared her stage. Wang Yiming, Ph.D. from the School of International Relations at Chinese University and a special researcher at the Globalization Think Tank, compared these female politicians.
"Merkel's biggest feature is her refusal to use her feminine label." Wang Yiming told the "Global People" reporter, "Some female politicians will highlight their feminine characteristics, and their speeches are always talking about how to break the female ceiling and use the female label as a political tool." But Merkel was never interested. ”
In addition, Merkel refused to compare her, especially with former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. She described Thatcher's policy as "great," but when asked whether Thatcher was Merkel's role model, Merkel replied: "No, I say in a narrow sense that there is no need for political role models." I go my own way, I am myself. ”
"It's also a big difference. Most female politicians are accustomed to having an object of comparison, which may come from a father, husband, or female predecessor. Theresa May has to look back on Thatcher's past to save the empire's economy, and Park Geun-hye will never forget the bullet fired at her father... This kind of imitation and comparison, light or dark, with or without, brings them great constraints. In Merkel's view, there is no need to stand in the shadow of another person to show her own appearance. Wang Yiming said.
An inflection point in his ruling career
As chancellor, Merkel's career was made up of a string of crises. Among them, the decision-making in the refugee crisis is the most glimpse of Merkel's inner intellectual and emotional mix.
In July 2015, just days after the conclusion of the third Greek debt relief talks, Merkel met with local middle school students in Rostock. Riem Savile, a 14-year-old Palestinian girl, said she was afraid that if her family's asylum application was rejected, she would be deported to a refugee camp in Lebanon, telling Merkel in German: "I don't know what my future holds." I want to go to college, and I really want to achieve that goal. ”
Merkel's answer was the usual calmness: "We can't simply say that you can all come, everyone in Africa can come, we can't cope with so many people." "People thought it was a positive rejection.
But in September, Merkel abruptly announced that Germany was willing to host an unlimited number of refugees stranded in Hungary for humanitarian reasons and in the spirit of the Federal Basic Law. It's a policy destined to spark endless controversy, but Merkel is very adamant about making a demand to her citizens: "We can do it." ”
In An interview in September 2021, Merkel again mentioned refugee policy. She said it wasn't about accepting refugees in its entirety, but in 2015, refugees were already on the doorstep, and it would have been impossible for me to say, then, you guys go back across the Mediterranean.
This has to do with the education she received from a family of priests. Father had taught her that there was a stranger standing in front of your door in the rain, and you let him in and help him, and when he came in, don't grimace at him.
In addition, Merkel has always been brave enough to admit the unshirkable crimes committed by Germany in the face of foreign demands for survival, and she has repeatedly stressed that it is never exclusive, and even regarded the defense of Israel's homeland security as Germany's national obligation. For historical reasons, Merkel could not refuse.
However, Merkel's refugee policy eventually divided the German ruling coalition, directly leading to the rise of the far-right populist party "Germany Choice", which caused a structural impact on the political arena.
It was also an important inflection point in Merkel's ruling career, greatly depleting her political capital, leading her to issue a "double retirement" declaration in October 2018.
"I will leave with dignity"
On December 7, 2018, Merkel gave a farewell speech at the CDU Party Congress, marking the countdown to the end. "I'll be leaving with dignity, it's time to turn a new page," she said. ”
In 2019, Merkel was found to be showing old age and fatigue. In front of the public and the media, she trembled uncontrollably 3 times in a row. The first time was in a welcoming ceremony with visiting Ukrainian President Želensky. The reason announced by the Chancellery is that Merkel did not drink enough water. The second was at the resignation ceremony of German Justice Minister Caterina Baali, who explained that it was a psychological reaction. The third time was to greet Finnish Prime Minister Rinne, merkel repeated the phrase "I can hold on" to encourage herself to stop shaking. Although she herself said that she was in good health and did not need to worry about everyone, this still caused concern in public opinion.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world. In a video of her speech in December of that year, Merkel paused in tears as she mentioned the death toll, a rare emotional revelation: "I'm sorry, I feel sorry from the bottom of my heart, but if the price we pay is 590 deaths a day, then it seems unacceptable to me." "If we have too much contact on Christmas Eve right now and it ends up being the last Christmas we spend with our grandparents, then we must have done something wrong and shouldn't have let that happen."
During the pandemic, Merkel's approval rating soared to 82 percent. With the rationality of a scientist, she judged that this was a great disaster. In Germany, many of the anti-epidemic decrees are constitutionally outside the jurisdiction of the federal government, such as school closures and home isolation. But Merkel was adamant: "We need the federal states to act." ”
In a public speech in January, she reflected on the slow response to the epidemic exposure and the lag in digitization. In April, the cabinet passed a draft amendment, which means that Germany will add more stringent anti-epidemic restrictions and eliminate ambiguities in local epidemic prevention regulations. As vaccinations continue to rise, Merkel says Germany is getting closer to "the dawn at the end of the tunnel."
On July 22, 2021, Merkel attended the last regular summer press conference of her prime ministerial career.
Now, many people are concerned about Merkel's retirement plan. She says she wants to take a break and think about what she's "really interested in" in her free time to regain.
For the past 16 years, she has had little time to think about it. Merkel said: "At that time, I would try to read something, and slowly my eyes would close, because I was tired, then I would sleep for a while, and then, look again, where I would appear." ”
In 2019, Merkel held a 90-minute conversation with more than 200 people in the small coastal town of Stralsund in northeastern Germany. Asked what would be written in her history books 50 years from now, Merkel's answer was summed up in the epitaph of former German Chancellor Willy Brandt: "I have done everything I can." ”