It seems a very long time since we were all told that “Germany is doing better” and “is a mature country… as opposed to Brexit Britain”.
Back then, The Economist magazine bowed to no one in its adoration of Berlin, declaring: “Whatever the question, the answer is Germany.”
Well, certainly not anymore.
Germany is in a never-ending attack of anxiety – many areas of life are rapidly going wrong.
Last week, after months of resisting the call, the German government finally ended its excuses about sending 14 tanks to help Ukraine. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (left) gave in to international pressure and said he would also allow other European countries to send their own German-made Leopards through the country.
Some mistakes are only symbolic, such as the premature elimination of the national soccer team from the World Cup for a second tournament in a row.
But others point to a deep malaise within the German economic and political model.
Instead of Germany being Europe’s roaring engine and the rest of the EU happily clinging to its coattails, the Berlin partners now see it as a brake, slowing down decision-making for the common good.
Last week, after months of resisting the call, the government finally ended its evasion over whether to send 14 tanks to help Ukraine.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave in to international pressure and said he would also allow other European countries to send their own German-made Leopards through the country.
But the tormented debate in Parliament on the subject was neither edifying nor lengthy.
The brutal fact is that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put the smug assumptions of modern German superiority in the cruellest limelight.
Germany’s leaders had struck a Faustian bargain with the Kremlin. Gas and oil, delivered from Russia on cheap, long-term contracts, would power Germany’s metalworking manufacturing industry and keep it globally competitive.
For years, Mercedes and BMWs sped down freeways were symbols of the country’s economic dynamism. But they depended on importing cheap hydrocarbons from Russia.
So it was no surprise that when Vladimir Putin seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, Berlin refused to impose serious sanctions and business went on as usual.
The truth is that German politicians and business leaders have acted very well on the Kremlin’s generosity.
For example, former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder got a seat on the board of the state-controlled Russian Nord Stream pipeline. The project ensured that more Russian gas than ever flowed into Germany – until Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
Since leaving office on the eve of Putin’s blitzkrieg in Ukraine, Merkel has emerged a few times to deny any responsibility for what went wrong – as if her 16 years as German leader were too short to give Putin a dash to do the calculation.
During Angela Merkel’s long tenure as head of government, she cultivated Putin as a business partner. Their friendship was marked by gifts of flowers and a toy dog.
As a young communist agitator in the same East Germany where Putin once served as a KGB agent, Merkel was criticized by her enemies for speaking Russian better than German.
Since leaving office on the eve of Putin’s blitzkrieg in Ukraine, Merkel has emerged a few times to deny any responsibility for what went wrong – as if her 16 years as German leader were too short to give Putin a dash to do the calculation.
On other issues, Merkel, who was trained as a scientist and boasted of her cautious approach, has repeatedly jumped to hasty conclusions.
In 2011, she suddenly announced the denuclearization of German energy policy. After an accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, she ordered the closure of nuclear power plants throughout Germany. With a single stroke of the Chancellor’s pen, the country’s energy-guzzling industry became more dependent than ever on Russia.
In another decision with disastrous effect, in 2015 Merkel opened Germany’s borders to mass migration from war-torn countries, from Syria to Afghanistan and beyond. Her decision had a huge knock-on effect – EU countries forced under Schengen rules to open their own borders to let millions through.
An estimated 1.7 million people applied for asylum in Germany between 2015 and 2019, making Germany the country with the fifth highest refugee population in the world. The sudden increase in demand for housing, schooling and medical care put immense pressure on public services and sparked the rise of the far right to an electoral base unparalleled since the 1930s.
Merkel was not the only German politician with great influence across the continent.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was a former German defense minister – best remembered presiding over soldiers who learned to march with broomsticks instead of weapons when military spending was cut. Her flawed legacy lives on.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (left) was previously Germany’s defense minister – best known as the president of soldiers who learned to march with broomsticks instead of guns when military spending was cut. Her flawed legacy lives on.
Chancellor Scholz admitted last week that most of the 14 tanks he was reluctant to send to Ukraine were not operational.
Last month, the defense secretary admitted that 18 other state-of-the-art tanks – the world’s most expensive infantry fighting vehicle – went down in a disastrous exercise.
Meanwhile, Germany is deeply divided over the decision to send tanks to defend Ukraine.
A large minority, especially in the old GDR, supports either the old Communist Party, reborn as Die Linke (The Left Party), or a radical right-wing party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has established itself as the official opposition party .
As Germans suffer a rise in the cost of living as the price of their economy is pegged to the Kremlin, there is a risk that the radical left and right will emerge as challengers to the democratic middle ground. Such a prospect has haunted Germany since the collapse of the Weimar years in 1933, when Hitler seized power.
As Scholz struggles to wean the country off Russian oil and gas, his ruling party’s green allies are resorting to burning lignite, a sulfur-rich fossil fuel.
As a result, tracts of land are being plowed over to free up stocks of this low-grade coal. Meanwhile, nuclear reactors stand still.
In May, Scholz went on an African tour with a begging bowl in hand and looked for emergency power deals with Niger, Senegal and South Africa. In exchange for these coal-fuel import deals—which ran counter to his desire for a “green” economy—African regimes that did not have the best democratic record were generously allowed to purchase German tanks.
The fact is that it is a sign of desperation rather than strength that Scholz is now pushing cooperation with the West’s other major geopolitical rival, China.
A flagship of the German economy, its powerful auto industry, is heavily dependent on sales in China – around half of all Mercedes and Volkswagens are sold in China.
What will happen if the Beijing regime copies Russia’s attack on Ukraine and decides to try to seize its neighbor Taiwan? Would Scholz undergo another change of heart? Could Germany afford to lose the Chinese market?
Perhaps this is just another phase in history that Germany is going through.
We had the Weimar Republic, the rise of National Socialism and the period of peace after World War II.
Of course, the country has recovered from much worse situations. Perhaps, to paraphrase Churchill about America, “the Germans can be trusted to do the right thing, but only after they have tried all the alternatives”.
But in today’s world of interlocking global crises, does Germany have that luxury? And, more importantly, does the rest of the world have the time to wait for Berlin to come on board?
● Mark Almond is Director of the Crisis Research Institute, Oxford.