JOHN KORNBLUM, A formerAmerican ambassador toBer-
lin, reckons that post-war German history has moved
broadly in cycles of 20 to 30 years. The first started with the birth
of West Germany’s federal republic in 1949. The second began
with the “1968 generation” of young progressives who asked dif-
ficult questions about the country’s past and took on its conser-
vative establishment. The third commenced with reunification
in 1990 and continued with the election of the Social Democrat-
Green government in 1998. With the end of Angela Merkel’s era
on the horizon (she is not expected to run again in 2021), that
third period is now drawing to a close.
Her legacy may turn out to be the completion of the “red-
green” project. Gerhard Schröder, herSPDpredecessor, pushed
through painful economic reformsand initiated a relaxation of
social mores after the stuffy years of Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Mr
Schröder’s government opened citizenship to immigrants with-
out German roots. It also broke a pacifist taboo with Germany’s
first military engagement since the second world war, in Kosovo.
Its slogan was “for a modern Germany”. That required persua-
sion and argument. Joschka Fischer, Mr Schröder’s foreign min-
ister, a Green, made the case for the Kosovo intervention to heck-
ling at his party’s conference in 1999.
It fell to Mrs Merkel to steer the country through that period
of modernisation. She has largely avoided fights. Instead her
calm presence—inoffensive, stable, unpolitical even—has al-
lowed the radical changes introduced by her predecessor to set-
tle in, giving the cautious German public time to digest them. Her
election campaignlast summer epitomised the style with talk
about “a country in which we live well and happily”. Even her
uncharacteristically bold stance during the refugee crisis came
with the soothing mantra: “We’ll manage it.”
In “Germany and the Germans”, a book about Helmut
Kohl’s Germany in the mid-1990s, John Ardagh, a British writer,
tells the story of a German friend who was tempted to buy a pair
of outré earrings in Lyon, but decided against them because “I
knew I could never wear them here...people would have been
genuinely shocked.” The country described by Herfried and Ma-
rina Münkler in “The New Germans” is more open, informal and
increasingly diverse, but also more fragmented and anxious. It is
integrated into a roller-coaster global economy as never before,
and is slowly taking on new responsibilities in the world.
Its ability to adapt is greater than many give it credit for. In
1999, as the economic costs of reunification were weighing it
down, this newspaper branded it “the sick man of the euro”. But
it reformed, and if anything its economy is now too strong for
everyone else’s good; its giant trade surplus is in danger of desta-
bilising the world economy. For anyone who travels through
Germany today (perhaps on one of its excellent high-speed
trains), its success and its stability are evident. For all its recent so-
cial and economic fragmentation, it has no French-styleban-
lieuesor American-style ghettos. A study published last year by
the Bertelsmann Foundation, a think-tank, found that 80% of
Germans considered themselves politically centrist, compared
with only 51% of French people, even though the country had re-
cently taken in many hundreds of thousands of mostly MuslimThe next eraChildren of Merkel
German politics has become too quiet. It needs more
democratic rough-and-tumbleThe EconomistApril 14th 2018 11GERMANY2
1SPECIAL REPORTpared to take a more active role in the world, and show more
emollience in Europe, it may find it hard to deliver on these good
intentions. It is struggling, for example, to provide enough work-
ing Leopard tanks to meet itsNATOcommitments. In the days of
the cold war it had over 2,000 tanks, but this has come down to
about 250, and many of those do not work. Ursula von der
Leyen, who has been defence minister since 2013, has battled to
modernise the German armed forces, but they still suffer from
problems with equipment and remain detached from the coun-
try’s wider foreign, security and aid strategies. André Wüstner,
chairman of the German Bundeswehr Association, has charac-
terised the German engagement in Afghanistan as “random aid
spending, little co-ordination between ministries, paired with il-
lusions of feasibility and excessive expectations”.
The new government, like its predecessor, is notionally
committed to the 2% NATOspending target, but will probably
end up closer to the current 1.2%. In other areas, too, Germany is
underpowered. “It lacks the diplomats to take on several major
diplomatic initiatives at once,” notes Sarah Brockmeier of the
Global Public Policy Institute, a foreign-policy think-tank in Ber-
lin. In the Ukraine crisis Germany’sassertiveness towards Russia
is limited by its continued commitment to NordStream2, a new
gas pipeline running direct from Russia to Germany, leaving the
countries in between in the cold. The new “Marshall Plan” for Af-
rica involves a puny €1.5bn of additional EUspending.Europe writ small
Germany’s new Europeanism may prove similarly disap-
pointing. The effusive language of the coalition deal makes no
mention of a banking union—the best way of heading off the
next euro crisis—and comes with no numbers attached. At most
Mr Macron can expect modest concessions from Germany, not
the Beethovian transformation he hoped for.
Even as the world is asking Germany to ditch its traditional
caution, the country still sees itself as closer to Switzerland than
America in scale and thus responsibility. During the election
campaign the SPD’s Sigmar Gabriel, then the foreign minister,
called the 2% NATOgoal an “arms race”. Many also scoff at Mr
Macron; even Der Spiegel, a liberal weekly, snootily called the
French president an “expensive friend”.
The German public still shows limited interest in a reassess-
ment of Germany’s place in the world. In a study published in
December by the Körber Foundation, a think-tank, 52% of re-
spondents thought their country should hold back, against 43%
who felt it should become more strongly involved. Ms Brock-
meier thinks political leaders need to confront the voters with
Germany’s responsibilities.But will they? 7Bundes-whereSource: German defence ministryGermany, military weapons systems, 2017Eurofighter jets
Tornado jetsA400M transport aircraftCH-53 transport helicopters
NH-90 transport helicopters
Tiger attack helicoptersLeopard 2 tanksFrigates
SubmarinesReady for action
Not ready for action89
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