An Unsought Crown: Merkel’s Role as World Leader; Germany’s Place as Global Power

In the years after WW2, many observers wondered whether Germany would be permanently relegated to a ‘third world’ status. Some, like U.S. politician Henry Morgenthau, even proposed turning the entire nation into farmland, bereft of technology and industry.

At the war’s end in 1945, Germany entered its Stunde Null - its ‘zero hour,’ a pause in world history, a historic reset, the near-total destruction finally complete, a despair-inspiring level of hardship, but also a chance to start over. Within a decade, the Wirtschaftswunder created one of the quickest economic rebounds in history, as the nation rebuilt itself with dizzying speed.

It was no “economic miracle,” but rather the predictable results of the policies put into place by Germany’s first postwar chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, and his appointee, Ludwig Erhard.

Adenauer and Erhard unleashed the industriousness of the people by cutting tax rates and deregulating the economy. The nation grasped the opportunity with industriousness and creativity.

The blossoming economy, however, had unintended consequences. Germany had no desire to be a world leader. After the trauma of WW2, the Germans rather wanted to attract as little attention from other nations as possible.

But other nations noticed. They noticed the enviable economic growth which the Germans created year after year. They noticed the technological advancements in many industrial sectors. They noticed how leaders like Adenauer built relations with former enemies.

Against its will, Germany was placed into a leadership role among the nations. As German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier writes,

As Germany’s power has grown, so, too, has the need for the country to explain its foreign policy more clearly. Germany’s recent history is the key to understanding how it sees its place in the world.

Unexpectedly and unintentionally becoming a leader, Germany has been expected to produce answers about global situations.

Germany’s world leadership is not the result of some grand plan to rise above other nations. It was the unintended byproduct of simply being responsible and providing for one’s own future.

Since 1998, I have served my country as a member of four cabinets and as the leader of the parliamentary opposition. Over that time, Germany did not seek its new role on the international stage.

Germany, for example, worked to avoid debt, both in the public sector and the private sector. It worked to keep strong manufacturing and export.

It turns out that by simply being responsible with your own country, you become a leader to the rest of the world: an example, a role-model. Steinmeier continues:

Rather, it emerged as a central player by remaining stable as the world around it changed. As the United States reeled from the effects of the Iraq war and the EU struggled through a series of crises, Germany held its ground.

Europe began to look to German leadership as many of the other EU nations dealt with self-inflicted damage in their own economies.

Money influences diplomatic relationships: in addition to economic guidance, other nations look to Germany to manage international relations, as Steinmeier writes:

It fought its way back from economic difficulty, and it is now taking on the responsibilities befitting the biggest economy in Europe. Germany is also contributing diplomatically to the peaceful resolution of multiple conflicts around the globe: most obviously with Iran and in Ukraine, but also in Colombia, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Syria, and the Balkans. Such actions are forcing Germany to reinterpret the principles that have guided its foreign policy for over half a century. But Germany is a reflective power: even as it adapts, a belief in the importance of restraint, deliberation, and peaceful negotiation will continue to guide its interactions with the rest of the world.

Becoming the chancellor of Germany means become an international diplomatic broker. Angela Merkel, chancellor since 2005, has had to face not only Germany’s challenges, but the world’s as well.

Writing about Chancellor Merkel’s time in office, Alan Crawford and Tony Czuczka note that

Barring an 18-month honeymoon period, Merkel’s time in office came to be defined by a continuous thread of unprecedented turmoil not of her making but which required her to act nonetheless. Her first term was dominated by the U.S. subprime-led banking meltdown and subsequent global recession, which led straight into the crisis in the euro area spreading from Greece that rocked her second term.

Within a few decades, Germany has gone from a postwar wasteland to a world leader. In 1945, the world looked at Germany with pity. In 2016, the world looks to Germany for answers.

In 1945, Germany was not expected to be able even to feed its own citizens. In 2016, Germany is expected to explain, and solve, the planet’s toughest problems.

Germany as a World Power; Merkel as a World Leader

In 1945, at the end of WW2, many observers wondered whether Germany would permanently sink to the level of a ‘third world’ nation. Some leaders, like Henry Morgenthau, proposed that all of Germany be turned into farmland, and be left without technology or industry.

Within a decade, however, Germany had left behind the postwar Stunde Null – a sort of historical pause in the wake of the war’s devastation and simultaneously a historic reset, a chance to start over, the ‘zero hour’ – and progressed toward its Wirtschaftswunder – its ‘economic miracle’ orchestrated by Konrad Adenauer and his appointee, Ludwig Erhard, who cut taxes and deregulated the economy, empowering the Germans to construct one of history’s most dazzling economic recoveries and breathtaking postwar reconstruction.

Eager to keep a low profile and shy about any form of assertiveness, Germany did not seek a leading role among the world’s nations. But the power of its economy, and the creativity and industriousness of its people, placed that role upon a hesitant and even unwilling Germany. Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, writes:

Over the past two decades, Germany’s global role has undergone a remarkable transformation. Following its peaceful reunification in 1990, Germany was on track to become an economic giant that had little in the way of foreign policy. Today, however, the country is a major European power that attracts praise and criticism in equal measure. This holds true both for Germany’s response to the recent surge of refugees — it welcomed more than one million people last year — and for its handling of the euro crisis.

Just as Germany was reluctant to assume a guiding role in the world, so was its chancellor, Angela Merkel.

Merkel’s style is calm, steady, and reticent. She hardly fits the romanticized notion of a world-historical leader. Yet history demonstrates that such people rarely correspond to this romanticized concept. Alan Crawford and Tony Czuczka write:

A scientist by training whose defining trait is caution, Merkel was forced to look beyond just Germany’s interests and to assume leadership in Europe. Thrust to the fore of policy making, she stepped up, slowly but with growing determination, to defend the euro she saw as the glue holding together the European Union (EU) that had been forged out of the ashes of war to stop the continent ever again descending into conflict. But how did the chancellor who came to office pledging to govern by means of many “small steps” come to take on the role of European savior? And what would the rest of Europe make of her prescription for Europe’s ills?

Germany did not seek a key role among the world’s nations, but by maintaining a consistent record of economic growth and productivity, Germany became a model to which other nations looked for counsel.

Merkel did not seek to be a world leader, but by demonstrating her abilities in global diplomatic relations, domestic policy, and party politics, she displayed the skills which caused other leaders to seek her guidance.

From the banking meltdown of 2008 to the subsequent Greece crisis, from Putin’s adventurism in the Crimean Peninsula to the ‘Brexit’ vote in 2016, Merkel has handled decisions with an unflustered proficiency which causes other world leaders to study her, and which caused the Germans themselves to forgive her for allowing a mass of dubious immigrants, posing as Syrian refugees, into the country.

Without seeking it, wanting it, or trying to get it, Germany and Merkel have obtained roles as a world leaders.