The mood in Washington about German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) has not yet cleared up. On Thursday, President Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that Merz should spend more time fixing his “broken country” and not interfere in other people’s affairs. A day earlier, Trump had announced that he was investigating whether American soldiers could be withdrawn from Germany.
On Monday, Merz said the US is being “humiliated” in Iran. He made that statement during a visit to a school in Marsberg in the Sauerland – not the most logical place for such a political statement. Trump responded that Merz “has no idea what he’s talking about.” Merz tried to calm the disagreement and said during a press conference on Wednesday that he and Trump are “on speaking terms”.
On Thursday, Merz again spoke to citizens, this time in the Hanseatic city of Salzwedel in Saxony-Anhalt. This time too, his advisors probably had sweaty hands about what Merz blurted out, as communications expert Johannes Hillje recently stated in NRC.
Also read
‘Chancellor Merz is an elephant in a china shop in his communications’
But in Salzwedel Merz is businesslike and stiff. The regular excitement about his words, the chancellor said when asked, is due to the fact that every statement is immediately circulated and repeated endlessly, and that people get excited about the slightest thing. This does not fully do justice to the transatlantic dynamics he has created in recent days. In an interview with Der Spiegel Merz talked this week about a “hypernervous public space that is easily triggered.” But Merz, he said, does not want to pretend to be anything other than who he is.
Many people have criticized Merz’s communication even before the meeting. Uwe Schulz, one of the interested parties from Salzwedel, thinks it is Merz’s biggest flaw. He did not mind that about the US in Iran: “Trump is unpredictable anyway, one day you are his best friend, the next day he thinks you are an asshole.” Schulz points to a statement by Merz last week about pensions – that the statutory pension would no longer be sufficient to live well in the future. “That’s so clumsy. He breaks so much porcelain.” Visitor Klaus Arndt also talks about the ruling on the pensions. About Trump, Arndt says: “You don’t need to give him more ammunition for unpredictable behavior.”
State elections
Saxony-Anhalt will have state elections at the beginning of September. In polls, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is at almost 40 percent, meaning the party may be able to govern without a coalition partner. Merz’s CDU stands at 25 percent.
How difficult it will be for the CDU in the elections becomes clear outside the cultural center, where the entire spectrum of critics has gathered. There are farmers’ tractors protesting against high diesel prices. Members of the action group ‘Grandmas against the Right’ object on a banner to the local CDU, which acted together with the AfD in a decision on cultural subsidies. Young people chant that they will never join the army for Merz, because of the threat of conscription. A man from the peace movement shouts that “Adolf Hitler already wanted Germany”critical‘is becoming (ready for war), and now the CDU wants that too.”
Trekkers stand at the Kulturhaus in Salzwedel, in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, on Thursday, where Chancellor Friedrich Merz meets citizens. The text on the board on the left reads: “In chess, the pawns always make the first move and the king always falls in the end.”
Photo Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert / dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images
The public is also skeptical about Merz inside. When he talks about measures to reduce the price of petrol, there is scorn. When Merz refers to the constitution to explain why civil servants do not contribute to the statutory pension system, he is booed. A woman who has been treated for skin cancer invites Merz to her funeral because she wants the chancellor to see that she cannot afford it. The tenor of most questioners is that too much money is going abroad. “What’s wrong with us?” asks the woman from the funeral invitation.
Merz is not exactly looking for a connection with the audience. With the often personal questions – from the woman with skin cancer, or from a mother of a disabled child – Merz starts to list the budget deficits. He clearly did not come to Salzwedel for a charm offensive.
People in the room are not interested in Germany’s role in Europe or the feud with Trump
Merz is more likely to be on the defensive – as much at home as he is against Trump. The people in the room are not interested in Germany’s role in Europe or the feud with the American president. Most are concerned about high fuel prices or cuts to health care. “We are no longer respected as an economic power,” shouts a man in the audience.
Earlier in the day, news broke that Volkswagen’s profits fell by 28 percent this quarter. This is also a problem for Saxony-Anhalt, because there are many suppliers for the factory in Wolfsburg, in the neighboring state of Lower Saxony. Some of those suppliers are threatened with closure. In that respect, Donald Trump’s complaint about Germany does not sound very different from that of many residents of Saxony-Anhalt.
Also read
With more manpower and more weapons, Germany should have the ‘strongest conventional army’ in Europe
