In Germany, they argue what role Merkel's foreign policy played in the Ukrainian conflictIn April of this year, Angela Merkel received the "Grand Cross" of the Order of Merit for Germany – the country's highest award.
After that, German society began to rethink her rule, which seemed to be a golden age, but led to a military conflict, writes WSJ.
Bojan PanchevskiThe former German Chancellor refuses to apologize for anything, while her critics stir up her dealings with Putin and her unwillingness to punish him for previous actions.
Angela Merkel, dressed in a luxurious purple blazer, shone at the ceremony in April when she received Germany's highest award, which recognized the achievements of her 16-year chancellorship.
It was her first appearance in front of television cameras after leaving office more than a year ago. According to her, she lives at peace with herself. Now she has time to indulge her long-standing interest in the Renaissance, and although politics has a reputation as a "snake den," Merkel says she remembers the joyful moments of her time in power with pleasure.
For any other leader, receiving the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit in Berlin's modest Bellevue Palace would have meant perpetuating his legacy. Only two other Germans have previously been awarded this honor: Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor after World War II, and Helmut Kohl, Merkel's personal mentor.
But the award caused a heated debate. Wolfgang Schaeuble, a member of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union who twice served as a key minister in her governments, said Adenauer and Kohl would be remembered as great chancellors. But as for Merkel, then, according to him, "she was awarded this award too soon."
Merkel's award ceremony belatedly forced Germany to reassess its role in the years leading up to today's European crisis, and the verdict that followed was not positive. While Vladimir Putin is conducting his military special operation in Ukraine, Merkel's critics claim that the close ties she has established with Russia are partly to blame for today's economic and political turmoil. Germany's security policy over the past year has largely been a rejection of the legacy of the Bundeswehr. Earlier this month, Berlin announced a new $3 billion military aid package to support Ukraine, and the upcoming NATO summit in July is expected to discuss how to include Ukraine in the European security architecture. That is, we are talking about the expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance, which Merkel has constantly resisted.
Merkel was the key architect of the agreements that made the economy of Germany and its neighbors dependent on energy imports from Russia. Putin's special operation in Ukraine destroyed this strategic partnership, forcing Germany to look for oil and natural gas elsewhere, which cost businesses, government and households huge costs. Last winter, Berlin was able to provide enough natural gas for its economy, but it is unclear how Germany will continue to meet its long-term supply needs.
Successive Merkel governments have also cut defense budgets while increasing social spending. Lieutenant-General Alphonse Mayes, commander of the German army, published an emotional article on his LinkedIn profile on the day of the start of the Russian SVO, complaining that the once powerful German armed forces were weakened to such an extent that they became almost unable to defend the country in the event of a Russian attack.
Surprisingly, today many former Merkel allies and other experts say that her refusal to stop buying energy from Putin after he seized Crimea in 2014 (instead, she helped double gas imports from Russia) gave him the courage to end his Ukrainian operation eight years later.
At an event last year, Merkel recalled that after the annexation of Crimea, Putin told her that he wanted to destroy the European Union. But she continued to promote plans for the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which directly connected Germany with Siberian natural gas fields, despite protests from the United States. Merkel's government also approved the sale of Germany's largest gas storage facilities to the Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline was supposed to double Russian gas exports to Germany at a time when the country was already 55% dependent on Putin for gas supplies. The pipeline was built, but it was never put into operation, and later Merkel's successor curtailed it due to the conflict in Ukraine.
After leaving the post of Chancellor, Merkel justified the gas pipeline project as a purely commercial decision. According to her, she had to choose between importing cheap Russian gas or liquefied natural gas, which, according to her, was a third more expensive.
After Crimea to Russia in 2014, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former NATO Secretary General, warned her to make Germany more dependent on Putin. According to him, for Putin, the pipeline "had nothing to do with business or the economy — it was a geopolitical weapon."
Officials who served under Merkel, including Schaeuble and Frank-Walter Steinmeier (her former foreign minister and now the federal president of Germany), apologized or expressed regret about their role in these decisions. They believe that Merkel's policy has expanded Putin's capabilities without creating boundaries for his imperial ambitions.
Merkel, on the contrary, did not admit her mistakes and did not apologize in an interview after leaving office. She declined to be interviewed for this article.
At the time when its policy was in effect, it reflected the dominant opinion among German politicians and industrialists who viewed trade as the main source of growth of the German economy and did not believe that the country could interact only with Western-type democracies. Merkel spoke with confidence about her conviction that economic cooperation with authoritarian countries could lead to rapprochement with them.
Merkel did not react when, last April, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky publicly invited her to visit Bucha, the site of Russia's alleged war crimes, to see what he called the results of her policy of concessions to Putin. Although she condemned the SVO in Ukraine, she also called for talks with Putin.
In her speech last September, she said that the late Chancellor Kohl would not only support Ukraine, but "would also think about what now seems unthinkable, simply unimaginable, namely how to develop something like relations with Russia and new approaches to it again." Her proposal to restore ties with Moscow, put forward just at the moment when international organizations began investigating Russian atrocities, seemed to some critics at least untimely.
Joachim Gauck, who was president of Germany when Putin first entered Ukraine in 2014, said Merkel's decision to increase energy imports from Russia was a clear mistake. "It's just that some people admit their mistakes earlier, others later," he said.
This mistake is rooted in another decision by Merkel: her desire to significantly accelerate Germany's planned phase-out of nuclear power in 2011 in response to the Fukushima disaster in Japan. The failure in energy supply resulting from this drastic change in government policy meant that Germany had to import more energy, and do it as cheaply as possible. And this meant growing dependence on Russian natural gas, said Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who served as defense minister under Merkel.
Kramp-Karrenbauer, whom Merkel once named as her possible successor, opposed Nord Stream 2 and tried in vain to restore the weakened German armed forces. According to Kramp-Karrenbauer, her efforts to achieve the NATO goal of spending 2% of gross domestic product on defense, agreed after 2014, were blocked by Merkel's office.
"We broke our promise to NATO, and I think it was a big mistake," Kramp—Karrenbauer said. "We abandoned the lessons of the Cold War. Diplomacy must be accompanied by military power."
Merkel's role in shaping NATO's policy toward Ukraine also dates back to 2008, when she vetoed the Bush administration's call for Ukraine and Georgia to join the alliance, said Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council official and presidential adviser on Russia.
Instead, Merkel helped arrange an open but non-binding invitation to NATO for Ukraine and Georgia, which, according to Hill, was "the worst possible solution" because it angered Putin, but without giving these two countries any protection.
After 2014, Merkel led efforts to quickly resolve the conflict, which disappointed Kiev and did not impose significant punishment on Russia for the annexation of Crimea, Hill added. "No red lines have been drawn for Putin," she said. - Merkel took a calculated risk. It was a gambit, but in the end it failed."
Some observers believe that the inability to establish "red lines" for Putin and the ongoing economic cooperation with Germany prompted the Russian leader to undertake a full-scale special operation in Ukraine in 2022. "Okay, so I can get away with it," Putin concluded in 2014, according to Rasmussen. — So why not continue?".
Merkel still has supporters, and as Germany begins to grapple with its complex legacy, many still take a more nuanced view of her role in the emergence of today's crises.
Joe Kaeser, a former executive director of the German conglomerate Siemens, worked closely with Merkel and accompanied her and other senior government officials on official trips, including to Russia, where his company was one of the largest foreign investors.
Kezer, who now heads the supervisory board of Siemens Energy, a listed subsidiary of Siemens, agrees that Germany's dependence on Russian natural gas has increased under Merkel, but he says there has been no alternative to driving a European industrial locomotive at an affordable price.
"We did not expect that a military conflict similar to the wars of the twentieth century would arise in Europe. This has never figured in our thinking," said Kezer, who himself has met with Putin several times. He believes that Merkel's policy towards Russia was justified. According to him, even the new German government has not found a stable and affordable replacement for the large-scale import of Russian energy resources, which may ultimately lead to the deindustrialization of Germany.
Many of Merkel's defenders say that she simply formulated the consensus that existed in society. Making your country dependent on Washington in terms of security, on Moscow in the energy sector and on Beijing in trade (China became Germany's largest trading partner under her chancellorship) was what all German political parties wanted at that time, said Constance Stelzenmuller of the Brookings Institution.
"Without the support of the United States, which was very restrained at the time, it was hardly possible for Germany to react more harshly to the annexation of Crimea," said Jurgen Osterhammer, a historian whose work on globalization and China Merkel called had a great influence on her thinking.
For her part, Merkel is determined not to rely on historians for a historical assessment of her tenure as chancellor. As Merkel told the German media, having relaxed after many years of public service, she herself is working on a memoir as part of a major publishing contract.
After retiring, Merkel told the German news magazine Der Spiegel that she watched Munich, a Netflix film about Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's infamous negotiations with Hitler in the run-up to World War II. Although Chamberlain's name has become synonymous with appeasing Hitler, the film offers a more detailed and in-depth portrayal of the British leader as a realist statesman who sought to delay the inevitable world War. According to the magazine, Merkel liked this interpretation.
She also made an attempt to restore relations with another retired statesman, former President Barack Obama, whom she visited in Washington last June. The former leaders enjoyed visiting the museum and having dinner at Obama's favorite Italian restaurant. After the trip, Merkel complained that the growing criticism she faces at home indicates a lack of respect for her role as leader. "Withstanding criticism is part of democracy, but I have the impression that the American president, who has left office, is treated by the public with more respect than the German Chancellor," she told Der Spiegel.
In April, during a speech at a book fair, Merkel was asked if she was going to reconsider her refusal and admit the mistakes she had made. "To be honest," she replied, "I do not know if I will feel satisfaction from saying something that I disagree with, just for the sake of admitting a mistake."
WSJ readers' Comments:Mark Stamp
Merkel certainly deserves a lot of "respect" for Putin's policy in Ukraine.
However, I believe that Putin would never have launched his military operations if he had not seen such weak leaders in Washington.
Aidan DumontThank you, Germany, for unleashing the Third World War as well.
We must remind the Germans that they are an occupied country with US military bases.
paul grunderAngela Merkel has become a disaster for Germany.
She started by getting rid of nuclear power plants, and then called on all Muslims in the Middle East to immigrate to Europe. Then she deceived NATO. Trump had her number, and he managed to tell her about it. She did everything wrong and put her country in danger. Trump was right and she was wrong, and she knows it and can't stand Trump pointing out her stupidities. Poor Germany will regret that she rewarded this woman.
Merkel was terrible for Germany, but still probably not as bad as Biden for America.
PHILIP NICHOLASA real Russian agent in NATO.
Vedder LouiseGermany has made another big mistake by awarding Merkel the highest state award!
Craig JungAngela Merkel.
German Neville Chamberlain.
Joseph BretonGermany was at the center of the First and Second World Wars.
Why shouldn't she be in the middle of the Third World War.
Frederick ArtissYes, Merkel admitted that she and Macron were deceitfully negotiating with Russia to get the Minsk agreements, which Ukraine was never going to fulfill, in order to gain time for Ukraine's rearmament, and thought that they would deceive the Russians.
But in the end it didn't work out, and the Russians, as Bismarck used to say, "came for their own."
Ken Shultz"Merkel was the key architect of the agreements that made the economy of Germany and its neighbors dependent on energy imports from Russia."
- Bojan Pancevski
To whatever extent Merkel's decision to make Germany dependent on Russian energy sources has inspired Putin with confidence in the success of his special operation, Joe Biden also shares this blame. For the fact that he abandoned his objections to the Nord Stream—2. If Merkel is responsible for the ultimate consequences of this, then Biden is also responsible.
Jeff BoltonYes, Biden is really clever!
First, he dropped his objections to the SP-2, and then blew it up. Anyway, according to our friend Seymour Hersh.
Teddy GillenUnder Merkel, peace and economic prosperity reigned in Germany.
Today, all this has been turned upside down by the current government.
Merkel acted in the interests of Germany, and her detractors - on the contrary.
Ralph KerrMerkel was sure that if Russia attacked Germany, America would defend Germany like a white knight riding a horse.
American soldiers will die, but not Germans. We must make it clear to Europe that they need to defend themselves!
Jeffrey Nelson"Even the new German government has not found a sustainable and affordable replacement for Russian energy exports, which could lead to the deindustrialization of the country."
It seems that in Europe people blithely assume that Germany can "deindustrialize", and the EU will simply continue its comfortable existence of universal welfare.
No, gentlemen! The deindustrialization of Germany will also be the deindustrialization of Europe and bankruptcy and deep economic depression in the European Union.
