The story of Angela Merkel is that of a small-town girl who had no intentions of going into politics, but was inspired to do so by a significant national event, and went on to become the first female chancellor in German history.
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Merkel was born in 1954 in Hamburg, West Germany. Shortly after her birth, the family moved to the town of Templin in East Germany. Her father, Horst Kasner, was a Lutheran pastor, and so Merkel received a Christian upbringing, despite the fact that East Germany was a communist regime at the time.
Merkel never publicly opposed the regime. As a teenager, she even joined the official communist youth movement sponsored by the Marxist-Leninist Socialist Unity Party.
As a young woman, she expressed no interest in politics. In fact, she had even begun studying physics in college. But the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 was a turning point for Merkel, who then decided to become a politician.
By then, she was already married to her first husband, Ulrich Merkel. She joined the Democratic Awakening party and in 1991 became the youngest person to hold the position of minister, by becoming minister for women and youth in united Germany's first government. She quickly climbed the political ladder and in 2005 became the first female chancellor in the republic's history. She will be leaving office in a few months, after 16 years at the helm, during which she changed the very face of Germany.
It seems that just recently, Merkel enjoyed the status of a political superstar. For years, she was named one of the world's most powerful women and enjoyed unprecedented support from the public, having even been compared to Mother Teresa. Former US President Barack Obama called Merkel his "closest ally."
She also received dozens of presidential medals and honorary degrees from universities. But all that changed after her decision in 2015 to open Germany's borders to thousands of refugees, a move that earned her Time Magazine's title Person Of The Year as well as an avalanche of criticism and condemnation.
The arrival of refugees brought along a spike in violence, crime rate, antisemitism, misogyny, terrorism and completely changed the way Merkel was perceived.
Those close to her even claim that she thought of leaving office back in 2017, but changed her mind when Donald Trump was voted as president of the United States. She remained in office "to protect western liberal Democracy" in the face of the new president's "national populism."
In the 2017 elections, Merkel's political party, the Christian Democratic Union, gained a record-low number of votes, only 32.9%. Overnight, the rival political party, Alternative for Germany, whose aim was to "impair Merkel," became the third biggest party in the Bundestag.
Along with her impressive record as Germany's leader, Merkel has also given rise to a number of controversies during her reign. Critics accuse her of destroying her political party, giving up on all ideology, flooding Germany with illegal immigrants, causing division in Europe, and most recently, mishandling the coronavirus pandemic.
Germany has reported a whopping 92,000 deaths since the outbreak of the epidemic. Only 37% of the population have been fully vaccinated, despite the fact that BioNTech, which partnered with Pfizer in developing its inoculation, is a German company.
One notable critic of Merkel is German-Israeli writer Chaim Noll. Noll was born in 1954 in East Germany. His family supported Communism, whereas Noll refused to serve in the German army, for which he was even imprisoned. He and his wife had no choice but to flee to West Germany. Having grown up with very little knowledge of Judaism, he became more interested in learning about his religion. He became observant, changed the name his parents gave him (Hans) to Chaim and moved to Israel in 1995 with his family. They settled in the Negev, where Noll continued to write and began lecturing at Ben-Gurion University.
Last week Noll gave a lecture on the alarming rise of antisemitism in Germany at an event organized by Alternative for Germany. We met for an interview in the small town of Bamberg in northern Bavaria. Several days earlier, just a few kilometers away from there, in Würzburg, a Muslim immigrant stabbed three women to death, and wounded seven others.
German media portrayed the incident as unrelated to Muslim extremism, as it often does these days. Merkel did not comment on the attack.
Q: How did you come to participate in an event organized by Alternative for Germany?
"Alternative for Germany is not perfect, no party is," Noll said. "But I gladly accept any invitation to speak, because I find it crucial to tell German parliament members about the threats to Jewish life in Germany.
"Christian Democrats never invite me, because I criticize Merkel. Social Democrats boycott me because I criticize Germany's foreign policies. And the extreme left-wing party, which used to be communist, also never invites me, because they perceive me as a traitor for having left the communist regime.
"Alternative for Germany is a political party that was chosen through a democratic process. One could go as far as to say that it owes its place in the Bundestag to Merkel. She ostracized all other political parties, and since her own stands for nothing more than opportunism and clinging to power, she created a need for a conservative alternative for Germans with Christian and family values.
Q: How did Germany change during Merkel's reign?
"It became poorer and the people much less hopeful. When Merkel took office in 2005, Germany was full of hope. In 2006, I returned to Germany for the first time, after not leaving Israel for 10 years. I was invited to a writers' conference in Berlin, and the city truly impressed me. The atmosphere was very positive, it was also going through a construction boom at the time. It was a very popular city. I could also walk in the street wearing a kippah and not even worrying.
"I've been back to Germany at least once a year ever since and saw how it was gradually destroyed. The city's administration is not functioning properly. Someone stole my documents at the airport and I had to go to the authorities to renew them. A process that takes two days in Israel, takes months in Germany. Also, Merkel and her administration fell asleep at the wheel and did not bring Germany into the digital era.
"They missed the opportunity to bring about a high-tech revolution in Germany, which is also what experts say. The United States, Israel, Singapore and China are lightyears ahead of Germany, which is stuck in the 1990s. And it's not something that can be fixed quickly.
"There is no more hope. People here are not expecting anything great. Everyone knows that Germany's economy after the coronavirus will progress sluggishly, if at all. Most likely, it will deteriorate further.
"Look at Germany's automotive industry. It specializes in luxury cars, the demand for which has been decreasing worldwide. Everyone is looking for small cars. Germany's entire car industry, which used to be a source of hope and pride, and which brought a lot of money to the country, is shrinking. Car export to China plummeted even before the pandemic.
"Germany depends on exports. It's a mistake to base a country's economy on that. The government should have developed local markets. People understand that Germany's economy is deteriorating, and gone are the hopes for a better future that were felt here at the beginning of Merkel's reign."
Q: What about the refugee crisis?
"Merkel made a series of mistakes in that area too. For example, the number of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa was never monitored. No one knows exactly how many of them have arrived in Germany since 2015.
"Some estimate that there are hundreds of thousands of immigrants living in Germany without registration, and the authorities are doing nothing about it. People know that they can live in Germany without registration. Merkel has created a huge problem. Germany simply did not have the tools to undertake such an extensive project."
Q: And how did Merkel's rule affect the Jewish communities in Germany?
"She caused great damage to it. From the 1990s until 2005, more than 200,000 Jews moved to Germany from the former Soviet Union. They could have moved to Israel, but instead, chose to move to Germany. That was a great expression of confidence in this country.
Before Merkel took office, "the German government invested a lot of money in the Jewish communities. It built community centers even in places where no Jews lived since World War II.
"Merkel ruined all that in one day, when she let hundreds of thousands of the Jews' worst enemies into the country. Safe to assume, she made her decision without thinking about the Jews at all, and created a constant threat for them.
"Jewish schools have become strongholds, and students are accompanied home by guards. Jews have become prisoners in their synagogues and community centers. This isn't life. Many are leaving Germany and moving to other countries. The situation is not as bad as in France yet, but if it continues this way, it might soon be.
"Merkel doesn't understand Islam. She and her ministers have German advisors, who get paid for telling lies about the Middle East and Islam. Some tried to explain to her the dangers of her decision, but she was unwilling to listen. When you let hundreds of thousands of Muslims into your country, it only makes sense to understand the basics of Islam, doesn't it? But do you think anyone in the German government read the Quran?
"Merkel thought these were pleasant people, like the Polish or other foreigners. She wanted to portray Germany as a country that stands up to xenophobia. But those who took to the streets to protest the mass immigration of refugees did not do so because of xenophobia, but because refugees have a completely different mentality and values. They treat women differently, as second-class citizens, and hate Jews and Christians.
"Merkel does not keep her promises. She disappointed a lot of people, including those who worked with her. She assured the Jews Germany would be a safe haven for them, and ended up going back on her promise."
Q: Yes, but she also said that the existence of Israel is a prime national interest for Germany.
"I do not understand the meaning of such a statement. Merkel is a smart and opportunistic woman, who understood what Israel could offer Germany. She realized that many young Israelis did not find their niche in Israel, and because of the demographic growth, many also couldn't find a job. The government then allowed young Israelis to easily obtain working visas in Germany, causing thousands of young Israelis to move there.
"She also made it easier for descendants of German Jews to receive citizenship. They can study in Germany for free. What a clever move.
Nevertheless, "slowly slowly, she started to adopt pro-Palestinian views. The word "betray" might not be the right one to describe what Merkel did, but she definitely became less concerned with Israel."
Q: Why?
"Merkel kept quiet during the anti-Israel protests that took place in Germany during the latest Israel-Hamas conflict. She should have spoken up, for those people marched by synagogues and screamed racial slurs.
"None of them were ever arrested. Law enforcement claimed it could not find those responsible, even though there are cameras everywhere. If Merkel had said, 'I want the German legal system to bring to justice the people who called for the murder of Jews,' it would have happened. But she kept quiet. That was a true betrayal.
Another critic of Merkel is German politician Vera Lengsfeld. She was born in 1952 in East Germany. As a young woman, she was a political activist. She opposed the regime and participated in protests, for which she was even arrested. Authorities sentenced her to six months in prison, but later allowed her to leave East Germany, effectively deporting her from the country.
She moved to West Germany, but returned home immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Upon return, she was elected as an independent delegate to the first (and only) Democratic parliament of East Germany. In 1996, she joined the German Christian Democratic party and witnessed Merkels' meteoric rise. When Langsfeld was not elected to the Bundestag in 2005, the year Merkel was appointed chancellor, the two parted ways.
Still a member of the Christian Democratic party, Lengsfeld does not hide her criticism of Merkel.
"Merkel took over a functioning, strong and good economy," Lengsfeld told Israel Hayom. "but after 16 years, she is leaving behind a country that is in urgent need of recovery. Whoever becomes chancellor after her, will have a lot of difficulties to handle.
"Germany has been hurt by the energy revolution that Merkel declared when she decided to shut down nuclear reactors, following the disaster in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011. Germany's electricity is one of the most expensive in the world, if not the most.
"Germany constantly needs to buy electricity from abroad, which creates dependency. For an industrialized country this can be very challenging.
"And now, this monstrous failure with handling the pandemic. From the very beginning, Merkel responded incorrectly. She made every mistake possible. At the start, the government reacted with ignorance, saying there was no need to panic and no need for masks. Then, out of nowhere, it made masks mandatory, only there were none to buy in stores.
"The government encouraged private suppliers to import tons of masks from China and promised to finance the purchase, but never paid the suppliers, a total of about 600 million euros, and they are now threatening to sue.
"Mask prices were astronomical. Parliament members became rich by illegally advancing the interests of mask makers. The government is sitting now on a mountain of masks.
"The government also failed to protect at-risk groups. It was clear that the virus was dangerous for older people in nursing homes, but the government had no strategy as to how to protect them. To this day, they have no such strategy for schools, which are a total chaos.
"The vaccine campaign was a failure too. By now, all of Germany's citizens should have been vaccinated, but we are not even close to that. I am in an at-risk group. I live in Berlin, and I still have not been immunized.
"When the government finally adopted a mass testing policy, it sent lots of funds to testing centers, but they fabricated tests that were never administered in the first place.
"None of the government's efforts to curb the pandemic worked. There is no democracy here. What we have experienced here in recent years is an attempt to undermine the concept of the rule of law.
"Like with every measure the government took to combat COVID - restrictions, lockdowns, curfews, banning demonstrations. It was impossible to file a legal claim against any of the restrictions. The situation in East Germany was very similar to this, meaning it was impossible to oppose the government through the judicial system."
Q: How do you explain Merkel's transformation from a conservative and liberal politician to one who adopted clear left-wing policies?
"I am not sure that she went through a transformation, because I don't know if she had any stance to begin with. I've known her personally since 1990 and I think she does what she wants at any given moment.
"For some time, I believed Merkel was a woman of reforms. The reforms she led before becoming chancellor helped heal Germany's economy. She supported the tax reform, the health care reform, the pension reform.
"But once she took office as chancellor, she completely changed her ways and did not implement any of the policies she promised she would. She gave all that up and pursued a purely social-democratic policy [three of Merkel's four "big coalitions" were between conservatives and social-democrats]. The social-democrats were not thrilled that she took their policy from them, and pointed out that all the achievements of the governments of which they were members were social-democratic ideas."
Q: Some argue that Merkel has made Germany's standing in the world much stronger.
"She didn't strengthen anything. Only ruined. Europe is divided, and Germany's image as a credible partner is damaged. The fact that Germany often votes against Israel in the United Nations is not evidence of a credible policy. After all, she declared in front of the entire Knesset that the existence and security of Israel are of prime national interest to Germany. I find this outrageous."
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