Germany: The Man Who Would Be King

There was a time when Friedrich Merz was spoken of as the hapless, downtrodden member of Germany’s Christian Democrats (CDU) who had been humiliatingly pushed to the backbenches by his rival, Angela Merkel, who first beat him to the position of leader and then chancellor.  

Merz somewhat sulkily slinked off the political stage and landed himself a high-paid, jet-setting job as an investment banker. 

Now, around two decades on, international connections and a pilot’s license under his belt, a couple of private jets, and several million euros richer, the 70-year-old Merz has managed something unprecedented in German politics by succeeding in a spectacular comeback.  

Whilst the CDU’s grassroots once resented him for having secured a millionaire’s lifestyle whilst they had continued with the hard graft of keeping the party on an even keel, (it took him three attempts to be elected leader) he is now touted as the conservatives’ — and Germany’s — potential savior by his own party faithful and those of its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU.)  

The coalition government of Social Democrat Olaf Scholz collapsed last year under the weight of its myriad challenges — including an electorate deeply unsettled by the heavily German-backed conflict in Ukraine. Public support for Germany’s very substantial aid program has fallen but is still 57%. Merz promises to continue this and to raise military spending (backed by 73%) to confront an aggressive Russia now seen as a direct military threat by 82% of Germans. 

The country has numerous other issues demanding public attention. The economy is in the doldrums, energy prices are high, the Trump administration is expected to deliver some nasty surprises (from demands over sharply increased military spending to tariffs on German products), and perhaps above all, grave differences over immigration policy.  

This is the issue where an advancing far-right is most keenly snapping at the mainstream’s heels and over which the Merz-led conservative alliance, currently top of the polls, faces the toughest political choices as it impatiently waits in the wings to take over. 

CDU campaign posters plastered across the country ahead of the February 23 election bear Merz’s image and the slogan: “For a Germany in which we can be proud once again”. It is, some say, the softer, more palatable version of “MAGA.” 

Even Merkel, now in retirement but plugging her recent memoirs, Freedom, says she thinks he deserves the job, if only due to his doggedness, stating at the book’s launch in December, that in order to secure the post, “you need to be in possession of this unconditional desire to have power. Friedrich Merz has this, just as I did, and therefore I don’t begrudge him.” 

Seeing as she had dedicated less space to him in her autobiography than to blackberry picking in the Ueckermark, her rural holiday retreat, the remark while not a full-throated endorsement, was seen as a solid note of approval. 

She, like the rest of Germany, knows that a Merz-led Germany will likely result in a reversal of the immigration policy for which she was both highly fêted and deeply disparaged (and for which she put up a strong defense in her book). The so-called open door strategy under which more than a million refugees were able to enter Germany in 2015, “should not be allowed to happen again,” Merz said in a recent interview. 

More recently still, he has said in another Trumpian echo that on day one as chancellor he will impose by decree the immediate closure of all Germany’s nine borders with neighboring countries. He will seek the backing of other parties and has not ruled out that support might come from the far right. 

This particular announcement came after the latest in a string of violent attacks carried out by migrants, this time by an Afghan who had been due for deportation, and who lunged at a group of kindergarten children with a kitchen knife, stabbing a two-year-old to death along with a 41-year-old father who tried to stop him, in the southern city of Aschaffenburg. A “failure of the state” is the term most widely used to describe the January incident. 

Members of Merz’s party who remain unabashed Merkel fans, and would like to keep the conservatives on their centrist course, have warned of the dangers of playing straight into the hands of the far-right populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), currently second in the polls.  

“We might be in competition with the populists, but we should not turn their methods into our own,” said Hendrik Wust, one of Merz’s main rivals, who is the leader of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state. 

Even since Aschaffenburg, seen by many as a turning point in the election campaign, Merz’s tone has sharpened, becoming more provocative and increasingly driven by populist slogans. 

Gone is the “sleeping car” modus of his election campaign, for which the Social Democrats had mocked him. Indeed from their low standing in the polls, they hope it might even succeed in derailing him. It certainly brought tens of thousands onto the streets of German cities the weekend following the Aschaffenburg attack, with many expressing opposition to both the AfD and Merz. 

He has rigorously insisted along with other mainstream parties, that a “firewall” stands between his party and coalition with the AfD, even pledging to tie his own political fate to this promise, and has attracted potential voters from other parties in the process. But for some, his border closure proposals are far too close to the AfD’s manifesto.  

He believes — those close to him have said as much — that his plans can take the wind out of the AfD’s sails. Others have warned they could backfire. If he ends up appearing to play the populists at their own game, leaving only a rizla-thin distinction between his party and theirs, some fear a conservative-AfD coalition is just a short step away, the path  having been  paved by Merz (although if and when that happens, he would no longer be at the controls.) 

Germany, in particular, is casting more than a squinting glance towards Austria these days, where  January’s collapse  — not dissimilar to Germany’s government row — of conservative-led coalition talks over a budget row, has paved the way for the Alpine republic’s first far-right led government since World War II.  

Merz himself even delivered the warning salvo to the ÖVP, the CDU’s sister party in Vienna: “Put a viper around your neck and don’t be surprised if you get bitten,” he said.  

German commentators say the biggest danger to his long-held political ambitions may be that he failed to recognize that the very same serpent was at his feet. 

Kate Connolly is Berlin Correspondent for the Guardian and the Observer. 

Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.