Merkel, Obama and the elephant within the room | EUROtoday

Schön, dass die Sache mit der Rede vor dem Brandenburger Tor nun ein für alle Mal geklärt ist. Angela Merkel hatte additionally Angst, dass Barack Obama sauer sein könnte. Der frühere Präsident sitzt am Montagabend auf der Bühne eines Konzertsaales in Washington. Neben ihm die frühere Kanzlerin. Obama will dem Publikum erklären, warum Merkel über die Jahre zwar seine engste politische Verbündete auf dem internationalen Parkett geworden sei, die beiden gleichwohl einen schwierigen Start hatten. Dann erwähnt er das „Brandenburg Gate“.

Sie war schon drei Jahre Kanzlerin, als er Präsidentschaftskandidat der Demokraten geworden sei. Ein junger Senator aus Illinois, der gegen den alten Hasen John McCain antrat. 2008 war das. Da habe es geheißen, er, Obama, habe doch keine außenpolitische Erfahrung. Also habe sein Wahlkampfteam gesagt, er müsse das Ausland bereisen. Irgendjemand habe die Idee gehabt, er solle vor dem Brandenburger Tor reden. Merkel aber, so Obama, habe gedacht: Moment mal, er sei doch nur der Kandidat. Es hätte der Eindruck entstehen können, sie mische sich in den amerikanischen Wahlkampf ein, wenn sie ihm diese historische Kulisse biete. Er habe das verstanden, sagt der frühere Präsident. Und fügt dann augenzwinkernd hinzu: Außerdem habe sie wohl gedacht, er könne einfach nur gut reden.

Obama durfte seinerzeit immerhin vor der Siegessäule in Berlin sprechen. Doch habe die Episode eben später, als er die Wahl gewonnen habe, für Irritationen gesorgt. Sie sei wohl besorgt gewesen, die Angelegenheit könnte ihr Verhältnis belasten. Merkel spitzt die Ohren und grinst. Das mit dem guten Redner will sie nicht so stehen lassen. „Naja“, sagt sie. Sie sei als Kanzlerin ja eigentlich gar nicht zuständig gewesen, über die Frage zu entscheiden. Deutschland sei föderal, und die Sache habe im Land Berlin entschieden werden müssen. Doch leugnet sie nicht, Bedenken geäußert zu haben. Es wäre halt ein Präzedenzfall geschaffen worden. In Deutschland habe aber kein Mensch ihre Position verstanden. Obama war nach den Jahren unter George W. Bush in Deutschland eine Art Popstar. Man habe ihr unterstellt, ihre Bedenken hingen schlicht damit zusammen, dass sie nicht so gut reden könne wie er. Lacher im Publikum.

Her staff later revealed that Merkel initially actually thought Obama was a showman. Of course not Beate Baumann, her long-time office manager, who co-authored the book “Freedom,” which is the topic of this night. She is thought for her secrecy. But others. The troublesome begin should not put a damper on their relationship. And so Obama is now serving to Merkel market her memoirs in America. He understands the enterprise. He turned a multimillionaire by publishing his personal memoirs. And Merkel will most likely quickly be too.

The two chatted with one another for nearly two hours – typically centered, typically animated. Obama spends more often than not interviewing the German writer. He asks them about rising up within the GDR, their path into politics and their time collectively as rulers: he, the chief of the Western world, she, the main determine in Europe. It’s in regards to the monetary disaster, the refugee disaster and the local weather disaster. What it isn’t about: Vladimir Putin, the conflict in Ukraine and Donald Trump. The names Putin and Trump will not be talked about all night. Both of them had most likely agreed on that. On her e-book tour in Germany, the Chancellor was apparently requested too many questions on Nord Stream 2, the Minsk course of and the Normandy format.

Despite this clean house, the night has its entertaining and academic moments. Obama first explains to the viewers why the Chancellor is talking in German. Merkel speaks English completely and the 2 of them used to at all times speak to one another with out a translator. But you will need to her to specific herself exactly. She is only a scientist. At this level, Merkel’s former staff ought to be quoted once more: The proven fact that the Chancellor avoids talking English in public is not only as a consequence of her want to at all times categorical herself exactly. But additionally as a result of, regardless of her impeccable data of overseas languages, she typically fails to say the English “th” and fears the malice of German journalists.

Obama is surprisingly open: When he asks Merkel why she was drawn to politics after the autumn of the Berlin Wall, he provides that she shouldn’t be precisely “extroverted,” however slightly “reserved.” Merkel hints at a smile after which talks about her curiosity and in addition the coincidence that many issues in a really masculine West German CDU merely got here to her as a younger, East German girl. She admits that she was definitely bold. In any case, she all of the sudden turned a minister in Helmut Kohl’s cupboard and was typically amazed at all of the sudden seeing herself on the “Tagesschau”.

The two additionally do not cover the actual fact that there have been typically issues between them. For instance, in the course of the monetary disaster, when Obama’s individuals, in keeping with Merkel, didn’t perceive why she, as the pinnacle of presidency of Europe’s largest economic system, didn’t merely increase the cash for big financial stimulus packages. She then explains to the American viewers that it’s one factor to be president of the world’s largest economic system with the greenback reserve foreign money, however one other to be German chancellor within the eurozone, which additionally contains different, much less highly effective economies. In the top, the monetary disaster become a euro disaster – and there was a threat that not solely the Greeks, however presumably additionally the Spanish and Italians would run out of steam.

Obama, who doesn’t cover the truth that he was typically slightly impatient with the Chancellor on the time, is gentle at present: Every nation has its personal historic expertise. Americans remembered the inventory market crash of 1929 and the way Franklin D. Roosevelt had stimulated the economic system. But the Germans remembered the hyperinflation of the Twenties. “We got through it,” he then says. And Merkel agrees with him.

Obama finds phrases of reward for Merkel’s habits within the 2015 refugee disaster. She made a troublesome resolution again then. There had been prices related to this – additionally when it got here to her personal celebration. The viewers applauds approvingly. Obama would not go any additional. The identify Friedrich Merz shouldn’t be talked about that night both.

Trump is simply talked about not directly. When Merkel talks about how, as a lady, she needed to overcome resistance to get to the chancellor’s workplace, she remarks: There has nonetheless not been a feminine president in America both. Then she offers a thumbs-up gesture with each fists. Don’t be discouraged, that’s. In 2016 she hoped for Hillary Clinton, and in November she hoped for Kamala Harris. Obama additionally leaves it at hints: When Merkel talks in regards to the reservations of many West Germans in the direction of East Germany, Obama says that Germany has managed to revive a nationwide id regardless of the a long time of separation brought on by the wall. He then mentions America’s division and urges his fellow residents to be curious and hearken to the opposite facet.