National stereotypes are unfair, insulting – and strangely reassuring. It’s somehow good to know in an unpredictable, fast-changing world that Italians may be relied upon to be melodramatic, the French rude, the Americans loud and the English drunk. When nations act out of character, and refuse to conform to type, it feels a little disconcerting.
This seems to be what’s happening in Germany today as Europe looks on, perplexed. What has become of that hackneyed Teutonic efficiency, decisiveness, reliability and steely-eyed determination? The past victors of countless poolside deckchair skirmishes now flirt with chaos in ways that make Westeros look well ordered.
That’s an exaggeration, obviously. Yet there are many reasons to wonder about the present state of Germany. Its powerful economy, product of the postwar “miracle”, is in or nearing recession. Higher energy costs, falling exports and labour shortages are wreaking havoc, Robert Habeck, the economy minister, gloomily relates. The situation, he says, is “dramatically bad”.
Then there’s defence and security. A huge row erupted last week after it emerged that Russia had recorded German officers talking about (not) supplying Taurus missiles to Ukraine. Britain and France feared for their secrets. Worse, the security breach was caused by simple German blundering, not Russian cyber aces. Germany was “caught with its pants down, again”, Bild newspaper lamented.
Defence has often proved an embarrassment for modern Germany. The world scoffed in 2008 when an official report suggested that its lager-swilling soldiers in Afghanistan were too fat to fight. In 2022, army personnel backed a semi-farcical attempted coup d’état. Donald Trump frequently points the finger at what he calls Berlin’s freeloading in Nato.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged €100bn (£85bn) to bolster German defences in his Zeitenwende (turning point) speech. He has since doubled military aid to Ukraine. Yet, as has often been the case in the past two years, Scholz is withholding a weapon Kyiv sorely needs – the Taurus missile. And Boris Pistorius, his defence minister, says the armed forces are still not up to scratch.
Scholz, in office if not in power since 2021, more resembles a provincial bank manager than wartime chief. “Germans are told to pull their weight but not to throw their weight about,” the author John Kampfner once noted perceptively. Accordingly, Scholz the centrist tries to navigate a middle road – and is flattened by traffic going both ways. He’s reputedly the most unpopular chancellor of modern times.
Divisions over climate and energy policy, nationwide strikes and protests, arcane budget rows and the surging far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) – now polling ahead of Scholz’s Social Democrats – prompt unfavourable comparisons with the age of Angela “Mutti” Merkel, dour doyenne of stability, stolidity and common sense. Such disorder seems so “undeutsch”.
Is Germany losing its way? Russia’s aggression shattered fundamental geostrategic assumptions. Its crucial industrial and manufacturing base proved woefully over-reliant on Moscow’s cheap oil and gas. Merkel worked hard to keep Vladimir Putin onside – but her Ostpolitik backfired. Meanwhile, China’s downturn has hit exports. A huge readjustment is in train.
Trump #2, if it happens, may be the other geostrategic shoe to drop. Scholz unflinchingly prioritises the transatlantic alliance. On Ukraine, he marches in slow-step with Joe Biden. But Europe-deriding, Russia-admiring Trump imperils these bonds. Like Britain, Germany in 2025 could be caught between two fires.
Scholz’s problems are partly inherited. Since reunification, Berlin has mostly eschewed leadership roles – earning the moniker “reluctant hegemon”. This is unsustainable. In 2022, Christine Lambrecht, the then defence minister, said Germany must again become a Führungsmacht, or “leading power”, within Europe – whether or not it wanted to, and regardless of its history. That imperative is strengthening.
A low profile suits the undemonstrative Scholz. Yet national diffidence, born of self-interest as well as legacy guilt, will not suffice as the international order shreds. It does not serve Germany’s interests. And it obstructs Europe’s efforts to forge a more self-sufficient, capable and resilient, unified identity in the teeth of rising, predatory nationalism in Russia, China, the US and India.
This disconnect helps explain the dismal state of relations with France, the other half of the EU’s vital Franco-German engine. President Emmanuel Macron and Scholz are chalk and cheese – the one flashy, occasionally brilliant, often flaky; the other conventional, uncharismatic, careful. They’ve tried, but they just don’t get on.
Unedifying arguments over who – France or Germany – is giving the most, and most effective, assistance to Ukraine have intensified of late. Like other allies, Berlin flatly rejected Macron’s nouveau-hawkish suggestion that Nato consider deploying troops in Ukraine. As with Taurus, Scholz’s great fear is escalation – a fear that Moscow cynically fans.
Yet, visiting Prague last week, Macron was still spoiling for a fight. “Europe clearly faces a moment when it will be necessary not to be cowards,” he declared. Was he referring to Germany and Scholz? Macron said not, but his remark went down very badly in Berlin.
At the EU level, France and Germany are at loggerheads over issues ranging from arms procurement to Macron’s vision of a strategically autonomous Europe, separate from Nato and the US.
Macron senses another Zeitenwende in the war against Russia. A repentant appeaser, he wants to supercharge Europe’s war effort, galvanise the allies as American resolve falters, and hand Putin a totemic, generational defeat. But he cannot do it without Germany – and Scholz slogs stubbornly along at his own cautious pace.
Old stereotypes and familiar prejudices about the German national character are unhelpful in this instance. An invigorating dose of Sturm und Drang – of decisive, inspirational, forceful leadership – would be infinitely preferable to recent Drift and Dither. Germany must be bolder. With France and Poland, it must show the way.
And yes, OK, fine, it can have the deckchair.
• Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s foreign affairs commentator
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