Teaching Modern Languages at Post-16 and Beyond (30/6/15)
Dr Caroline Pearce, Department of Germanic Studies, University of Sheffield
Frau Merkel’s Deutschland
‘(New) German identities’
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/nationalklischees-so-sehen-die-briten-die-neuen-deutschen-1.1471141
 Der Wutbürger
 Der Bio-Bourgeois
 Der Piraten-Wähler
 Der Medien-Aristokrat
 Der Bindestrich-Deutsche
 Der Power-Ossi
 Generation Merkel
 Generation Praktikum
 Europe
 National Socialist and GDR pasts
 More self-confidence?
Jamaika Koalition
+
+
= Schwarz-Gelbe Koalition
+
+
= Rot-Rot-Grüne
Koalition
= Große Koalition
Ampelkoalition
Voting system
 Every 4 years - Bundestagswahl
 Erste Stimme (for candidate from constituency)
 Zweite Stimme (for party)
 ‚Sperrklausel‘ – 5% hurdle
 Coalitions
 Federal and national elections
18 September 2005
• CDU-CSU gained 35.2%, SPD 34.2%
• 22 November 2005 Angela Merkel
appointed Chancellor of Grand Coalition
• First East German and female Chancellor
•Coalition treaty: ‚Gemeinsam für
Deutschland: mit Mut und Menschlichkeit‘
27 September 2009
• CDU-CSU received 33.8%, SPD 23.0%
•SPD‘s worst election result in post-war
period
• Increased support for smaller parties
•Merkel formed a coalition with FDP
• Mostly defined by banking crisis and the
relationship with Europe (rescue package
for Greece, stabilisation and austerity)
• Bundeswehr reform (end of compulsory
military service 2011)
• U-Turn on energy policy 2011 in wake of
Fukushima disaster (Energiewende)
2009 elections
Grand coalition: since 2013
 September 2013: CDU won third term (41.5%)
 Up 8%, just 5 seats short of absolute majority
 Best result since Helmut Kohl won first post-
unification election in 1990
 Goes against current tendency for weak governments
in Europe
 Reward for weathering euro crisis?
 Grand coalition formed with Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) as
vice-Chancellor
‚Merkel ohne
alle’,
‚Totalschaden
für Rot-Grün’
Wer muss mit
Merkel?’
Election results for other parties
 Greens down from 10.7% to 8.4%; Linke down from
11.9% to 8.6%
 FDP biggest loser in elections (down from 14.6% to
4.8%): First time not in Bundestag in post-1945
Germany
 Success of newly-founded AfD party
Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)
 Founded April 2013
 Eurosceptic / anti-euro / suspicious of austerity policy
 4.7% of the vote in 2013 – only just shy of 5% hurdle
 Slogan: Mut zur Wahrheit!
 ‚Wir sind weder rechts noch links‘
 Election success in Hamburg in February
2015 – in Land government for the first time
Success in European elections 2014
European elections 2014
• Set up
in September 2006
•Classic 1-issue party (Copyright Law)
•‘Liquid democracy’
• Become much more than that – focus on social
issues, green issues, human approach to
economy.
• Success - 2011: Berliner Abgeordnetenhaus
(8.9%)
•2012 Landtag in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Saarland
& Schleswig-Holstein
•Despite wave of optimism: recent conflict/
internal problems.
• Bundestagswahl 2013 2.2% (up from 2%)
•Diminishing popularity / influence
• Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands
• Right-wing extremists
• Success above all in eastern Germany (in
Landtag in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern)
• Politics based on ‘Volk’ and ‘Nationalismus’
(‘natürlich deutsch’)
• Anti immigration, asylum rights, gender
equality, EU / other international organisations
•Want a return to Germany’s 1937 borders
(Poland) and a different understanding of Nazi
past – annual rallies on ‘Allied war crimes’ in
Dresden
•Attempts to ban the party
•Bundestagswahl 2013 1.3% (down from 1.5%)
Merkel’s popularity
 Europe’s longest serving female head of government
 Second-most powerful person in the world (Forbes
magazine)
 From Kohl’s ‘Mädchen’ to ‚Mutti’
 Personal popularity
 Pragmatic, methodical, unpretentious
 Risk-averse
 Represents German interests / heads a ‘people’s party’
 One in six SPD voters preferred her as chancellor
 Adaptability
German leadership in Europe?
 Is Germany too powerful for Europe? (The
Guardian, 31/3/13)
 With Angela Merkel’s Germany at the helm,
Europe will remain a tortoise (The
Guardian, 25/9/13)
 Von Merkel hängt nun das Schicksal
Europas ab, Die Welt, 24/9/13
 Bundnisfähigkeit ist Kern deutscher
Staatsräson, Die Welt, 22/9/13
Germany, Greece and the euro crisis
 Germany ‚holding purse strings‘
 Merkel: if the euro fails, Europe fails
 Committment to European project
 Insistence on austerity measures
 27 February 2015: German Bundestag approves extension of Greek aid
package
 542 for, 13 abstentions, 32 against (including 29 members of the
CDU/CSU)
 Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble emphasised that no more money
would be released until reform conditions fulfilled; Greece simply
being given more time
 Linke called for a ‘Marshall plan’ for southern European states
 Focus on ‘solidarity’ and ‘reform’ in the debate
 Tense negotiations between Greece, Germany and EU
Greek-German tensions
- Greek government began recent wave of
bailout negotiations by demanding war
reparations from Germany
- Series of caricatures of Merkel and Schäuble
in the Greek press
- Bild ‚no to greedy Greeks‘ campaign
- Cultural differences / mistrust
- Three quarters of Germans doubt that Greece
will fulfil reformrequirements
- But ‚Grexit‘ would be worse scenario for both
countries
Bild: Neue Milliarden fuer
Griechenland – wir sagen NEIN!
Newspaper of the Greek
governing party Syriza (8/2/15)
Finance Minister Schäuble caricatured as saying ‘we insist on soap from
your fat’ and ‘we are discussing making fertiliser from your ashes’
German foreign policy
 ‘Peace policy’
 Focus on humanitarian intervention (‘nie wieder’ / ‘nie allein’)
 Greater international role and influence
 Combining universal values and national interests
 Merkel as negotiator with Putin/Russia in Ukraine crisis
 References to Cold War / European division
 Germany against use of military force
German economy
 Overall unemployment 2014 4.8% (5.4% UK)
 Youth unemployment 7.9% (compared to 21.7% in UK, 53.8%
Greece) Source: Eurostat 2012
 Introduction of minimum wage under current Grand Coalition
(EUR 8.50/hour)
 Germany emerged strong from recession
 Continued divergence between eastern and western states
The ‘Energiewende’
 U-turn on energy policy following Fukushima nuclear disaster
 Closure of 8 of Germany‘s 17 nuclear power plants – the rest to be
phased out by 2022
 Transition to alternative energy sources
 40-45% of energy to come from renewables by 2025 and 55-60%
by 2035
Policy issues and challenges
 Ageing population
 Projected 14% drop in population by 2050 (source: UN and
World Bank). Britain’s population set to exceed that of Germany
by 2040
 Low birth rate (1.36 children per woman in 2012, lowest in
Europe)
 Family friendly policies (Elterngeld): parents can have up to 14
months off after birth of child with up to 65% of salary.
 End to compulsory military conscription (2011); reduction in
armed forces
Multiculturalism / immigration
 2013: 16.5 million people in Germany have a non-German background





(20.5% of the population)
"Der Ansatz für Multikulti ist gescheitert, absolut gescheitert!" (Angela
Merkel, 2010)
Pegida movement (Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des
Abendlandes)
Focus on integration of foreigners and learning language
RTL initiative Sag’s auf deutsch!
2014: Merkel presents CDU as ‘Partei der Migranten’
Gut leben in Deutschland: was uns wichtig ist
Government-sponsored survey / project launched in 2015
to establish what Germans consider important in life
https://www.gut-leben-indeutschland.de/DE/Home/home_node.html
Web resources
 www.bundesregierung.de (Federal Government website; also has pages in English)
 www.bundeskanzlerin.de (Federal Chancellor‘s website)
 www.bpb.de (Bundeszentrale fur politische Bildung)
 www.mitmischen.de (youth site on German politics)
 http://www.schekker.de (youth magazine sponsored by Federal Government)
 Gut leben in Deutschland (government survey) https://www.gut-leben-indeutschland.de/DE/Home/home_node.html
 Germany: the accidental empire (series in The Guardian)
http://www.theguardian.com/world/series/germany-the-accidental-empire
 Voices from Germany video
http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2012/sep/20/voices-from-germany-video
 The Making of Merkel (Andrew Marr documentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvSA82z6Dig
 RTL intiative Sag’s auf deutsch! http://www.rtl.de/cms/mein-rtl/sags-auf-deutsch.html