The Other Side of the Coin

Chancellor Angela Merkel deserves the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom? That’s how theologian Richard Schröder sees it. But Merkel and the American award don’t go together at all.

Richard Schröder has decided that Angela Merkel deserves the U.S. Medal of Freedom. The Medal of Freedom? A look into an online reference source is helpful here. The medal may be awarded by the U.S. president to “any person who has made an especially meritorious contribution to (1) the security or national interests of the United States or (2) world peace or (3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

Fine. Whoever reads that should ask him or herself how that applies to Angela Merkel.

Contributing to the security of the United States: The fact that Germany is engaged in action in Afghanistan isn’t due to anything Merkel has done but rather to her predecessor, who vowed unlimited solidarity with the United States immediately following the 9/11 attacks in 2001. All Merkel has accomplished is to limit that solidarity. German soldiers, meanwhile, are to be gradually withdrawn from Afghanistan, something surely not in the best national interests of the United States.

Making a contribution to world peace: She has accomplished no more than her predecessor here. In Iraq and elsewhere, as well as currently in Libya, the United States is left to shift for itself. Whoever argues that Germany’s hesitation to engage militarily in Libya at America’s side thereby contributes to world peace runs counter to the U.S. position as well as the position taken by its major E.U. and NATO partners. The Turks, for example, who were originally against establishing no-fly zones over Libya, are nonetheless doing far more to help NATO in Libya against Gadhafi. In addition, the popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa are seen in international reports to be fueled by the desire for freedom and are increasingly being compared to the East German uprising of 1989. The NATO alliance intervened in order to protect the people seeking freedom. Germany, led by an East German, abstained from participating.

Cultural or other significant public or private endeavors: Chancellor Merkel has visited the United States several times. The nation, she says, has always been the object of her longing. Meanwhile, she has had Jürgen Klinsmann and Thomas Gottschalk as honored dinner guests; that’s her cultural tribute. [Translator’s Note: Klinsmann is a former German national soccer player, now a coach; Gottschalk is a media star and actor.] Merkel also speaks English, her mother having been an English teacher, although she was not allowed to teach English in East Germany. Her father was a Protestant clergyman who had emigrated from West Germany to the People’s Republic and became known as “Red Kasner,” but his contacts were of no help.

In the People’s Republic, Merkel, who studied much in the field of physics, wasn’t especially known for efforts toward democracy. It remains uncontested to this day that as a student she served as secretary of the FDJ, the only recognized youth organization in East Germany, where she was responsible for culture and was therefore involved in agitations and propaganda. She says she co-organized celebrations, but they sound less like protest demonstrations and more like recreational events.

With the change, Merkel came to the Democratic Awakening, a splinter party that was led by an unmasked Stasi (State Security) spy. Merkel became his press secretary. By way of the Alliance for Germany, assembled by Volker Rühe, she was swept into the Christian Democratic Union where, thanks to Lothar de Maiziere and Günther Krause, she became a government minister in Helmut Kohl’s administration. With the help of her patron, Wolfgang Schäeuble, who later served as head of the CDU for a brief period, she took the liberty of writing a newspaper article critical of Kohl after he was already out of office and effectively sidelined.

Yes, and then Richard Schröder mentions Bärbel Bohley. Whoever compares Bohley’s years in the DDR and her desire for freedom with Merkel’s sees that there is no comparison. But then Bohley never became chancellor of Germany and thereby the symbol of triumph of an East German in rising to the highest position of power after reunification. Merkel doesn’t even consider herself as such a symbol. She has Schröder to do that for her. But he’s right on one point: Where Frank Sinatra was awarded the same medal for singing about the summer wind and hobnobbing with the mafia, Merkel is undoubtedly the better choice. And the medal was given by a president whom Merkel refused to allow to speak at the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of German freedom.