Angela Merkel must beat the pandemic to save her legacy. Time is running out

Angela Merkel has been in the top job for nearly 16 years, but the biggest challenge of her career might still lie ahead.

The German Chancellor is racing against the clock to defeat the coronavirus before stepping down in September. She has a lot going against her.

Germany is struggling to contain the latest wave of the pandemic. The surge in infections is driven by the new, more contagious variant of the virus that was first identified in the United Kingdom, and which became dominant in Germany in early March. The influential German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine has warned that the majority of the country’s intensive care units are running at or close to full capacity. On Monday, the number of Germans lost to the virus surpassed 80,000.

And so while the UK pushes ahead with its reopening plan and the US looks forward to a summer of freedom, Germany is facing yet another hard lockdown – and the Germans are asking how it all went so wrong.

Kai Arzheimer, a political science professor at the University of Mainz, said the country has become a victim of its own success. “Germany’s initial response was decisive, successful, and informed by science,” he told CNN.

The country – and Merkel in particular – was praised for the way it handled the first wave of the pandemic. As the virus steamrolled through Europe, Germany kept the epidemic under control. Its hospitals were even able to take in Covid-19 patients from neighboring France.

“This early success led to a certain complacency,” Arzheimer said. “Politicians were very reluctant to re-introduce lockdown measures.”

NAUMBURG, GERMANY - MARCH 01: Nurse Susann Wolter (L) vaccinates an elderly local resident with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in an old clubhouse during the novel coronavirus pandemic in Seidewitz on March 1, 2021 near Naumburg, Germany. So far approximately 4.4% of Germany's population has received the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. (Photo by Jens Schlueter/Getty Images)

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Merkel has struggled against this reluctance, her data-driven approach clashing with the political realities on the ground. She has repeatedly failed to convince the leaders of Germany’s 16 federal states that more restrictions are necessary to contain the epidemic. While Merkel heads the federal government, it is the state premiers who are responsible for the implementation of lockdown measures.

The most embarrassing moment for Merkel came in late March, when she was forced to make a complete U-turn on a strict lockdown she wanted to impose on the country over the Easter holiday. She said the lockdown was necessary because of the rapid spread of the new strains of the virus. A day later and after much criticism, she reversed the decision saying it was not possible to implement it. She asked the nation for forgiveness and said the confusion was “singularly and alone my mistake.”

“Chancellor Merkel is a natural scientist and she knows that scientists only know what they know in that moment, they can say ‘at the moment, we can say that one and one are two, but we don’t know whether one and one will be two tomorrow too, so we need to be cautious,’” said Gero Neugebauer, political scientist at Berlin’s Free University. “So at the national level, she gives a direction to the states and to the population, and says, we will do this and that, but we rely on the results of the scientific process.”

Neugebauer said this approach was not replicated on the state level, where politicians felt more compelled to satisfy the expectations of the people.

Crucially, many of the regional leaders have faced or still are facing elections – and they are acutely aware of the fact that after a year of living through a pandemic, voters do not want more restrictions.

“People became tired of it and the politicians know it,” said Wolfgang Merkel (no relation to the Chancellor), professor of political science at Berlin’s Humboldt University. “They did not try to implement measures proposed by scientists and epidemiologists, because they were afraid they would exhaust the patience of the people.”

Two states, Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, held their regional polls in March. Merkel’s party suffered major losses in both. Four more states – Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Berlin – will hold regional elections in the next six months, with the federal election coming in September.

The resistance on the state level has left Merkel scrambling. The long-time Chancellor has always favored building consensus and leading from the middle, which didn’t work this time. “Germany’s political system is decentralized and has many veto points, so after the initial uniform response, the reaction to the second wave was much more reluctant and frayed,” Arzheimer said.

Faced with a growing crisis, Merkel last week introduced a new emergency law that gives the federal government more powers to impose restrictions. Under the proposed law, which still needs to be approved by the parliament, nationwide lockdown measures would tighten automatically if the seven-day coronavirus incidence rate rises above 100 per 100,000 people.

Neugebauer said Merkel’s mistake was to wait until now to come up with the change. “This process could have been done in autumn last year. But instead, they talked about hospitals, about figures, they talked about people dying, but they didn’t decide anything,” he said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks to delegates of her political party, the Christian Democratic Union, in 2018.

Merkel was born in Hamburg, West Germany, in 1954, but she grew up in East Germany. Her father, Horst Kasner, was a Lutheran minister and her mother, Herlind, was an English teacher.

Merkel, left, attends a New Year's Eve party with friends in Berlin in 1972. In 1977, at the age of 23, she married her first husband, Ulrich Merkel. They divorced in 1982, but she kept the name.

Merkel poses with her siblings, Marcus and Irene Kasner.

Merkel visits a children's home during her campaign to become a member of the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, in 1990. Before turning to politics, Merkel had trained as a physician. She was also a spokeswoman for the "Democratic Awakening," East Germany's opposition movement before reunification.

A month after being elected to the Bundestag, Merkel was appointed to Germany's Cabinet in January 1991. Chancellor Helmut Kohl named her Minister for Women and Youth.

Merkel looks at Kohl during a conference of the Christian Democratic Union, their political party, in 1991. At the time, Merkel was a deputy chairwoman for the party.

Merkel changed Cabinet positions in 1994, becoming Minister of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. Here, she visits a water-control station in Bad Honnef, Germany, in 1995.

Merkel, as the country's leader on environmental issues, irons wrapping paper to show how it can be recycled.

Merkel and Health Minister Horst Seehofer attend a Cabinet meeting in 1995.

Merkel sits in a "strandkorb," or beach basket, in an undated photo. In 2000, Merkel became the Christian Democratic Union's first female chairperson. It was the opposition party at the time.

Merkel, left, attends the opening of the Wagner Festival, an annual music festival in Bayreuth, Germany, in 2001.

Merkel spends part of her summer in Langballig, Germany, in 2002.

Merkel meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2002, one of many meetings they would have over the years. Merkel speaks Russian fluently, while Putin speaks German.

Merkel speaks in Nuremberg, Germany, ahead of federal elections in 2005.

Merkel is sworn in as Germany's first female chancellor in November 2005.

Merkel visits the White House in January 2006. A few days later she also visited the Kremlin in Russia.

US President George W. Bush shows off a barrel of pickled herrings he was presented after arriving in Stralsund, Germany, in July 2006.

Merkel visits troops stationed in Turkey in February 2013. Later that year she was re-elected for a third term.

Merkel and her husband, Joachim Sauer, walk with US President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama before a dinner in Berlin in June 2013. Merkel and Sauer have been married since 1998.

Merkel speaks to Obama on the sidelines of a G7 summit near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, in June 2015.

Merkel was named Time magazine's Person of the Year in 2015. Time Editor-at-Large Karl Vick described her as "the de factos leader of the European Union" by virtue of being leader of the EU's largest and most economically powerful member state. Twice that year, he said, the EU had faced "existential crises" that Merkel had taken the lead in navigating -- first the Greek debt crisis faced by the eurozone, and then the ongoing migrant crisis.

Merkel and Obama test a virtual-reality headset at a trade fair in Hanover, Germany, in April 2016.

Merkel and US President Donald Trump hold a joint news conference at the White House in March 2017.

Merkel raises her glass during a toast at the Trudering Festival in Munich, Germany, in May 2017.

Merkel records her annual televised New Year's address in December 2017.

In this photo provided by the German Government Press Office, Merkel talks with Trump as they are surrounded by other leaders at the G7 summit in June 2018. According to two senior diplomatic sources, the photo was taken when there was a difficult conversation taking place regarding the G7's communique and several issues the United States had leading up to it.

Merkel attends a Bundestag session in June 2018. She pressed lawmakers to back a tough but humane asylum and migration policy for the European Union.

In this handout photo provided by the German Government Press Office in July 2018, Merkel meets a newborn calf during a visit to the Trede family dairy farm in Nienborstel, Germany.

Merkel offers flowers to Volker Bouffier, the state premier of Hesse and the deputy chairman of the Christian Democratic Union, ahead of a party leadership meeting in October 2018. The day before, her coalition government suffered heavy losses in a key regional election in Hesse.

Merkel speaks at a debate on the future of Europe during a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, in November 2018. Merkel made a call for a future European army and for a European Security Council that would centralize defense and security policy on the continent.

Merkel touches the scepter of a Carnival prince during the annual Carnival reception in Berlin in February 2019.

Merkel poses for photos with students as she visits a secondary school in Berlin in April 2019.

Merkel talks with European Council President Donald Tusk and British Prime Minister Theresa May at a roundtable meeting in Brussels, Belgium, in April 2019. May was in Brussels to formally present her case for a short Brexit delay.

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by Prime Minister Theresa May, greets Merkel in Portsmouth, England, in June 2019. It was ahead of an event marking the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

Merkel and new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky inspect a military honor guard as he arrives for his first official visit to Germany in June 2019. Merkel was seen shaking during the ceremony, but she later suggested dehydration was to blame and said that she was doing "very well."

The hands of Merkel and Finnish Prime Minister Antti Rinne are seen as they listen to national anthems in Berlin in July 2019. Merkel's body visibly shook again, raising concerns over her health. She said she was fine and that she has been "working through some things" since she was first seen shaking in June.

Raindrops cover the window of a car as Merkel arrives for the opening of the James-Simon-Galerie in Berlin in July 2019.

In March 2020, Merkel delivered a rare televised message and told the German people that the coronavirus pandemic is the nation's gravest crisis since World War II.

Merkel attends a wreath-laying ceremony at the Neue Wache Memorial in Berlin in May 2020. It was the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, otherwise known as Victory in Europe (VE) Day.

Merkel and other world leaders look over documents during a European Union summit in Brussels, Belgium, in July 2020. Leaders agreed to create a €750 billion ($858 billion) recovery fund to rebuild EU economies ravaged by the coronavirus crisis.

Merkel meets with US President Joe Biden at the White House in July 2021.

Merkel receives a medal from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, during the opening of the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin in September 2021. The new center's purpose is to better track world health threats and help prevent future ones.

Merkel feeds Australian lorikeets at the Marlow Bird Park in Marlow, Germany, in September 2021.

A child gives Merkel a gingerbread heart with the inscription "Danke CDU," meaning "Thank you, CDU," during a Christian Democratic Union campaign event in Aachen, Germany, in September 2021. At left is Armin Laschet, Merkel's successor at the helm of the CDU, a long-time ally of the Chancellor and the party's deputy leader since 2012. He was one of the candidates who ran to replace her.

Angela Merkel's life in pictures

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Asked for a comment on the criticism of the government’s handling of the crisis, a German government spokesperson referred to Merkel’s remarks in parliament on Friday, where she advocated for the law change.

“We must brake the third wave of the pandemic and end the rapid rise in the numbers of new cases. To achieve this at last, we will have to focus the forces of the federal, state and local governments and authorities better than we have done in the recent past,” the Chancellor told the Bundestag.

“We cannot ignore the emergency calls, we cannot leave the doctors and nurses on their own, because they cannot defeat the virus on their own, even with the best medical skills and self-sacrificing efforts,” she said.

Saving her legacy

Merkel has repeatedly told Germans that she is hoping that by the time she steps down in the fall, the worst will be behind them.

She has also promised everyone will be offered at least one shot of the Covid-19 vaccine by September, a pledge that has taken a major hit because of supply issues.

“If you ask me what went wrong, there was certainly a trigger, and it was the European Union’s failure to effectively and quickly acquire vaccine … this marked a turn in Germany, that’s when politicians in Germany became nervous,” said Wolfgang Merkel.

He said the EU is not alone in facing the blame. “Germany held the presidency of the Council of the European Union, they had representatives there, sitting in the Commission,” he explained.

Merkel has previously acknowledged failings with the speed of the vaccine rollout, but said she still expects 50 million Germans will have received at least one dose of the vaccine by the end of June.

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Whatever happens in the next five months will, to a large extend, determine Merkel’s future legacy.

“Merkel’s personal ratings are still relatively high, but obviously, the federal government’s reputation has taken a hit, and trust in Germany’s response to the pandemic has declined,” Arzheimer said. He added that a drawn-out health emergency is not how Merkel would want to end her term in office – despite the fact that much of the blame lies with the state prime ministers.

As a four-term chancellor, Merkel is often compared to two other long-serving post-war leaders, Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl. Wolfgang Merkel said the last two years have shown the weakness of the German system, which allows chancellors to serve unlimited number of terms.

“She would have looked much better in the history books had she not served the last term,” he said, adding that history is repeating itself. “It’s lost time … we have seen this during the last two years of Konrad Adenauer and with Helmut Kohl, who governed 16 years as well, and the last two years he did not have the power to influence politics.”

Neugebauer added that Merkel’s future legacy is much less well defined than that of Adenauer or Kohl. The first was the “Western Integration” Chancellor who led Germany back into European power structures, the latter the “Reunification Chancellor.”

“For Chancellor Merkel, it was said that she could become the ‘European integration Chancellor’ and then she was going to be the ‘humanity Chancellor’, when she said ‘refugees are welcome’ and now she has the opportunity to become the ‘Chancellor who defeated the pandemic,’” Neugebauer said.

“The danger of course is that the pandemic will still be there after September,” he added.