Germany
New chancellor, new challenges – same old Germany?
“I never thought I’d have to say something like that on a TV program.” So sighed Friedrich Merz, Germany’s prospective next Chancellor, in a post-election discussion last…
Status quo politics is fading and Germany’s elections mark a turning point
Germany will be the latest major European power to head to the polls this weekend, in an election that could well redefine the nation’s political landscape – and with Australia’s…
The miseries of Germany’s navel-gazing
Just a handful of days shy of a federal election, a dark mood has engulfed Germany. The country has entered its third year of recession. Global events have put paid to the old…
Foreign policy challenges loom in Germany’s election
Germany is hurtling towards an unexpected election. In December, German President Steinmeier dissolved the current government to enable the 23 February poll. Significant losses by…
The claustrophobia of German politics
Its inevitability did not make it any less shocking. Just after 8:30pm on Wednesday, after talks to pave a way forward for Germany’s long-unloved three-party governing coalition…
Germany’s growing east-west divide
This month, the former East-German states of Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg held elections for their state parliaments. Two parties that made the greatest gains were the far…
The God in the rubble
Book review: Out of the Darkness: The Germans 1942–2022, by Frank Trentmann (Allen Lane, 2023)
On the eve of the First World War, the German theologian Ernst Troeltsch…
Shipping and the great shrinking waterways
How low can the Yangtze go?
Although Asia’s longest river is making a slow recovery from the late-2022 drought that stopped some of the traffic up the “golden waterway” that…
Germany’s digital dilemma
In a world increasingly defined by digital transformation, Germany stands as anomaly, resisting the tide of digitisation in the face of global trends.
When I recently stepped…
Left behind: Sahra Wagenknecht’s new populism
She is one of Germany’s most recognised and popular politicians. And yet, Sahra Wagenknecht has never held a ministry, never been the chair of a party, and has spent her career in…