Former Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) will be awarded the highest German Order of Merit on Monday evening (6 p.m.). She is awarded the “Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in a special design” by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Steinmeier will give the speech at the ceremony at Bellevue Palace.
The Federal President’s website says the following about the Federal Cross of Merit: “The Order of Merit is awarded to domestic and foreign citizens for political, economic, social and intellectual achievements as well as for all special services to the Federal Republic of Germany, such as in social and charitable area.” There are eight levels of the order, which is usually called the “Federal Cross of Merit”. Ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel receives the highest level of the Federal Cross of Merit, the special level of the Grand Cross.
This order in the highest form is awarded extremely rarely. In the history of the Federal Republic, only Merkel’s predecessors Konrad Adenauer (1954) and Helmut Kohl (1998) have received it.
Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will also take part in the ceremony. Merkel has also invited many political companions: her former heads of the Chancellery Thomas de Maizière, Ronald Pofalla, Peter Altmaier and Helge Braun, the former Education Minister Annette Schavan and Merkel’s first SPD Vice Chancellor Franz Müntefering. Also on the list of invitations are Merkel’s long-time closest collaborators Beate Baumann and Eva Christiansen, as well as her former government spokesman Steffen Seibert, now ambassador to Israel. Also invited is Jürgen Klinsmann, who was national coach during the soccer World Cup in Germany in 2006, in Merkel’s first full year in office.
Yes, even from her own party. Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, criticism has primarily aroused Merkel’s Russia policy and, from today’s perspective, too soft a course towards President Vladimir Putin: “Angela Merkel was critical of Putin, but she never wanted a complete confrontation with Russia. She always tried to find a form to find a balance. She was always of the opinion that Putin had to be involved,” says the CDU foreign policy expert Johann Wadephul of the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”.
Deputy CDU chairman Carsten Linnemann said on Monday in the RTL and ntv program “Frühstart” that it was obvious that Merkel had “great merits, especially internationally”. But of course she “also made mistakes, even blatant ones”. It must be addressed that the exit from nuclear power after the reactor catastrophe in Fukushima “was a mistake at the time,” said Linnemann. Because it was done “without saying how we want to be reasonably self-sufficient with energy”. In the refugee crisis, too, “blatant mistakes” were made because “we didn’t protect the borders. That should be addressed just as openly as the positive.”
FDP General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai was also skeptical about Merkel’s performance as head of government. “At the end of her term, our country was not in a good condition,” Djir-Sarai told the editorial network Germany (RND). 16 years of service as Chancellor deserves respect. “But experience has shown that historical greatness in politics can only be recognized after a longer period of time.”
The party leaders of the SPD and the Greens, on the other hand, praised Merkel. SPD leader Saskia Esken told the RND: “My special appreciation is due to her diplomatic skills and her empathetic wisdom, with which she has repeatedly succeeded in forging viable coalitions and compromises on the national and international stage.”
Green Party leader Omid Nouripour said that Merkel “shaped our country with her chancellorship like few others”. “You don’t have to agree with all of their work to appreciate their great merits.”
Other sources: Order of Merit on bundespraesident.de, “Faz.net” (paid content).
