Is Germany's future entrusted to a weak chancellor? The significance of Friedrich Merz...

In an analysis featured on biryenicumhuriyet.com.tr, translated by Osman Çutsay, Fülberth made the following remarks:

That Friedrich Merz could be a weak chancellor was already visible before the need for a second round in the Bundestag to take over the government on May 6, 2025. The problem was not with Merz, but with the general situation. The scandal of May 6, 2025, did not illuminate that general situation; on the contrary, it prevented attention from being focused on it.

Merz is at the head of a government coalition that, despite a comprehensive coalition agreement, has a chance to realize only two projects: closing off against migration and rearmament. The concrete implementation of other agreed-upon projects will be the subject of fierce debate.

A third common denominator is the opposition to the AfD [Alternative for Germany] shared by the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats (much like the previous traffic light coalition). If this rival party is not sidelined, the parties across the spectrum of the CDU/CSU, FDP, Greens, and the Left Party(*) will blame each other for this, and new combinations will be sought. This is likely to make Friedrich Merz dispensable over time.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, when Chancellor Konrad Adenauer managed to keep the SPD out of power, the SPD consoled itself with the awareness that the opposition, alongside the government, was also a "driving force of politics."

The same is now true for the AfD. The AfD is the elephant in the room, the party holding control in the ring. Since the state parliament elections in Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia, coalitions have been formed based on a single point of view: preventing the AfD from joining the government. In other East German states, this view was already in effect. The united front against the AfD blunts the differences between the participating parties and flattens the political topography. This also demonstrates the not-insignificant power of the aforementioned party. Even the Left Party's last-minute leap into the Bundestag in 2025 was influenced by the AfD. Those who wanted to send a signal against the AfD and no longer trusted the SPD and the Greens voted for "Heidi and Jan"(**). Through this remote effect, the AfD gifted Merz a left-wing opposition. Merz could be dependent on the Left Party's state-loyal stance in various situations. This has already happened twice, even regarding parliamentary procedural issues.

Thus, the AfD—much like the SPD once was—can truly act as the "other driving force of politics." If this party claims a right to the future, it will not be deceiving itself. Here, too, there is an analogy to the social democracy of the post-war era under the two SPD chairmen, Kurt Schumacher and Erich Ollenhauer. This social democracy still had a bit of a future ahead of it, despite all the election defeats: to underpin conservative rule with a social state and for the Federal Republic to become at least partially social-liberal(***). In 1969, the SPD's posters read: "We are creating a modern Germany." The AfD has the same intention, albeit in a different way. Again, it is about a new economic and state order within the framework of bourgeois society.

Such things have always happened in the history of capitalism. Capitalism takes on different economic and political forms over time. The first industrial revolution in England gave birth to the political sovereignty of parliament through a regime of unbridled competition. In this parliament, due to limited suffrage, those with industrial profits and land rent returns gathered among themselves.

After the great depression of 1873-1895/96, organized capitalism (later monopoly state capitalism) and imperialism emerged in the most developed industrial countries. This happened partly in constitutional monarchies and partly in parliamentary republics, gradually thanks to expanded suffrage that surpassed the bourgeoisie in the economy, and thus the increasing influence of the working class.

The 1929 world economic crisis was liquidated first through military Keynesianism during the Second World War, and later through a more civilian welfare capitalism. Fascism and mass democracy were equally useful as political forms.

This mass democracy spread in OECD countries through relative class compromises under conditions of long-term economic growth. In Federal Germany, there were strong chancellors: Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt. They were strong because they could successfully facilitate class compromise: initially liberal-conservative during the Adenauer era, and later social-liberal during the Brandt and Schmidt eras. The shift of the chancellorship from the CDU/CSU to the SPD in 1969 occurred with the transformation in the balance of power between the right and left centers. There were also intervals of two weak chancellors, such as Ludwig Erhard and Kurt Georg Kiesinger. The uninterrupted foreign policy constant was the alliance with the USA.

In the mid-1970s, the class compromise mediated by the state became too expensive. The logical conclusion was reached in 1982: the replacement of state-mediated regulation with the free management of financial markets. For this, a weak chancellor in office was sufficient: Helmut Kohl, whom an external event, the fall of the Berlin Wall, made a great man.

Kohl's successor, Gerhard Schröder, was indeed a strong, meaning effective, chancellor. He had the courage to partially dismantle the social state. Afterwards, Merkel and Scholz were able to let things take their course again: self-management of capital with the help of financial markets.

The resulting increase in inequality has now created a new political system: plutocracy supported by disillusioned masses. Billionaires are partly gaining direct access to state apparatuses (formerly Berlusconi, now Musk, Trump), and partly, a few rungs lower, political personnel are operating as a bridge between the top and the bottom: Meloni, Milei, Le Pen, Weidel.

Friedrich Merz does not quite fit into this gallery of horrors. He lacks an economic, individual, and demagogic mass of oscillation. After all, Merz was not an oligarch at Blackrock, but a high-level executive and a former business lawyer. As someone aspiring to populism, he creates an almost comical figure. He lacks the ability to mobilize segments of the masses for the interests of economic elites. He does not know the powerless people who feel called to fight against those even weaker and foreigners; he cannot hide his contempt for them, and they are aware of it. As a demagogue, Alice Weidel is superior to him. This is not good for the firewall.

Friedrich Merz is sincerely working on a grand project for the future: creating a sovereign great power [Großmacht] in Western Europe. He is not alone in this. Even Jürgen Habermas now admits that the rearmament of the EU is inevitable. The AfD retains its distinctive feature: more power for Germany, not for Europe, and an end to dependence on the USA. Transatlanticist Merz cannot compete with it on this. His commitment to the EU is also shared by the Merkel supporters within the CDU, but they remain cautious toward Merz. One day, someone from these groups might replace him. Or he could be replaced by a CDU politician who will form an alliance with the increasingly powerful AfD to his right.

Predictions are often wrong. Perhaps I am mistaken. Let us wait and see.