Merkel thinks we're all flacked.

Instead, she wanted to talk about the Peace of Augsburg, signed in 1555.

The chancellor has made frequent excursions into history lately. Indeed, the Peace of Augsburg also came up four weeks ago during her visit to the residence of the German ambassador in Washington. The treaty initiated a 60-year phase of peace between Protestants and Catholics after the bloody turmoil of the Reformation and it initially seemed as though people had finally come to their senses. But that image turned out to be a deceptive one. In 1618, a war began unlike any the Continent had ever seen before. By the time the inferno ended 30 years later, large parts of Germany had been depopulated and many cities left in ruins.

To Merkel, the Peace of Augsburg is much more than some distant historical date. Rather, it is a warning of just how thin the varnish covering civilization really is.
Donald Trump? For her, he is a man who has turned back the historical clock to zero hour and casts doubt on everything that has united the West for decades: NATO, trade agreements and the United Nations.
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Vladimir Putin? A president who was once full of admiration for the West's performance, but at some point realized he would never be able to trigger an economic turnaround in his country and is now fully committed to brute force and repression, in Ukraine, in Syria and in Russia itself.

China? Proof that it is not impossible to reconcile a dictatorship with a market economy. Europe? Quarrelling, weakened by Brexit and paralyzed by agonizingly long decision-making procedures.
In the fall of 2016, Merkel evidently seriously considered withdrawing from politics. People she spoke to at the time say it was almost painful to see how coldly and soberly Merkel assessed her own situation -- the hatred she now provokes and the weariness that a long run as chancellor inevitably brings with it, especially in the age of instantaneous new media.

If Hillary Clinton had won the election in the U.S., Merkel would not have run again, says one person who speaks with her on an almost daily basis.
Merkel, it was said after Trump's election, had become the leader of the free world. But that's nonsense. She's a hardworking politician who has been around for ages and everyone knows her -- from the Saudi crown prince to Li Xi, the party secretary of Guangdong Province, with whom she had lunch a week ago Friday. They all appreciate her detailed knowledge, intelligence and patience. Yet like any leader who has been in office for a long time, Merkel is particularly good at explaining what is not possible.
In her thoughts, Merkel is actually more revolutionary. She feels everything needs to move much faster, in Europe and in Germany, which can't even manage to build an airport in its capital city -- in stark contrast to a China that can build entire metropolises from scratch within just a few years. During her trips to China, there is always a hint of appreciations for the Chinese government, which isn't burdened by protracted planning approval procedures and where no politician is forced to laboriously explain himself to the citizens. China is governed from the top down.

Something has to happen, Merkel said with concern as she traveled back to Berlin, impressed by the drive of Beijing's leaders. And then, in the same breath, she went on to explain why nothing could happen: because her hands are tied by German federalism, by the center-left Social Democrats in her government, and by the CSU, which often acts as more of an adversary than as a sister party.

Merkel says she doesn't lead by speeches and appeals. She acts as if it's a German virtue to reach your goal without much talk. But the truth is that she shirks the work of finding the right words to rally people around ideas that don't yet have majority support. Could Brandt's détente policy have existed were it not for great speeches? Or German reunification? One of the traits of the late Merkel era is that the chancellor's own silence fuels the very apathy that she so deeply laments.