The crisis chancellor: How Merkel changed Germany – and the world
The road between the German autobahn and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s tiny hometown is flanked with a canopy of trees. They crowd the narrow winding asphalt, genuflecting to the wind, as you cast off the speed and modernity that is Berlin and approach the historic, cobblestoned town of Templin.
Only 17,000 people reside here, yet Templin is the seventh largest town in Germany by area, because its borders include the surrounding Uckermark forest. This is the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), the communist state where Ms. Merkel was raised.
Decades after the fall of East Germany, high unemployment still grips a region that is anchored by farming on top of whatever tourism dollars come its way. Ironically, the place that gifted Germany its first female chancellor is also a stronghold for the country’s far-right political party. Still, Ms. Merkel is drawn to the forest, and her pastor father and English-teacher mother lived here up until their deaths. Ms. Merkel will likely return often after she closes out 16 years of service as chancellor. She has a longtime country home here, and it’s styled as modestly as she is.
“Merkel doesn’t have a Camp David,” says Detlef Tabbert, Templin’s mayor and a contemporary of Ms. Merkel’s who attended the same high school. “She’s often here. She often drives herself. She does her own grocery shopping.”
As he reflected upon her career, Mr. Tabbert remarked that her 36 years in East Germany “allowed her to make great decisions” during the many crises she faced as chancellor. “Daily life for Merkel here when she was young had many challenges,” he says.
Indeed, some Merkel watchers say the key to her legacy – most often identified as her stellar crisis management skills and a humble-but-resolute leadership style – can be
