16 years with Angela Merkel, that was always a topic in the culture and gossip section. In the last few meters of your chancellorship, the animals section becomes topical. It gets fluffy.
Berlin – She has just fed Australian Loris in a bird park in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. She is pinched, one of the parrots is even allowed to fly on her head, it looks funny.
People are excited. “A picture for eternity,” reads a comment on Instagram. Above it says: “I think Ms. Merkel is really nice in her private life.” In the last few meters of her 16-year-long chancellorship, Angela Merkel is fluffy. Time for a look back apart from politics, where a certain evening dress is not missing.
“That’s why it is beautiful”
It started with a lot of ridicule for her helmet hairdresser until she got a relaunch. Udo Walz thought the cut was “brilliant”. That was self-praise. Merkel was a customer of the Berlin celebrity hairdresser who died last year. It is not known where she has her hair cut now. But it is likely that Walz joined the CDU because of her.
The first woman in the Chancellery, now 67 years old, received compliments and criticism, fashion tips and remote diagnoses. Initially as Helmut Kohl’s “girl” and smiled at for her hairstyle, later also many who did not vote for the CDU saw her as a world politician who asserted herself in the men’s circus. “I find her very likeable. She has my great respect for how she handles these patriarchal structures and sometimes personal insults so confidently, ”said the cook and Green politician Sarah Wiener. Herbert Grönemeyer attested the physicist an “unpretentious cleverness”.
The writer Martin Walser went even further in an essay for “Spiegel”. Merkel is not only smart, but also beautiful. “Most politicians reel off what they can do. This is also because they have to say more than they know. With Ms. Merkel we will witness how spirit and nature come together, and that is precisely why she is beautiful, ”wrote Walser in 2018.
As for her wardrobe and appearance, there has been arguably more press and debate than any of her predecessors. Sure, Gerhard Schröder was the “Brioni Chancellor” because of the expensive suits. Helmut Kohl was nicknamed “pear” because of his pounds and his figure.
The Oslo dress
But that is no comparison to Merkel’s echo, for example when she wore an evening dress with a neckline and showed her bosom during a visit to the opera in Oslo in 2008. That was treated as a moderate sensation. It was even a topic at the federal press conference. “That this evening dress, a new composition, a new arrangement from the Chancellor’s inventory, caused such a sensation (…) was not the intention of the Chancellor,” said the then Vice-Government Spokesman Thomas Steg.
There were never again pictures of Merkel like from Oslo. The Chancellor adopted a uniform style of trousers and blazers. For photos she found the gesture of the diamond – just copied by SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz on the cover of the “SZ magazine”. The Italian designer Giorgio Armani was quite fond of Merkel’s fashion. “I always found her style interesting, her tailor-made jackets with matching trousers.” The style exudes calm self-confidence, Armani told “Zeitmagazin”.
Karl Lagerfeld’s judgment was less gracious at the time. “Ms. Merkel would have to have something made to measure for her special proportions,” said the fashion designer in 2013 to “Focus”. “But she doesn’t want any advice, I’ve heard.” Lagerfeld later went tough with Merkel’s refugee policy. “You cannot kill millions of Jews, even if there are decades in between, only to have millions of their worst enemies come afterwards,” he said in a 2017 TV interview that was hotly debated in France.
“The time of the Cohibas is over”
In the cultural world there are some people who know and like Merkel personally. Like the actor Ulrich Matthes, who also values her as a theater critic. “The conversations with Angela Merkel are always particularly detailed. Sometimes she takes a long time after the performance and talks to me alone about the piece for an hour, ”said Matthes to the editorial network Germany.
Women’s rights activist Alice Schwarzer sees “pure feminism” in Merkel’s life and success. In the “Spiegel” interview, Schwarzer described what remains for equality after the end of the Merkel era: “As always, we are taking two steps forward, one step back. It marked a turning point in a way that cannot be undone. The men can’t let him hang out like that anymore, if I may put it that way. The time of the Cohibas is over. ”With the latter, Schwarzer alluded to politicians who smoke cigars, such as ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
Schwarzer thinks the nickname “Mutti” for Merkel is wrong. “If someone is not a mother, then she is.” She is “a mixture of girl and comrade”. Merkel’s mix is an interesting path because it goes beyond clichés. “She plays neither the submissive female in high heels nor the guy. That wouldn’t do any good either, the real man is always the better man. At some point the boys piss, and then women come up short. Women could learn from Merkel’s style. “
Tough on the mountain and even more birds
Mountaineering legend Reinhold Messner knows the Chancellor and her husband Joachim Sauer from hiking. In “Welt am Sonntag” he said: “Angela Merkel is tough, not only on the mountain, but also in the political life around her. They won’t be broken down so easily. She stays awake longer, clearer than others. “
Again on the subject of fleece and animals – the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei already had ideas for Merkel as a senior citizen: “When she retires, I wish her a comfortable life. I hope that she will go to the Berlin Zoo and see the pandas there. “
In the Marlow Bird Park, the brightly colored parrots ate Merkel’s hand. The budgies were also trusting and allowed the outgoing head of government to feed them millet. Merkel was only cautious about the eagle owl: she didn’t want to hold the approximately 60 centimeter tall owl with the big eyes after all. “No, no. I did well with the parakeets. ”Dpa
