Mission for reform: Friedrich Merz and his place in history

In the chatter about the consequences of the election debacle for the coalition and the Chancellor, one thing should not be forgotten: Chancellor Friedrich Merz also won an election. He and his union were elected in 2025 with almost 29 percent.

In other words: Merz has received a mandate from voters to carry out reforms. Manuela Schwesig's poor election success cannot change this any more than the AfD's victory in Saxony-Anhalt. The all-German sovereign has more weight than the approximately 3.6 million inhabitants of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt.

Merz should not forget this order. More than that: The 70-year-old Chancellor is already thinking about his end - and his place in history. He has to do what he started with in 2025. That is his duty, his mission. If he fulfills them and succeeds in making Germany fit for the future, he will be sure to enter the history books. That's all he should care about.

In the gloom of the present, this may require a little pathos. Max Weber offers it. The sociologist writes that one motivation for becoming a politician is “the feeling of holding a nerve strand of historically important events in your hands, of raising it above and beyond everyday life.”

Anyone who has this awareness (Konrad Adenauer had it, as did Helmut Kohl) has the courage to fight for what he considers necessary, even against majorities. In extreme cases, he doesn't give a damn about the spirit of the times, just as Faust advised his Wagner faculty member: "What you call the spirit of the times / That is fundamentally the gentlemen's own spirit / In which the times are reflected."