Ever since the German Parliament building reopened in Berlin in 1999, its second-largest meeting room has been occupied by what had often been Germany’s second-largest party, the Social Democrats. Even the room’s name, the Otto Wels Hall, bears the party’s imprint: Wels led the Social Democrats from 1919 until the Nazis drove him to exile….
Friedrich Merz became Germany’s 10th postwar chancellor on Tuesday after a historic stumble that could complicate his efforts to revive the nation’s slumping economy, tighten its borders and rebuild its military, at a time when an isolated Europe is hungry for strong German leadership. After 10 weeks as the nation’s leader-in-waiting following his party’s victory…
Exactly six months after Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition imploded, Friedrich Merz, a conservative Christian Democrat, will be sworn in as Germany’s next chancellor on Tuesday. The swearing-in comes after less than two months of negotiation between the Christian Democratic Union, or C.D.U., which came in first with 28.5 percent of the vote, and the incumbent…
Germany’s centrist politicians are losing votes to the far right and the far left. They are losing faith in America, their longtime friend and protector. And they are rapidly losing what could be their best chance to address both those problems at once. The German government in waiting, led by the likely next chancellor, Friedrich…
Ever since the Berlin Wall fell and the country reunited, Germans could be expected to keep budget deficits relatively low, military spending even lower, and politics at a plodding pace. The next German government is smashing all those traditions before it even takes office. Friedrich Merz, the leader of the center-right Christian Democrats and the…
Three and a half decades after reunification, a line runs through Germany where the Iron Curtain once stood. Instead of barbed wires and dogs, that line now divides Germans by measures like income and unemployment — and increasingly by the willingness to vote for extremist parties. If East Germany were still its own country, the…
Germans voted for a change of leadership on Sunday, handing the most votes in a parliamentary election to centrist conservatives, with the far right in second, and rebuking the nation’s left-leaning government for its handling of the economy and immigration. Early returns and exit polls almost certainly mean the country’s next chancellor will be Friedrich…
Germans voted for a change of leadership on Sunday, handing the most votes in a parliamentary election to centrist conservatives, with the far right in second, and rebuking the nation’s left-leaning government for its handling of the economy and immigration. Early returns and exit polls almost certainly mean the country’s next chancellor will be Friedrich…
Follow live updates on the 2025 Germany election. When German voters go to the polls on Sunday, the fate of companies like SKW Piesteritz will be at the top of their minds. The chemical factory halved its annual Christmas bonus for workers last year, and it just shut down one of its two ammonia plants….
Germans vote on Sunday in a rare snap election that has taken on outsized importance as the new Trump administration threatens European countries with tariffs, cuts them out of negotiations over Ukraine, and embraces an authoritarian Russia. The election for Parliament was called after Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s unpopular and long-troubled three-party government collapsed in November….