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BERLIN: In a ceremonial military send-off to mark the end of her 16 years as chancellor, Angela Merkel left Germans with a final message Thursday: Trust one another. Less than a week before Merkel will officially hand over power to her successor, Olaf Scholz, she received her country’s highest military honours, featuring a traditional parade of torch-bearing soldiers and a marching band.
In a short address, Merkel warned that trust was one of the most important ingredients in democracy. “The last two years of this pandemic have shown how important the trust in politics, science and societal discourse is — but also how fragile it can be,” she told a small audience of masked and socially distanced guests. Democracy, she said, “depends on solidarity and trust, including the trust in facts.” Merkel counselled vigilance. “Wherever scientific insight is denied and conspiracy theories and hatred are spread, we need to resist.” Merkel remarked on the symbolic location of the ceremony: The courtyard of the Bendlerblock, a building that is now part of the defence ministry but was once the headquarters of a resistance group of officers who had carried out the plot against Adolf Hitler in 1944 and were executed.
The ceremony lasted about an hour. Known as the Grosser Zapfenstreich, or Grand Tattoo, it dates to the 16th century and is the highest honour the military can bestow on civilians. The highlight was the military marching band playing three songs picked by the chancellor. Her predecessors, Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schroder, asked for Beethoven and Frank Sinatra. Merkel picked “Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen,” or “You Forgot the Colour Film,” a 1970s hit from the Communist East by Nina Hagen, who later emigrated to the West and became Germany’s punk rock idol of the 1980s. Until recently, Merkel had rarely spoken about her East German background. When asked about the song, which tells the tale of a couple going on holiday on an island in the Baltic Sea, she said: “The song was a highlight of my youth, which as everyone knows took place in the GDR (German Democratic Republic, the official name of Communist East Germany).”
At times, there was a hint of emotion in the usually stoic chancellor’s face. “If I stand before you today, I feel above all gratefulness and humility.”
In a short address, Merkel warned that trust was one of the most important ingredients in democracy. “The last two years of this pandemic have shown how important the trust in politics, science and societal discourse is — but also how fragile it can be,” she told a small audience of masked and socially distanced guests. Democracy, she said, “depends on solidarity and trust, including the trust in facts.” Merkel counselled vigilance. “Wherever scientific insight is denied and conspiracy theories and hatred are spread, we need to resist.” Merkel remarked on the symbolic location of the ceremony: The courtyard of the Bendlerblock, a building that is now part of the defence ministry but was once the headquarters of a resistance group of officers who had carried out the plot against Adolf Hitler in 1944 and were executed.
The ceremony lasted about an hour. Known as the Grosser Zapfenstreich, or Grand Tattoo, it dates to the 16th century and is the highest honour the military can bestow on civilians. The highlight was the military marching band playing three songs picked by the chancellor. Her predecessors, Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schroder, asked for Beethoven and Frank Sinatra. Merkel picked “Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen,” or “You Forgot the Colour Film,” a 1970s hit from the Communist East by Nina Hagen, who later emigrated to the West and became Germany’s punk rock idol of the 1980s. Until recently, Merkel had rarely spoken about her East German background. When asked about the song, which tells the tale of a couple going on holiday on an island in the Baltic Sea, she said: “The song was a highlight of my youth, which as everyone knows took place in the GDR (German Democratic Republic, the official name of Communist East Germany).”
At times, there was a hint of emotion in the usually stoic chancellor’s face. “If I stand before you today, I feel above all gratefulness and humility.”
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