Before Ms. Merkel took power, Mr. Putin had that rapport with her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder. “We had to deal with this every day,” Ms. Merkel recalled in a 2009 interview with the newsmagazine Der Spiegel. Mistrust and mediocrity were rife, yet, Ms. Merkel has noted, few really thought the system would collapse. Soon afterward, Ms. Merkel took charge of the center-right Christian Democratic Union by pushing aside her mentor, former Chancellor Helmut Kohl. “That is what she feels she does well.”Advertisement Continue reading the main storyBut, in the end, Ms. Merkel may have miscalculated.

Source: New York Times March 12, 2017 04:52 UTC