But that was last week. Merz shook the foundation of the postwar republic on Jan. 29 by staging a showdown with the government on the topic of migration, an issue that the country’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has leveraged to record results in the eastern states and that placed it behind only the CDU in national polls . In response to the recent stabbing of a 2-year-old boy and man in Aschaffenburg, allegedly by an asylum-seeker from Afghanistan, Merz swerved on a dime and proposed a raft of harsher border and asylum rules, several of which are probably unconstitutional.

For months, Germany’s largest opposition force, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), beat the drum that the country’s general election on Feb. 23 was all about economic stagnation. This had been the CDU’s plan, designed and driven forward by its leader Friedrich Merz, a no-nonsense and pro-business conservative whose acclaimed expertise is the economy. And the ongoing flood of bad news about Germany’s dreary finances should have been the cue for Merz and his fellow conservatives to erupt into joyous schadenfreude. He was cruising toward victory and the chancellorship, a slam dunk to step into the shoes of Germany’s last conservative heavyweight, Angela Merkel.

For months, Germany’s largest opposition force, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), beat the drum that the country’s general election on Feb. 23 was all about economic stagnation. This had been the CDU’s plan, designed and driven forward by its leader Friedrich Merz, a no-nonsense and pro-business conservative whose acclaimed expertise is th