Barack Obama performs in Berlin in the evening. A ticket with a photo costs more than 2000 euros. He already met ex-Chancellor Merkel yesterday. The friendship between the two had to grow first.
He already met the former chancellor yesterday evening. At the Edelitaliener in Schöneberg. Angela Merkel with her husband Joachim Sauer and Barack Obama in an intimate gathering. The former chancellor and the rock star of politics. That was by no means always the case.
August 2008: Obama, a young senator from Illinois, who at the time had the best chance, but not yet secured the ticket, of becoming the Democratic presidential candidate, comes to Berlin. 200,000 people want to see and hear him speak.
“Every Piesepampel”
not Merkel. On the contrary: Obama actually wanted to speak in front of the Brandenburg Gate – also because of the beautiful pictures. The chancellor prevented that. Motto: He’s not this Obama yet. She doesn’t want campaign events to have to take place all over the city. “That may seem old-fashioned to some,” she says. You not.
Like so many others, FDP leader Guido Westerwelle thought that was petty. “Ridiculous,” the opposition politician called Merkel’s reasoning. A Joschka Fischer and a Gerhard Schröder have already spoken in front of the Brandenburg Gate. “Any Piesepampel could give a speech there. But Mr. Obama is denied it.”
Obama in July 2008 in front of the Victory Column in Berlin. He was not allowed to appear in front of the Brandenburg Gate.
“Yes, we can” at the Victory Column
Obama finally spoke at the Victory Column. A performance like a rock concert. “People of the world, do your duty. People of the world, look at Berlin,” Obama quoted Ernst Reuter, the former mayor of Berlin, as saying that evening. “Yes we can,” hundreds of thousands call back. And the chancellor? Went to the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth in the evening. “Hopefully I’ll be in Bayreuth by 7 p.m.,” she said mockingly at the time. “Maybe I’ll turn on the TV.” The personality cult of someone who first wanted to become something was audibly foreign to the rather sober chancellor.
So today Obama again. This time for a fee. Tickets in the 17,000-seat Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin cost between 61 and 550 euros. Before that, however, there will be a free lunch for Obama with Olaf Scholz in the Chancellery.
Obama and Scholz: charismatic visit briefcase
Charismatic visited briefcase. The Germans have Olaf. The Americans Obama. Thomas Gottschalk once summed up the Germans’ secret fascination with the political circus in the USA and the star cult surrounding Obama: He once had the honor of having dinner with a chancellor. “Then two lousy black Audis drove up. That was it.” But the US President’s column once drove past him. “I ended up singing the national anthem even though I had to wait so long.”
Germany and Obama – there were times when the bearer of hope, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, was more popular in Germany than at home. When Obama won the election in 2009 and the world cheered, the chancellor was still rather sober. On the night of the election, she looked briefly at the result, but then fell asleep again to start her day’s work, Merkel said the day after.
The Finance Minister at the time, Peer Steinbrück, gently scoffed when his cabinet colleague, Economics Minister Michael Glos, spoke affectionately of the Obama effect. “We estimate the Obama effect to be exactly 1.7134 percent.” He had calculated that, Steinbrück etched after Obama’s election victory to the laughter of the journalists.
A friendship grows
When Chancellor Obama then received Obama for the first time as US President on German soil, the greeting slipped into one of the rare Merkel moments in which a touch of Chancellor nervousness could be heard even in her: “We are delighted that you as President for the first time visit the United States. Uh, no. The Federal Republic of course. Pardon,” said Merkel and Obama smiled nonchalantly.
But slowly, back then, what is now a close friendship between the 68-year-old first East German chancellor and the 61-year-old first black president of the USA grew. Merkel learns to appreciate the thoughtful, intelligent, level-headed Obama. He once praised her as “straightforward, intelligent, focused, an instinctively good person”.
In 2011, the US President presented the Chancellor with the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in the Rose Garden of the White House. Obama called Merkel a “symbol of the triumph of freedom,” she called him a “man of strong convictions,” who also touched the people of Germany with his passion.
“It was beyond my imagination”: Barack Obama honors Angela Merkel with the American Medal of Freedom in 2011.
Merkel’s sympathy remained – despite the NSA affair
The fact that the NSA bugging scandal also took place during Obama’s presidency and that US services themselves tapped the chancellor’s cell phone did not dampen Merkel’s affection for the man she initially viewed so skeptically.
Helge Braun, Merkel’s former head of the chancellery, speaks to him ARD Capital Studio of a “close political friendship” between Merkel and Obama. Together they would have achieved a great deal. “I don’t think the German-American relationship at the level of the heads of government was as good as it was in the days of Obama and Angela Merkel,” says Braun.
Today there is another “Evening with President Obama”, the title of the performance in Berlin, for which there are apparently more tickets than originally expected. The most expensive tickets, however, are already gone. For more than 2000 euros you could get a photo with the man who – according to the official announcement – wants to talk “about the great challenges and opportunities of our time”.