In 2005 Germany’s economy was seen as a threat to the eurozone. Ten years on,it is a global leader, but can the chancellor really occupy the credit?In Wolfgang Becker’s classic tragicomedy Good Bye, or Lenin!,released two years before Angela Merkel won the 2005 German elections, a woman slips into a coma after a heart attack and misses the tumble of the Berlin Wall. When she comes to, and the world has changed so totally beyond recognition that her children have to conceal the harsh unusual reality to prevent another breakdown.
On the 10th anniversary of Merkel’s triumph,it is worth asking: would someone who slept through the past decade be similarly shocked by the spring in history’s step? The change in mood music would certainly be disorienting. In 2005, Germany was still struggling to shake off its reputation as the “sick man of Europe”. Unemployment had risen above 5 million for the first time since the end of the second world war and GDP growth had languished at a measly 1% for four years in a row.
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Source: theguardian.com