People who travel a lot tend to hear a lot about Angela Merkel, and more often than not, it’s surprising.

Putin respects her, say those familiar with the Russian soul. In Washington, she shows up as an equal. Africans love her modesty, people in the Balkans marvel at how she wordlessly domesticates male Alpha animals. Merkel, it would seem, is on the brink of canonization – in her lifetime, no less!

15 years at the helm of the CDU suggests a continuity that in fact does not distinguish the Christian Democrats. A completely new party emerged from the old CDU of the Kohl era, an old boys club with but a few token women at the top. The contours now, however, are no more sharply defined than before – quite the contrary. Opposition and unrest in the rank-and-file never flared at Merkel for giving the conservative, business-friendly CDU a Social Democratic touch, but only because the party benefited from the luster of her chancellorship. A comparison to the programmatic eruptions seen within the SPD during that same period of time show the party wore out five party leaders in the process.