默克爾的理想與使命

A former teacher recalls little Angela Merkel trotting around her East German school in the blue shirt of the FDJ, the communist youth organisation. Later, Merkel served as cultural secretary for the FDJ while working as a physicist at the Academy of Sciences. She conformed to the status quo despite never believing in communism.

一位以前的老師回憶起年少的安格拉?默克爾(Angela Merkel)在東德的校園裏四處奔跑着，穿着共青團組織德意志自由青年同盟(FDJ)的藍色襯衫。後來，默克爾在FDJ擔任宣傳祕書，同時也是東德科學院的物理學家。即使從不信奉共產主義，她也安於當時的現狀。

These seem strange beginnings for a German chancellor. Yet there is continuity. A consistent picture of Merkel emerges from five recent biographies: by Stefan Kornelius in German, Marion Van Renterghem in French, Matthew Qvortrup in English, Michèle de Waard in Dutch, plus a critical conservative German collection edited by Philip Plickert*. The woman almost certain to be re-elected on September 24 has a genius for locating the centre of any society she finds herself in. Henry Kissinger, a longtime confidant, once said she appears “the perfect expression of her time”. Merkel is an opportunist who often U-turns, yet she seems well suited to lead the west.

這些對於一位德國總理來說，是很離奇的開端。但仍存在着連續性。從近來的五本傳記中可以看出默克爾一貫的形象，這五本傳記的作者分別是：德國的斯特凡?科內柳斯(Stefan Kornelius)、法國的馬利翁?範?倫特赫姆(Marion Van Renterghem)、英國的馬修?奎特普(Matthew Qvortrup)、荷蘭的米歇爾?迪?沃德(Michèle de Waard)、以及菲利普?普里克特(Philip Plickert)編輯的一部批判性的、保守的德文集。這位幾乎無疑將在9月24日的大選中再度當選的女性有一種天賦，能夠定位出她所在的任何一個組織的中心。其多年的好友亨利?基辛格(Henry Kissinger)曾說，默克爾似乎“是她那個時代的完美表現”。默克爾是一個機會主義者，態度經常出現180度的大轉彎，但她似乎很適合領導西方。

Communist East Germany shaped her. In her first 35 years she learnt that ideology is mostly bunk; became a physicist because the field was scarcely infected by Marxism-Leninism; and dreamt of being free to fulfil herself. Only months after the Berlin Wall fell, she embraced her vocation: Chancellor Helmut Kohl put her in his cabinet as a token female East German.

共產主義東德塑造了她。她從生命中的前35年學到意識形態是靠不住的；後來成爲了一名物理學家，因爲這個領域幾乎沒有受到馬克思列寧主義的影響；並夢想着自由地實現自我。就在柏林牆倒塌的幾個月後，她欣然接受了自己的使命：赫爾穆特?科爾(Helmut Kohl)總理把她拉進自己的內閣，作爲女性東德人的一個象徵。

She found many male politicians vain, verbose and under-informed. They initially dismissed her as a boring beta-female, and underestimated her will to power. Kohl called her “clueless” and said she “never quite learnt to eat with a knife and fork”. In 1999 she knifed him in the back, then outwitted her rival Wolfgang Sch?uble to become chancellor. She doesn’t bother with grudges: Sch?uble became her trusted finance minister.

她發現許多男性政治家都自負、囉嗦還孤陋寡聞。他們起初認爲她是個無聊的小女人，並低估了她的權力慾。科爾說她“一竅不通”並說她“從來沒學會用刀叉吃飯”。1999年她給了科爾背後一擊，然後以智取勝，戰勝了她的對手沃爾夫岡?朔伊布勒(Wolfgang Sch?uble)成爲總理。她不計前嫌：朔伊布勒成爲了她信任的財政部長。

Her chancellor’s office is 10 minutes’ walk from her former squat in East Berlin; she hasn’t strayed far from her origins. Confronted with a problem, she gathers expert evidence like a scientist. In 2007, about to go into an opera, she received a text from her financial counsellor: “IKB is in trouble.” Merkel replied (according to De Waard), “What’s IKB?” It was a German bank, which, after dabbling in US subprime assets, needed billions in bailouts.

她的總理辦公室離她在東柏林的居所只有10分鐘的路程；她並沒有偏離自己的出身。遇到問題時，她會像一名科學家一樣蒐集專業證據。2007年，正要去歌劇院時，她收到了一則來自財政顧問的短信：“IKB遇到麻煩了。”默克爾重複着（據迪?沃德寫道），“IKB是什麼？”IKB是一家德國銀行，在涉足美國的次貸資產後，需要數十億財政援助。

When the euro crisis broke, Merkel knew little about finance. She only had her standard German reflexes: distrust of market “speculators”, trust in corporations. Teaching herself the subject, she discovered with dismay that economists — unlike physicists — routinely gave her wrong analyses. Still, she enjoyed impromptu seminars on the “fat tail” theory of markets. Complexity doesn’t scare her. After all, she reminds herself, as a physicist she mastered integral calculus.

當歐元危機爆發時，默克爾對金融所知甚少。她僅能做出標準的德國人的反應：不信任市場“投機者”，信任企業。她自學金融，沮喪地發現經濟學家們——跟物理學家不一樣——經常給她錯誤的分析。儘管如此，她還是喜歡那些關於市場“厚尾”理論的即興研討會。複雜嚇不倒她。畢竟，她提醒自己，作爲一個物理學家，她精通積分學。

She moves slowly — often too slowly in the euro crisis, which she compared to driving through fog. But she dislikes decisions of impulse. Even in a helicopter under fire from Taliban rockets in Afghanistan, Merkel stayed cool. She has learnt to suppress her instinct to burst into tears in a conflict, writes Qvortrup. Now bullies just bounce off her placidity. East Germany’s 1970 junior champion in Russian and maths has even built a working relationship with Vladimir Putin. In private, she has fun mimicking narcissistic male leaders.

她行動遲緩——在歐元危機中往往太慢了，她將此比作驅車穿過濃霧。但她不喜歡衝動之下做決定。即便在阿富汗乘坐直升機遭到塔利班火箭襲擊時，默克爾仍保持冷靜。奎特普寫道，她學會了在衝突中剋制哭泣的本能。如今，恫嚇只是反襯出她的平靜。1970年，默克爾獲得東德俄語和數學中學競賽的冠軍，這甚至讓她建立了與弗拉基米爾?普京(Vladimir Putin)的工作關係。私下裏，她以模仿自戀狂男性領導人爲樂。

One colleague who read her correctly was Tony Blair. He grasped that this eastern Lutheran divorcée leading the largely western Catholic Christian Democrats was, like him, an intruder in her own party. Like Blair, she sought to park herself in her country’s political centre. She unashamedly studies opinion polls. But whereas Blair liked adventure, Merkel’s concern is the west’s survival. Having watched East Germany implode, she believes the southern Europeans might go the same way if they don’t make their economies competitive.

真正懂她的同事是託尼?布萊爾(Tony Blair)。布萊爾知道，這位離過婚的來自德國東部的路德教徒，領導着黨員基本上是西部天主教徒的基民盟(Christian Democrats)，她與自己一樣都是本黨派中的“外人”。與布萊爾一樣，默克爾尋求讓自己進入本國的政治核心。她坦然地研究民調。但是儘管布萊爾喜歡冒險，默克爾擔心的卻是西方的存亡。她從東德垮掉的經歷中明白，如果南歐人不增強他們經濟的競爭力，就會走上同樣的道路。

Her métier is managing the foreign crises that threaten placid Germany: financial crisis, euro crisis, Crimean crisis and, now, the Trump crisis. De Waard calls her “Europe’s fire-brigade commander”. Merkel is agile, and changes direction based on new information. She backed the Iraq war and nuclear power, then didn’t. She refused to bail out Greece, then did. In September 2015, she suddenly let in a million refugees. Each time she searched for the sweet spot between Germany’s political centre, her rational analysis and the outside world’s demands. She likes compromising — the essential skill in German or European politics.

她的專長是管理擾亂德國平靜的外國危機：金融危機、歐元危機、克里米亞危機以及現在的特朗普危機。德沃德將她稱爲“歐洲的消防指揮官”。默克爾思維敏銳，擅長隨機應變。她最初支持伊拉克戰爭和核能，隨後又改變立場。她最初拒絕紓困希臘，隨後又同意紓困。2015年9月，她突然允許100萬難民進入德國。每次她都會尋找德國政治中心、自己的理性分析和外部世界需求之間的“甜蜜點”。她喜歡妥協——這是德國或者歐洲政界的根本技能。

But every great politician has a core, one or two beliefs she won’t trade away. The refugees belatedly revealed Merkel’s. She treasures the individual’s freedom to make his or her own life. In October 2015, writes Qvortrup, when Hungary’s prime minister Victor Orbán advised Germany at an EU summit to build a fence, Merkel let a silence fall, then said, “I lived a long time behind a fence. It is not something I wish to do again.” Welcoming the refugees was the one time she spent political capital. But now she calls it a one-off. Germany’s centre wouldn’t bear a repeat.

但每個偉大的政治家都有一個核心，即一兩個不會交易的信念。難民終於揭示出默克爾的核心是什麼。她珍視個人決定生活方向的自由。2015年10月，當匈牙利總理歐爾班?維克托(Viktor Orban)在歐盟峯會上建議德國建造隔離牆的時候，默克爾沉默了一下，然後說道：“我曾經很長時間生活在隔離牆後面。這不是我希望再次做的事情。”爲了歡迎難民，她動用了政治資本。但現在她把它稱爲一次性的。德國的政治中心不會容忍此類事情再次發生。

Her job description keeps expanding: from leader of Germany to leader of Europe, to leader of the west since Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Merkel remains the same. Every evening, writes Van Renterghem, she returns to her simple fourth-floor flat near Berlin’s Museum Island, where the buzzer bears her husband’s name: “Prof Dr Sauer.”

她的職位描述不斷擴大：從德國領導人到歐洲領導人，再到唐納德?特朗普(Donald Trump)上臺以來的西方領導人。與此同時，默克爾依然是默克爾。範倫特赫姆寫道，每天晚上，她都會回到位於柏林博物館島(Museum Island)附近的簡陋4樓公寓住所，那裏的門鈴上寫着她丈夫的名字：“紹爾博士，教授”。