With scorched fields, parched rivers, and sweltering temperatures, Germany hasn’t had a summer like this in living memory. And Berlin hasn’t had a Sommerloch, or silly season, quite like this one in years either, with debates emerging that have real potential to last long after Germany’s political class returns.

Perhaps the most lively debate that has emerged over this summer break is over the prospect of reinstating compulsory military service. Seven years ago, Germany consigned to history the year-long military service duty for young people, as well as the alternative—civil, or community, service. But now there’s talk of reversing that decision, at least if we’re to believe Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, general secretary of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Kramp-Karrenbauer is considered a possible successor to Merkel and has built a reputation as a straight-talker, not known for shooting off her mouth. Last weekend she told a German newspaper that reviving military and alternative civil service was one of issues she was confronted with on nearly every stop of a recent “listening tour,” where she traveled across the country speaking to CDU party members.

This being August, when news stories are as rare as rain clouds, media and political commentators happily pounced on the story. Compulsory military service was abolished in 2011 as the defense ministry overhauled Germany’s armed forces, or the Bundeswehr, into a new, slimmed-down model of volunteers and professional recruits. But numbers have plummeted more dramatically than expected: at the time of reunification, there were 585,000 soldiers in the Bundeswehr; last year, there were around 179,000, with more than 20,000 vacant posts. The situation is so serious that the ministry is considering a new recruitment drive to encourage EU nationals to join up.

Despite those recruitment challenges, even those concerned about Germany’s struggle to meet its security obligations are wary. “Focusing on military service is too short-sighted,” said Roderich Kiesewetter, CDU head of the Bundestag foreign policy committee, warning the debate was too complex “to be used to fill a silly season hole.”

Unsettled by the momentum of the debate, a federal government spokeswoman intervened to insist Berlin has no plans to bring back military service. And Kramp-Karrenbauer took to Twitter to calm the waters, insisting she was not necessarily in favor of compulsory conscription, adding that “there are many ways to serve.” Still, she is likely to be happy she’s started a debate as the CDU faces tricky negotiations over a new party program and its next election manifesto. Paul Ziemak, head of the CDU youth wing, praised the idea of a community year as an “opportunity give something back while strengthening national unity.

Merkel, currently on holiday, has yet to express an opinion, though she will be watching closely to see which way public opinion blows before making her move. A poll this month found that nearly 56 percent of Germans would welcome a return of military duty. Legal experts warn that reactivating compulsory military service would be constitutionally difficult, as politicians would have to justify the move on security grounds.

Even if national service is not likely to be restored, the debate may woo back German conservative voters from the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). They view the abolition of military service as one of the great policy betrayals of the Merkel era.

Merkel’s center-left coalition partner, the Social Democrats (SPD), and other opposition parties are skeptical of the entire debate. Many who did their year of obligatory service remember how they were exploited as free labor—most frequently in the health sector, working in hospitals and elderly homes. Reintroducing civil service could backfire, they fear, with trained staff replaced by unskilled volunteers.

The Spahn Tour and a New Movement

But that could serve one man’s political agenda nicely: Jens Spahn, Germany’s health minister and another would-be Merkel successor. At the height of the summer, Spahn has been busy taking on Germany’s healthcare system. He pushed through a new law that will cap the number of patients to be cared for by home staff, in a bid to reduce the work overload for caregivers in for-profit facilities, where low pay and high stress has made the work so unattractive.

Despite Germany’s ageing population, there are too few care workers on the market. To counteract that, Spahn wants to boost salaries in a bid to attract previously badly-paid staff back into the workplace. He has also pushed through changes forcing employers to pay the same contributions for health insurance as their employees starting next year. And registered doctors will soon have to guarantee more office hours for patients on public health insurance as well. It remains to be seen whether these measures will have the desired effect, but for Germany’s ambitious health minister, who has an eye on the chancellor’s post, failing is not an option.

Meanwhile, on the other end of Germany’s political landscape, the summer season has seen the soft launch of a new left-wing movement called Aufstehen (“Arise”). Ahead of the official launch on September 4, its website went live last weekend and promptly drew in around 40,000 supporters—though it’s not at all clear to what exactly they have signed up.

What we know so far is that Arise has drawn inspiration from other political movements both inside and outside traditional party structures, from left-wing Democrat Bernie Sanders in the United States to France’s hard left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

The driving force is Sahra Wagenknecht, Bundestag co-leader of the Left Party, and her husband Oskar Lafontaine, a former leader of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Wagenknecht has two main priorities: to attract people turned off by mainstream politics and to reactivate a left-wing majority by satisfying public demand for solutions to the social justice issues dominating German life, like living wages, pensions above the poverty line, and affordable housing

“Our goal is naturally [to achieve] different political majorities, and a new government with a social agenda,” Wagenknecht told Der Spiegel over the weekend.

Though details are scarce, the plan is for Aufstehen to develop policies and feed them into the political debate. Wagenknecht insists her aim isn’t to splinter Germany’s already divided left, but to call out parties (read: the SPD) whom she says are more fond of left-wing lip service than real policy.

“If the pressure is great enough,” she said, “parties will, in their own interest, open their lists to our ideas and campaigners.”

With temperatures hitting 36 degrees Celsius this week in Berlin, however, it remains to be seen how much appetite there is for Wagenknecht turning up the heat still further on her fellow left-wingers.

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Artwork: © Dominik Herrmann

Long before she became chancellor, Angela Merkel thought about how important it was for a politician to know when it was time to leave politics. This was in 1998, and Merkel had just witnessed how Helmut Kohl’s electoral defeat put an ignominious end to his 16-year chancellorship. She reasoned that she never wanted to leave politics as a lame duck herself. Ever since, she has considered an exit on her own terms the ideal end to a successful political career.

The chancellor’s hesitation to confirm her candidacy in the fall of last year was likely connected to that hope. She was aware of the fact that every missed chance to determine the end of her career herself reduces the chances that she will be able to at all. At the same time, given Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Brexit, there has hardly been a worse time for the most experienced and powerful European head of state to leave the stage.

Politicians who intend to stay in office as long as they are able have no need to consider their succession, but one who would determine her own exit must. Yet since her surprising rise to the top of the CDU in the year 2000, Merkel has been too busy warding off her intra-party challengers to pay any attention to who might come after her. Early on, she surrounded herself with a close circle of trusted advisers – Peter Altmaier, Ronald Pofalla, Hermann Gröhe – but these were sworn to unconditionally defend Merkel’s chancellorship rather than advance their own prospects. It may be a coincidence, but the chancellor removed the only person who showed the ambition and talent to one day inherit her position – Norbert Röttgen – in 2012. No wonder that in 2017, no one at the top of the CDU or within the administration presents him- or herself as an obvious alternative.

Angela Merkel has announced that she will run once more this fall for a full legislative period. Assuming she is successful, that leaves her four years to establish a successor. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble would have been an obvious choice during the refugee crisis.  In the turbulent period at the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016, he might have seemed like an anchor of stability if Merkel had fallen over her controversial management of the situation. But if she has the chance to hand over power on her own terms in four years, Schäuble will be nearly eighty, too old for serious consideration.

The Merkel Generation

The situation is somewhat different with the second name that has cropped up in recent years: Ursula von der Leyen. The 59-year-old has gone out of her way to play down any ambitions of her own. She has said that “a generation only needs one chancellor,” making it clear that in her case, it is Angela Merkel. Nevertheless, Berlin politicians and observers are firmly convinced that not only, von der Leyen can easily imagine herself as Merkel’s successor, but that she also believes herself to already have the skills necessary for the top job.

A doctor by training, von der Leyen made her first appearance in national politics in 2004. Since then, she has headed three federal offices: the ministry for women and family and the ministry for labor and social affairs in addition to her current post at defense. Her foreign policy credentials may also put her ahead of the competition. During the refugee crisis, von der Leyen was one of Merkel’s most visible and loyal defenders – and yet she is also one of the very few CDU politicians who have openly fought with the chancellor, and done so as an equal.

Clearly, von der Leyen is different from the chancellor.  She is a politician who is willing to eloquently and forcefully pursue her projects. But this trait has not only helped her become one of Germany’s most visible political actors; it has also hurt her in the CDU. Like Merkel, she is a modernizer. But where Merkel mostly declines to spell out her plans, implementing them either bit by bit or in sudden bursts, von der Leyen represents her positions openly and is happy to engage in public debate. This has led the party to direct its criticism of her efforts to modernize the military, for example, toward von der Leyen rather than the chancellor herself. This is one reason for the obvious distance between the defense minister and her party, and a possible obstacle to any future in the chancellery.

Respected, Not Revered

Within her party, Merkel is one of the most respected politicians. But unlike Helmut Kohl, she is hardly a revered leader. For twelve years now, she has guaranteed that the party remained in power, but she did so by pragmatically incorporating the shifts of a changing society rather than directing them according to the preferences of the Christian Democrats. Merkel’s twelve years in office have thus been accompanied by a certain lack of enthusiasm from her own party, which cannot escape the feeling that it has traded its values for power. This poses a challenge as well as an opportunity for her successor: any aspiring candidate who promises to pay more heed to the party’s vision should have a fairly low bar to clear.

The CDU politician currently pursuing this strategy most avidly is Jens Spahn. This ambitious young politician has become a beacon of hope to those who want the CDU to return to its conservative, fiscally liberal profile. Spahn is only 37 but has already been in the Bundestag for 15 years. He is highly driven: already in 2013, after the last national election, he saw himself as destined for a position in the cabinet. When he did not get it, he fought a very public battle for a place on the CDU executive committee, the party’s most powerful body. Schäuble himself took him under his wing as his “parliamentary state secretary” at the finance ministry. While this is not a particularly important office in government, Spahn has nevertheless become one of the most well-known and influential CDU politicians. In a party that avoids public debate, he will publicly contradict Merkel and turn such attacks into his personal brand. For some time now, he has been on the rather short list of politicians credited with the clout to succeed her.

Similar to Spahn, Julia Klöckner set herself apart from Merkel during the 2015–16 refugee crisis. Ever since, she has made discomfort with Islam into her theme. Had she won the 2016 state election in Rheinland-Pfalz, she would be the favorite to succeed Merkel today. She did not win, but she still isn’t out of the running. As deputy party head, Klöckner has given the CDU a youthful, friendly face. She also offers something to the long-disappointed Christian Democrats who are interested in tradition and homeland without playing exclusively to the party’s conservative wing or indulging in the bitterness that sometimes characterizes Spahn. She is just as ambitious, but manages to conceal her aspirations with a certain winning charm. For a party that experienced the Kohl-Merkel transition as a loss of political orientation, she represents an emotional homecoming.

Still, Klöckner has headed neither a federal ministry nor a state government. She is seen as inexperienced and cannot rely on charisma alone to sweep her into the chancellor’s office. If Merkel were to offer her a cabinet post in the future, she’d become one of the most promising candidates.

A Dark Horse

Given the current office holder, it is fitting that the politician with the best chance of succeeding is not the ever-present Ursula von der Leyen, the ultra-ambitious Jens Spahn, or the happy warrior Julia Klöckner. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer may be a dark horse, but she resembles the current chancellor the closest. Like Merkel, she is an unpretentious, pragmatic, technocrat who does not give the appearance of using politics as a stage to realize her personal ambitions. And that is not the only reason why the minister president of the tiny state of Saarland actually stands a chance of becoming the next chancellor: she is one of Merkel’s most unquestioningly loyal followers, has pursued Merkel’s modernization plans, and supported the chancellor unequivocally during the refugee crisis. She has also proven her ability to exercise power: in Saarland, against the chancellor’s wishes, she broke up the CDU, Green, and FDP coalition, saying that the FDP was not sufficiently serious to be a real partner. Unlike Spahn, who is inclined toward economic liberalism, Kramp-Karrenbauer stands for a CDU anchored in the social welfare economy. She won the most recent election in her state by an unexpectedly wide margin. This was the beginning of a series of disappointments for Martin Schulz, who was to be the SPD’s savior in September’s federal elections.

For each of the potential successors, it would be extremely helpful if the chancellor gave them the chance to build a stronger profile in office – allowing them to take the reins a year before the next election, for example. But Merkel has made it clear that she wants to fulfill another full four-year term if she is re-elected later tnis month. So there will likely be a piecemeal shift in power rather than a single dramatic change. Kramp-Karrenbauer, for example, could take over the job of party chief in the middle of the legislative period which would give her a strong claim to the top job when the next campaign season begins.

Merkel, however, has always believed that her predecessor Gerhard Schröder made a serious mistake when he gave up the office of SPD chief during his chancellorship as this was seen as a clear sign of political defeat. Merkel will not make the same error; she will likely hand over the reins of the party only as a signal of an upcoming transition, and only when she is ready. It would be the first step in the final farewell that she has contemplated for two decades.

But Merkel also knows that in politics, little goes according to plan. Few chancellors have managed to determine their own exit, and the plans of those who would become chancellor in their place are rarely more successful. It was the same after Kohl was voted out, when many in the CDU hoped their own fortunes would rise, only to see their ambitions dashed. In the end, it was Merkel who rose to power, someone no one had on their radar in 1998. And who knows – history could repeat itself.

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