Will Merkel pay for doing the right thing?

A former German chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, recently offered this verdict on Angela Merkel’s decision to open the door to an unlimited number of refugees: She had a “heart but no plan”.

This view of the current chancellor is gaining ground as Syrian refugees pour in. Local authorities are strained to the limit. Billions of euros have been spent. The identity of tens of thousands of people is still unknown, raising security concerns. Cologne has become a byword for fears over how a large influx of Muslim men will affect the place of women in German society.

Three important state elections loom next month. It seems inevitable that the far-right Alternative for Germany party will surge. Merkel’s support has tumbled. One poll this month showed 46 per cent of Germans support her, compared with 75 per cent in April. She could become vulnerable. Europe without Merkel will sink.

So why did this prudent chancellor do it? Because she is a German, and to be German is to carry a special responsibility for those forced to flee their terrorised homeland. Because she once lived in a country, East Germany, that shot people who tried to cross its border. Because one million people adrift would have pitched Europe into mayhem. And, yes, because she has a heart.

Merkel did the right thing. But Germany cannot take in another million refugees in 2016. As Germany’s president, Joachim Gauck, said recently, “A limitation strategy may even be both morally and politically necessary in order to preserve the state’s ability to function.”

Setting limits is a Syrian issue. It’s a Turkish issue. It’s a Russian issue. It’s an American issue. It’s a European issue. Merkel needs Europe to have a functioning external border if it is to remain borderless within the 20-plus-nation Schengen zone. “No European border, no Schengen!” Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, Gauck’s chief adviser, told me.

She needs the Syrian war to end, but the latest US-Russian plan for a cessation of hostilities looks tenuous. She needs Turkey, in exchange for billions of euros, to control the refugee exodus. But Turkey is playing an extortion game.

In Russia, she needs President Vladimir Putin’s cooperation, but his strategy is the undermining of a united Europe; a “weaponised” refugee flow achieves just that. Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian prime minister, declared in Munich this weekend, “We are rapidly rolling into a period of a new Cold War.” He asked, “Is this 2016 or 1962?” Around Aleppo, a world war in miniature unfolds.

Merkel needs the United States to establish a safe area in northern Syria and to put pressure on Turkey, or the current untenable situation will persist. If America is unready to reverse Russian-Iranian gains, it must help manage the consequences.

The European idea has not been this weak since the march to unity began in the 1950s. Germany is awash in Putinversteher — broadly speaking, Putin sympathisers, like Schroeder. Michael Naumann, a former minister of culture, told me: “The United States has left us, we are the orphaned kids in the playground, and there’s one tough guy, Putin. It’s really that simple.”

Germany tense

If Merkel’s refugee gambit implodes, the reverberations will be felt everywhere. The country feels tense. A woman told me of how, in her daughter’s class, a 15-year-old Syrian refugee’s cellphone rang. The ring tone was a muezzin’s call to prayer, and the teacher burst out, “So next you’ll have a suicide belt!” There was embarrassment all around, apologies and parental letters.

I went out to Nauen, a dismal town near Berlin where unemployment is high. In August, a gymnasium that was to have housed refugees was burned down. The charred skeleton of the building with its blackened pillars still stands. A new emergency centre for refugees is planned nearby, with a view of this stark symbol of hatred. Nauen is combustible.

The scale of Germany’s challenge is evident at Tempelhof Airport in Berlin, built by the Nazis, and used in 1948 and 1949 for the Berlin Airlift. Already there are 2,600 refugees; there may eventually be 7,000.

I spoke to two young refugees from Aleppo, Mahmoud Sultan and Mulham (he preferred not to give his family name). They had not wanted to leave. But, as Mulham put it: “You have this hope the war will end. For one year, two years, three years, you keep this hope. You think, I owe my country something and I will stay. Until in the fifth year you realise there are five wars! The rebels against [Bashar] Al Assad, [Daesh, the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] against the Free Syrian Army, the Saudis against Iran, the Kurds against [Daesh], and Russia against America! And you lose hope.”

Merkel needs those wars to abate, and western allies to come together with the resolve Tempelhof symbolises, if she is to calm Germany, hold Europe together, and survive. That will require leadership that is in short supply in the social-media echo chamber of these dangerous times.

—New York Times News Service