So Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer – AKK, as her fans call her – is the new leader of the CDU. After her narrow victory over her rival Friedrich Merz, the tabloid Bild ran the headline: “Kramp-Karren-Power!” However, the woman who demonstrated her enduring power at the CDU party congress on Friday was not AKK, but Angela Merkel. AKK was Merkel’s choice. For the first time in postwar German history, a national leader has managed her own succession.
Konrad Adenauer and Willy Brandt were forced out by cabals. The interim figures Ludwig Erhard and Kurt Georg Kiesinger never had a chance to make their mark. Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schröder went down to defeat in elections before being disgraced – Kohl by a party-financing scandal, Schröder by taking a job with Gazprom.
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