Nahed Alkhaloo’s Reviews > Why the Germans Do it Better: Notes from a Grown-Up Country > Status Update

The Black Zero might have been shattered. But how vindicated Merkel had been

Thrift was her watchword.” – Angela Merkel

Germany has an insurance policy that others do not possess.

The sense of nationhood the Germans built after the war is
based on the horror and shame of the Nazi legacy, and the lessons that needed to be learnt

A CDU under Merz's leadership would have given more defi-
nition.

'I don't think about my role in history. I do my job??

Now that sense of stability from the outside has gone. Indeed, many around the world are looking to the

Germany 'needs to write a new chapter.'

A s the radioactive
cloud swept across the continent, Germans went to great lengths t o deal with the contamination.

The protesters' success a t Wyhl brought the issue to a wider
public and inspired the creation of citizens' groups wherever a
nuclear project was mooted o r whenever a transport o f nuclear
waste was planned. I t is this link between anti-nuclear and the
wider environmental agenda that makes the German approach
so distinctive.