Der Spiegel on Germany and Merkel:

"We've been living in an abnormal state for the last few years, and the individual chiefly responsible for this is CDU party leader and Chancellor Angela Merkel. By hollowing out her party, which she stripped of all its conservative positions, she made space on its right flank and drove disgruntled conservatives into the arms of the right-wing populists. And by taking over the Social Democrats' natural issues, she drained the SPD of its life-blood until it shriveled to just over 20 percent of the vote, its worst result since World War II.

A Chancellor with the Wrong Party Membership Card

Not only has there never been a right-wing populist party in the German parliament before, there has also never been the odd spectacle of a quasi-Social Democrat chancellor carrying the wrong party membership card. This chancellor embodies consensus without debate. Whatever she did or decided was without alternative because she never had to deal with an opposition worthy of the name. But that is over now."

Read the article here.

It's a bit unfair, Merkel should have been more like Franz-Josef Strauss in order to have prevented the rise of the AfD.

Anyhow, we will see the end of the 20th century in the near future, because in Europe the 20th century didn't end on 9/11.