The latest polls assign German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU-CSU), the absolute majority of parliamentary seats. This has not happened since 2005, when the tough reforms by then Chancellor Gerhard Schröder cost the Social Democrats (SPD) so dearly that they never fully recovered.

For SPD, this is a nightmare come true. It changed the country by hurting its own electorate. Yet, the CDU—which has reappraised those reforms—got the credit. And today, the CDU can finally seek out what it has wanted since the 1970s: becoming for Germany what the CSU has always been for Bavaria, that is the party of the nation and the only stable political reference point until 2021.

Is there a nonpolitical aspect to the Germans' identification with Chancellor Merkel—a childless woman who the newspapers call “Mutti” (Mommy)—or is it the evolution of national politics turning towards center-majoritarian parties (even Greece's Syriza is becoming one of those) in order to better negotiate in the competitive arena of European politics? The two options are not that far apart.

After the unification, German author Wolf Lepenies spoke of a “deeply apolitical” German soul. Yet, he also separates Germany's ‘Kulturnation' (cultural nation, which refers to Germany's moral and intellectual values) from pragmatic choices applied to political civilization as well as social and economic organizations.

German Novelist Thomas Mann spoke of a people inclined to morality rather than to politics. This lack of respect for the subjectivity of politics as well as the fear of the catastrophic drifts of 1900s partly explains the preference for rigid regulation systems applied to intra-state relations—in other words, the relations that, for the past two centuries, were most heavily impacted by ideological radicalism.

Ms. Merkel fits in this tradition as the reliable executor of the voters' apolitical mandate.

With most of her European allies, she possesses the strange distinction of growing up under a dictatorship. Those who survived it maintain a fear of the abuses that ideology can force on reality. And the falsification of facts is the epitome of such abuses.

East Germany had falsified its accounts to the point that its GDP was one-fourth of what was estimated by Washington in 1989. It was foreign debt, hidden until then, that compelled Egon Krenz to dissolve the state and give in to the unification—wanted by Helmut Kohl, but negotiated by then member of Kohl's cabinet Wolfgang Schäuble. In the dialectic of the German Democratic Republic, an aphorism by Hegel was (ironically) often used: “Freedom is the comprehension of necessity.”

As Karl Lamers—Schäuble's coauthor—observes today, the necessity was, and still is, contributing to shared sovereignty. The German press predicts that Ms. Merkel will be ready to run for office for the fourth time in 2017; yet the figure of the Finance Minister reveals more on the European future of German politics. It was exactly Schäuble that defined, in 1994, national sovereignty as “an empty shell.”

Even in Italy, the idea of national preservation now hides behind the definition of ‘national interest'—which sounds new only because so far it has always been looted by particular interests. It is apolitical and it is a form of ideological violence.

This is Schäuble's cultural background. The minister knows that the euro area urgently needs a common economic policy and a social policy that can rely on a common insurance against unemployment. “The reluctance towards a common sovereign debt, including Eurobonds, will cease to exist,” says one of his counselors, “when ‘belated' countries recover an adequate level of competitiveness.”

For Ms. Merkel, who in order to rein in former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti's pressure had promised her voters “never Eurobonds while I am alive,” this will be the hardest passage because it will force her to compromise with politics.

Just like someone who detests swimming, she will have to distance herself from the shore; she will have to explain to her citizens that Germany is already a ‘de facto' union of responsibilities. The institutions created to help other countries are nothing more than the normative setup of a de facto reality.

The other countries should already line up for this confrontation, daring the Chancellor to accept the postwar German challenge.

Meanwhile in France, the debate on Europe's future has become the core of political discussions. In Italy, the idea of confronting Ms. Merkel for six more years is not even considered a part of public discourse.

Italy is abandoning the language of “shared sovereignty” and, in large sections of public opinion, a primitive (and dangerous) sentiment of rejection, with Merkel's apolitical selfishness as a perfect target, is prevailing. For the majority of members of Parliament, those who support dialogue are traitors and, as such, invited to give back their passports—just like during the 20 years of fascist rule.

Forgetfulness prevents understanding the future. In an interview given in the Nuremberg prison where he was detained, Hermann Goering explained how it was possible in Germany to convince millions of individuals to die in war in order to kill Germany's enemies. Like everywhere else, according to Goering, all it took was convincing the people that someone from outside threatened them, and add that those who did not want war were traitors of the homeland.

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