Germany's Merkel shines in virus crisis even as power wanes

In her first address to the nation on the coronavirus pandemic, German Chancellor Angela Merkel calmly appealed to citizens' reason and discipline to slow the spread of the virus, acknowledging as a woman who grew up in communist East Germany how difficult it is to give up freedoms, yet as a trained scientist emphasizing that the facts don't lie.

Then, wearing the same blue pantsuit from the televised address, the 65-year-old popped into her local supermarket to pick up food, wine and toilet paper to take back to her Berlin apartment.

For her, it was a regular shopping stop, but photos snapped by someone at the grocery store were shared worldwide as a reassuring sign of calm leadership amid a global crisis. With the coronavirus outbreak, Merkel is reasserting her traditional strengths and putting her stamp firmly on domestic policy after two years in which her star seemed to be fading, with attention focused on constant bickering in her governing coalition and her own party's troubled efforts to find a successor.

Merkel has run Germany for more than 14 years and has over a decade's experience of managing crises. She reassured her compatriots in the 2008 financial crisis that their savings were safe, led a hard-nosed but domestically popular response to the eurozone debt crisis, and then took an initially welcoming but divisive approach to an influx of migrants in 2015.

In the twilight of her chancellorship, she faces her biggest crisis yet a fact underlined by her decision last week to make her first television address to the nation other than her annual New Year's message.

"This is serious take it seriously," she told her compatriots. "Since German unification no, since World War II there has been no challenge to our country in which our acting together in solidarity matters so much."
"Merkel painted a picture of the greatest challenge since World War II, but she did not speak of war," the influential Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper wrote. "She did not rely on martial words or gestures, but on people's reason. ... Nobody knows if that will be enough, but her tone will at least not lead the people to sink into uncertainty and fear."
On Monday, she led a Cabinet meeting by phone from home and then issued an audio message setting out a huge government relief package to cushion the blow of the crisis to business a format she said was "unusual, but it was important to me."