Dan Snow's History Hit - Obama and Merkel: The Extraordinary Partnership

Episode Date: January 9, 2022

U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are two of the world’s most influential leaders, together at the centre of some of the biggest controversies and most impressive advancements of our time. Taking office at the height of the 2008 global recession, Obama was keenly aware of the fractured relationship between the US and Europe, while Merkel was initially sceptical of the charismatic newcomer who had captivated her country. Despite their partnership having been the subject of both scrutiny and admiration, few know the full story.Upon Merkel’s departure from office after 16 years last month, Dan is joined by Claudia Clark, author of ‘Dear Barack: The Extraordinary Partnership of Barack Obama and Angela Merkel’. They discuss Merkel and her administration, where the partnership between Obama and Merkel began, the historically significant parallel trajectories that marked the highs and lows of their extraordinary alliance, and the continued influence of their legacy on global politics.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. The news is out finally, folks. I can now tell you I've been sitting on it for a long time. I wanted to tell you, I did warn you 2022 was going to be a big year. It is, because History Hit are going on an expedition to the South Pole. We're going, well, not all the way to the South Pole. We're going to Antarctica. We are taking a survey vessel from Cape Town at the end of the month.

We are plunging through the ice into the Weddell Sea and we are going to search for Shackleton's lost shipwreck, the Endurance. It's going to be very exciting. We're going to be podcasting from there. We're going to be live streaming from there. We're going to be making TV shows from there. So if you're not signed up and following and liking and subscribed on all the various different platforms that are on offer at the moment, please make sure you do so because we are going to hopefully, finding Shackleton's shipwreck. It's a very exciting opportunity. We're there with the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust. They were the ones who found the shipwrecks of the German ships from the Battle of the Falklands in 1914. They have got

form, folks. They've got form, and I'm really excited they're going to find Shackleton's insurance. We are going to be providing a lot of content on shackleton on this podcast you're going to be hearing from the world's leading experts we're going to be retracing the footsteps of that unimaginable survival story the greatest story of human survival endurance in the history of the world you'll be hearing a lot about that in the weeks to come so this is your hq for all things shackleton of course we'll have normal service as well we're doing lots of other podcasts on lots of other different topics so don't worry but i will be broadcasting from a ship in the storm-tossed weddell sea or an ice camp in fact as well we're going to be camping on the ice we drop the drones down to conduct a survey of the ocean bed very

very exciting stuff thank you for all the feedback we've had as i said go and subscribe to all our youtube and facebook and all that kind of jazz and of course subscribe to history hit tv the link is in the description but it's podcast it's going to tap on there and get you two weeks free we're going to be bursting this year it's all going to be happening anyway this time on the podcast got something completely different got some more modern history actually we got the story of the relationship between two of the world's most powerful people to mark the end of Angela Merkel's extraordinary tenure as Chancellor of Germany, working her relationship with what's often described as the world's most powerful man,

the US President, Barack Obama. They struck up an unlikely friendship. They're very, very close indeed. And in fact, the last foreign leader that Barack Obama was in communication with in the Oval Office, minutes before he walked out for the last time, was Angela Merkel. She was the first female chancellor of Germany. She served 16 years at the top of German politics until she left office at the end of last year. They went through a lot of interesting times together. They went through a spy scandal that caused bad blood between them, but they also managed to weather, oh, quite a lot over the last few years and notch up one or two achievements as well. They had an interesting relationship that changed from kind of initial skepticism

to partnership and even friendship towards the end. Interestingly, she was also the first German chancellor granted the opportunity to speak before a joint session of Congress. It's a relationship that those of us in Britain might not know too much about, and I thought it might be interesting to talk about. On the podcast, also about it, is Claudia Clark.

She's the author of Dear Barack, the Extraordinary Partnership of Barack Obama and Angela Merkel. Make sure you go and subscribe to History at TV and all that kind of stuff, everyone. Wish me luck in the Antarctic. In the meantime, here's Claudia Clark. Enjoy. Claudia, thank you. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. Claudia, thank you. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so ashamed to say, I don't know enough about Angela Merkel. Who is she and where is she from?

She is a very, very unique person. She is the first German Chancellor, or I should say former Chancellor now, from the former East Germany. She was the first female chancellor, and she was the first divorcee. Her father was a Lutheran minister, and her mother was an English and Latin teacher. But a lot of people don't know this, but she was actually born in Hamburg. Her father, as a minister, made the unusual move to move from the west to the east. And so her mother was... Really? Wow. The church needed him and the church was his calling, even more so than his family. Even at the time, he knew it was a controversial decision, but he did it anyway. And so the interesting thing is though, she came from a very politically active family. She did discussions and political issues at their dining room table as she was growing up.

And her brother joined in her interest. So very politically active family. So it's a little strange that she has a PhD in physics, quantum physics, and how she made the leap from a physicist to a politician is interesting. But given her family background, it's not so unusual. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And what was her experience of, how did her experiences growing up in East Germany shape her? Well, she was from the West, technically. Her father was from the West and her father was a

minister. So even for Stasi standards, she was under a microscope more so than the average person. And the fact that when she was 14, she went through Lutheran confirmation coming of age, like most kids do. And she opted to do that rather than doing the traditional East German or Soviet coming of age. And so she kind of had to watch her. She knew that she had a bullet in her back. And so I think first and foremost for her, everything about her, every policy that she has made as a politician was around growing up in the constraints of a dictatorship. Her premise was always let them be free kind of thing, because she knows, you know, she couldn't travel, she couldn't listen to music that we take for granted. And so that all kind of shaped who she was as a leader, knowing that how important democracy was,

and how it's something that cannot be taken for granted. What do you think, I realized that they had a very good working relationship with Obama and Merkel, but I didn't think more enough about the sort of parallels between their careers. What do you identify that they had in common? There are two things that are interesting about them. Is that first, Merkel was, like I mentioned just briefly a minute ago, she was the first of all these. She was the first former chancellor from the former East Germany. She was the first woman.

She was the youngest. That was something else I didn't mention, but she was also the youngest. And a divorcee. And Obama was, of course, the first Black president. And that is important, I think, in of itself. But the other thing I think that is telling about the relationship was beside all these firsts, both of them rose to fame very, very rapidly. I've spent my life as a political activist, and I can safely say I've spent more time passing out flyers and making phone calls than Merkel ever did before she got to where she was. So for both of them, it was just incredible how two outsiders and outliers were able to get where they were in such a crazy speed. You know, some people don't think,

especially Obama, I don't know so much about Merkel, but I know a lot of people were critical of Obama because they didn't think he paid his dues. They didn't think he was ready. And so I think those two things were very, very interesting and fascinating. And when I wrote the book, I started the book with a biography chapter, and I debated whether to include the chapter because, you know, there are several books that are already written about both Obama and Merkel. And I thought, well, why am I going to add anything new to this? And if it had been just two white people who had spent 20 years working their way up the political ranks, I probably wouldn't have bothered to write the biography chapter. But it was just amazing how they just happened to be the right people at the right place at the right time. I should say, by the way, this is very difficult for a British

person to be talking about because here in Britain, we are fed a lot of junk. We feed ourselves a lot of junk about the special relationship between Britain and the US. I personally have got a rule that anyone on the podcast who mentions the expression special relationship is immediately cancelled because it just is complete balls. But tell us Brits, because we blind ourselves to this reality. We always want to believe we were Obama's best friends. But tell us Brits, how did Obama and Merkel get on? It's interesting because you're right. When Obama made, I don't think it was a press conference, but it was kind of a statement. Before he left for Europe for his final trip overseas as president, he mentioned that while

he was going overseas, he was going to meet with Merkel and he was going to meet with other world leaders. But he neglected to even mention Great Britain. He didn't say anything about Theresa May. And then he mentioned that Merkel had been his best friend on the international stage for as long as he had been president. And the Brits were a little offended by that. It was kind of a, wait a minute, what about us?

You know, we've been by your side since the beginning. You know, we were your allies during World War I and World War II. And I will be honest, I don't think Brexit helped matters between the United States and Great Britain. However, I think there was more to it than that. That's to say that it was just Brexit. I think it's too simplistic. There was just a personal chemistry between Obama that he had with Merkel that he didn't have with Theresa May. He didn't have with Cameron. They had a cordial working relationship. But the interesting thing about Merkel and Obama is that while they didn't agree on a lot of political issues, there was a chemistry

between them, both personal characteristics and how they got along, as well as their work ethic. And I think that played a significant role in why Obama and Merkel got along so well. And that's not to say he didn't like Cameron or he couldn't work with Cameron. In fact, at the very, very beginning of Obama's presidency, one of the things he had to combat was the Great Recession. And that was one of the things that Merkel and Obama really, really argued about and had disagreements, whereas it was the United States and Great Britain against France and Germany on how to solve the great problem of the Great Recession. And so initially, the United States and Great Britain were on the same page, and France and Germany were on opposite ends. And there was a

conflict, a big, big conflict. But Obama, because of his thinking and his policy, he was able to win Merkel over. It took a while. And I think that combined with one thing that people often forget about Merkel or don't take into consideration with Merkel is that because of her East German roots, more than anything, she is thankful for the United States, for her freedom, for where she was. And so she's going to make more of an effort to work with the United States than anyone else. And so all of that plays into the mix. And so all of that plays into the mix. If you listen to Dan Snow's history hit,

we're talking about Merkel and Obama. More coming up. Have you ever thought about sex in ancient Rome? Perhaps you've pondered over the origins of civilization. Or maybe you've had restless nights contemplating where Alexander the Great's lost tomb might be. I know I have. If so, we've got the perfect remedy. It's the Ancients on History hit.

The Ancient History podcast. We've got interviews with leading experts on all of the above and so much more. So why not give the podcast a listen? Subscribe to the Ancients on History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research

from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, Kings and Popes, who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions, and crusades.

Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. Talk to me about some of the things they worked on. You mentioned the Great Recession, but presumably Iran, nuclear deal, Paris. I mean, they were key allies, were they? Yes and no. And the Great Recession, economics were one of the big things Obama and Merkel really, really struggled with. recession, economics were one of the big things Obama and Merkel really, really struggled with.

France and Germany were of the mindset that trying to recover, trying to get the world's economy back on focus again, the world needed stricter regulations. Whereas the United States and Great Britain were of the mindset, pump money back into the economy, let the government put money in the economy to stimulate the economy. So economically, they had some big, big disagreements on that. They learned to compromise on how much money they were going to put into the economy from each country and where the money was going to come from. But that was a compromise. But it was something that Obama and Merkel were in big disagreement over initially. And in fact, in a leaked document that was sent to Secretary of State Clinton at the time, America believed that Obama's policies were going to lead to the road of destruction.

It was a pretty big deal. But with that said, because of a lot of the things that they agreed on and worked so well together with were on other issues, on democratic issues, in part the issue with the Syrian refugees. That was something that Merkel put her credibility on the line and her career on the line to open the German borders to Syrian refugees. And Obama supported her on that. In fact, Obama went to Germany and spoke in front of everyone in front of Europe and said, Merkel can't do this alone. And so he was singing her praises. And I do think that the United States could have done more as well. But Obama did really support Merkel in her efforts to do that. Initially, the Paris Climate Agreement is something that they worked on together.

The European Union was concerned that the United States wasn't doing enough to combat climate change. So America was kind of sent to Washington a couple of times to use her influence with Obama to kind of kick him in action and say, you need to do something. This is something that we can't take seriously. We can't neglect and you need to take it more seriously. So she used her influence and Obama came around. I don't think Obama was as anti-climate change as people tend to think. Part of the problem was he was fighting a Congress that wasn't particularly sympathetic. And Merkel basically told him that's not an excuse. You know, she's like, look, I faced this problem in Germany too. This is too big of a problem.

You need to figure out a way around it and you need to do it now. And so they worked together on that. They worked together on, you know, the Iran nuclear deal was something that they worked on. And it's naive to say that all of these things happened just because of that. No, they were two of many, many world leaders that all worked together. But I do think that because of the relationship and the chemistry between the two of them, it made things like that, the Paris Climate Agreement happen. Now, this is another example of something you didn't see on TV in the UK, but Merkel became the first German chancellor given the opportunity to speak before a joint session of Congress. That's a big deal. We're speaking almost exactly 80 years after Winston Churchill delivered his joint address. That doesn't come around all the time, right? Foreign leaders doing that. No. And in fact, it's one of the biggest honors that the United States

can bestow on a foreign leader. And she was actually the first German chancellor to do so. Ednauer had done a session. He had spoken before Congress and then the Senate many, many, many years earlier, but not simultaneously. So Merkel was actually the very first German chancellor to speak before a joint session of Congress. And I think, and I argue this in the book, that one of the interesting things about that particular speech is Merkel herself admits that she is not a dynamic public speaker. People often will criticize her for lacking charisma and for just not being inspirational. But that speech that she gave before Congress was, even the pundits on both sides of the Atlantic, thought it was the speech of her career. She was articulate. She was

passionate. You know, she's not the public speaker of Obama, but few are, which is why, you know, Obama has the allure around him. But the criticism of her dull and uninspired speeches, I think, went out the window with that speech. There are critics that think that was the speech of her career up to that point. The speech she gave last year with regard to COVID kind of replaces that. But it was an inspirational speech. And then she was the last foreign leader he called before he left the Oval Office. She was. And the interesting thing is not only that, but Michelle Obama and Merkel's husband were also on that phone call. And the interesting thing is that Merkel's husband really kind of stayed out of the limelight. In fact, the German tabloids always loved to call him

the Atom of the Opera because the only time you ever saw him publicly was at the opera. And he came out from the sidelines quite a bit during encounters that Merkel and Obama had together. And he was on that final call. The four of them had the final call the very day before Obama left office. I think that speaks volumes about that and about their relationship. I think it does. What do you think was said on that call? Do we know? We know very briefly, because what the White House does when a world leader talks to another world leader, they issue what they call readouts. And so it's kind of a synopsis. And it was just basically, we wish you well, you know, thank you for your partnership and your friendship. We wish you well in your future encounters. What we saw was generic,

but nevertheless, I do think that says a lot about the relationship. Like Palmerston said, I think here in the UK, that nations don't really have like friends, they only have interests. Does that kind of axis of Germany in the US, does that only work when Obama was in charge and there was a kind of personal alignment there? What does it mean going forward that the US and Germany have recovered from the fallings out of the mid 20th century and became such firm allies? became such firm allies? I argue this in the book. The book is really kind of two-pronged thesis. One was the personal relationship between Obama and Merkel. And then the second thesis and the overarching thesis of the book was in today's globalized world with how easy it is, you know, wars aren't necessarily started when a country invades your country like it used to be. With the internet, somebody can plot something from their apartment in Belgium for a tech crash to happen in Paris or in Berlin or in the United States. And now more than ever, I think it's important and it's imperative that nations be able to rely on one another and their intelligence.

And I don't think one would have happened without the other with regard to Obama and Merkel, because they didn't agree on many things, but they had enough respect for each other. And more importantly, for their countries, that they understood that they needed to put differences aside for the betterment of the society. And I don't think if there had been the respect on a personal level, they would have made the professional advances that they did. And I think we saw that, unfortunately, with what happened with Obama's successor. You know, we saw how quickly things can deteriorate.

That's right. That's what's so interesting, right? So people, humans matter in these stories, right? The individuals, the gigantic apparatus of state bureaucracies and foreign service department, like foreign offices, as we would say here in the UK. And yet these personal relationships really matter. They do. And what's interesting is, you know, I didn't like writing this chapter, but I had to when there was word got out that Obama and the White House was wiretapping and spying on people across the world, including Miracle Cell Phone. And one of the reasons it was a challenge for them to overcome that. And I think one of the reasons they were able to do so was because despite that setback, they had enough respect for one another. And not just for one another, but the long history that the Jew countries had had previously since the end of World War II, that they could put their differences aside and work together and know this was a mistake.

Yes, we're politicians, we're world leaders, but we're human. And one thing that I don't pretend that I support what Obama did in that circumstance, he was wrong. And if I ever had the opportunity, I would tell him he was wrong. But what was interesting was when he was called to task about it, he was very, very upset about it when he realized the fallout and how it damaged his relationship, not with just Merkel, but with the German people. And he showed some level of humility. And I think that's what ultimately the Germans, they have forgiven him. And I think it was the humility with which he acted in that particular regard helped.

Yeah, well, I think they both showed great statespersonship. What do you think Merkel's legacy is going to be within Germany? I think Merkel's legacy is going to be, she was crisis management. It did not matter what kind of crisis that faced her. She thought like a scientist, acted like a scientist, and solved problems. She faced some of the biggest challenges of the 21st century, everything from beginning with the economic crisis to the crisis with Putin when he illegally annexed Crimea, with the Syrian refugee crisis when she opened the German borders to even how she handled COVID. It's interesting because her numbers would be falling in the polls and

the Germans wouldn't be real happy with her over one thing or another and then a crisis would happen. And because of how she handled it, how she would get together with her team, she has a reputation of being stubborn, which is true. She is stubborn. However, she's also not stupid. She has a PhD in quantum physics and she will listen to people. When the scientists tell her, you need to do this in order to combat COVID, you know, you need to do a lockdown. She did it. You know. She wasn't happy about it, but she listened. And so I have friends that are in Germany that aren't particular fans of hers. She's either too conservative or too liberal for them, but they all say the same thing, that they can't imagine living in Germany under COVID with anyone other than her leadership, because she knows how to listen and adapt policies to changing crises.

That poor woman has been one crisis after another in 16 years of office. I don't know how these people get out of bed in the morning, to be honest. I mean, jeepers creepers. Yeah. And my husband and I have this conversation all the time because even over the summer, Western Germany faced some of the worst floods in history. And it's one of these things where even though you're doing something, you know, you're helping trying to get people funding to recover and rebuild your lives. It's one of these

things where as a politician, no matter what you do, somebody's going to be upset with you because you give too much money to one village and not enough money to the other. Because you give too much money to one village and not enough money to the other. And for 16 years to be in that kind of environment, I think, is tremendous. And truth be told, she did not want to run for office. She wanted to retire after her third term. And one of the things that Obama did in his final trip was convince her that because of the fallout with Trump and with Brexit, it was kind of believed that she was the glue that held Western democracies together and that the world needed her. You hear her talk

about it, and she says this nonsense that people are pulling that out of proportion. But I think there is some truth to that. I agree. We all miss Angela Merkel, that's for sure. But thank you very much. It's been a great opportunity to talk about it. We needed to do a podcast on Merkel, one of the most important political figures of our generation. So thank you for coming on and doing that. What's your book called? The book is called Dear Barack, the Extraordinary Partnership of Barack Obama and Anglo-America. Thanks for coming on and talking about it. Thank you so much for having me. It was fun. I feel we have the history on our shoulders.

All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished. Thanks, folks. You've met the end of our episode. Congratulations. Well done, you. I hope you're not fast asleep.

If you did fancy supporting everything we do here at History Hit, you've met at the end of our episode. Congratulations. Well done, you. I hope you're not fast asleep. If you did fancy supporting everything we do at History Hit, we'd love it if you would go and wherever you get these pods, give it a rating, five stars or its equivalent. A review would be great. Thank you very much indeed. That really does make a huge difference. It's one of the funny things

the algorithm loves to take into account. So please, however, don't do that. It can seem like a small thing, but actually it's kind of a big deal for us. I really appreciate it. See you next time.