The Duran Podcast - Germany's Self-Destruct Pact: Merz Pushes Europe to the Brink

Episode Date: May 1, 2026

Germany's Self-Destruct Pact: Merz Pushes Europe to the Brink

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the situation in Germany with Mr. Merch's, his falling out with Trump, his statements about constantly escalating against Russia, pouring money into the military industrial complex, austerity now in Germany, cutting back on social services, on health care in order to fund. the military industrial complex. This has already been decided by his party. It's going to be very unpopular with the German people. But Merz continues to push forward.

What do you think of everything happening in Germany? You know, this is an extraordinary thing. It is a, it's like a kind of car, a turbocharged car, pelting towards the cliff, even as parts of the car keep falling off. I mean, the idea of Germany getting into a conflict with Russia and doing so without the Americans, I mean, the idea of Germany getting into a conflict with Russia is already, I mean, delusional, grandiose, some would say mad anyway. but doing so whilst simultaneously quarreling with the Americans, and by the way with the Chinese too, just to say, is, I mean, it takes it to a completely different level. The entire basis upon which the German Federal Republic exists is the alliance with the United States. It was the Americans.

People need to remember this. It was the Americas ultimately who set up the German Federal Republic in the 1940s. I mean, the Federal Republic of Germany arose out of a decision taken ultimately by the United States to merge the American British and French occupation zones in Western Germany. to counter the Soviets who were in occupation at that time of Eastern Germany. And the Americans decided that they would give this new region a government, a German government accountable to the people who lived there, democratic government, as they would say. And they arranged together with the British to create this constitutional system, which became

the German Federal Republic. So more than any other country in Europe, modern Germany is built around an alliance with the United States. And the troops, the American troops in Germany, underpin that whole alliance and that whole political structure. Now, that needs and has meant since the foundation of the foundation of, Germany's Federal Republic. The German leaders have always been extremely sensitive about the relationship with the Americans. That doesn't mean that they've always agreed with the Americans. It doesn't mean that they haven't sometimes followed an independent line. In the 1950s, Adonauer, who was the Chancellor, at one time thought of acquiring

nuclear weapons and tried to get the Americans to agree to that. J.F.K. put a stop to that one. Vili Brandt, when he started to work towards Ostpolitik with the Soviets, he had to think about doing that very, very carefully. Again, he made sure that he got the green light from the Americans to do it, but there were tensions. So there sometimes been disagreements with the Americans, but to get into an outright quarrel with the Americans at this particular time, even, as the German industrial economy is going down the tubes at an accelerating rate. There's just been a marketing survey done, by the way, in Germany. And, you know, one of these, you know, PMI surveys.

And the incredible thing is that even despite Merz's talk about spending money on weapons, reorganizing factories in Germany around our. production, PMI, the industrial PMI in Germany, has now descended even further to 2008 levels. I mean, that's the time, you know, global financial crisis. To do all of this, to talk about war with Russia, quarrel with the Americans in the middle of this extraordinary economic crisis is incredible. incredible and there doesn't seem to be anything that can stop it because as you correctly said the CDU as a party seems to be fully on board with it. It is a whole

country taking a Kamikaze approach to its policies, to its future, a whole government system, even more so than St. or France, destroying the entire foundations upon which modern Germany was built. I would not have believed it possible, but there it is. Is it better that Merch is so unpopular in order to push this through? Maybe if he was popular, there would be more of a fear from the CDU that, you know, we don't want to ruin his popularity or degrade his popularity because we could possibly win the next elections.

So let's not deindustrialize or destroy ourselves too bad, too hard, I guess. But now that you have a person that's universally despised by everybody inside Germany and outside Germany, who cares? Let him go through. Let him push everything through. He can't be hated anymore, can he? Maybe he can a little bit. But whatever, let him do what he's going to do.

He can take all the blame. We're going to get all the riches. Push forward. I think you're absolutely right. I think that is playing a significant factor. I mean, it's extraordinary that there's been so little dissent against this host approach within the CDU. I mean, you'd have expected that there'd be massive pushback

from various CDU chapters around Germany from within the CDU parliamentary faction. But on the contrary, they're all united, you know, following this suicide course behind maths. And bear in mind, these are the same people who, 10 years ago, you know, were backing Angela Merkel. She was trying to maintain good relations with the role. These are not good relations, but, you know, some kind of relationship with the Russians. It was forging ahead with Nord Stream 2.

And they were the same people who were willing to back Merkel as she did deals with the Chinese. And of course, Merkel was always very, very careful to remain on very good terms with the Americans. But now, you know, their backing melts as he does all of these very extreme things. Now, I'm going to say we hear what I think. I think you are 90% right. His extreme unpopularity means that, well, it's fine if we just keep going, doing what we're doing. It's all going to turn right in the end. And after all, we have the financial genius from Black Rock assuring us that this is all going to come right.

Some of us or some of our friends are going to make an awful lot of money in the meantime. Within the German auto industry, there will be all sorts of people in Volkswagen, and Daimler-Benz, and who knows even Ben there maybe, who will be saying, well, you know, don't stop this money spigot of all this money from that. We need that because, frankly, we're not selling cars as we did. So we need money from some other source. So please don't rock the boat with Mertz now because this is what we need at the present time to keep ourselves afloat. So there's all of this going on and they're saying to themselves, well, however bad, however awful things are now, it will turn round.

And we don't need to worry because Mertz is so unpopular that we're not risking his popularity and things are so bad that things in the end can only go upwards. I think there's another thing at play as well, and that is that we have had regional parliamentary elections in certain German states. We saw them in Rheinland-Fraultz, we saw them in Baden-Wiltenberg. And the interesting thing about those elections is that the SPD, the other big establishment party in Germany, is crashing, or crashed in them. the FDP, the other big establishment party in Germany, has basically been wiped out. The CDU was sort of stable.

Now, we pointed out in the programs that we did in which we analyzed those elections, that this is almost certainly purely a temporary phenomenon. It's just that at the moment, the movement, the movement, of right-wing voters to the IFD in these places has only just begun. The IFDA currently is taking voters more from working class, the working class electorate in these states. And that historically backed the SPD, the socialists. It's not yet developed to the level.

where they're going to start taking votes from the CDU. So I think people in the CDU looked at these results in these states. They said, well, actually, things are not so bad. In West Germany, at least, we are holding our own. But the reality is, I think this is a mirage. I've seen it play out in Britain. I've seen it play out in other European countries in France. What you tend to see with parties that establishment parties is that things go down slowly as people become disillusioned.

And then the alternative appears and then they crash. And the crash comes suddenly. And when it comes, there is no. There is really no way of stopping it. That's what's happened with the Conservatives, for example, in Britain. I think it's going to happen to the CDU, and I think it's going to happen to the CDU in the next few months, but in the meantime, so they're going to continue with these policies, this particular set of policies. And, of course, when the crash comes, there'll be no turning back from it. Final question is the way to prevent the A.FTA from coming into power, the last way to prevent

the AEDA from winning the next elections to get to a war position with Russia? Maybe you don't even enter into a war with Russia, but at least you get to the point where you're very close to a war with Russia, or maybe even you do get into a position where you're at war with Russia. But is that the final way that they're going to prevent the AIFD? from gaining power? Yes, I think it is. What they're going to try and do is they're going to use the specter of Russia to heighten the sense of paranoia and fear in Germany.

And if that rallies voters behind the CDU, because we're fighting the Russians and the IFDA are the enemy within, if it works electorally, that's, of course, enough. But if it doesn't work elect really, well, if you're going to start doing things like thinking about bans of the IFDA, obviously that becomes an awful lot easier in a wartime or pre-war time situation than it does in a time such as we have at the present, which is you could still just about argue. It is a time of peace.

Now, in my opinion, the attempt to crank up hysteria and anger and fear of war, or fear of Russia, rather, to the current levels that we're seeing in Germany, it's electorally disastrous. I think it's one of the reasons, one of the main reasons, for the collapse is Mercer's position. I do think the Germans like it at all, and I think they're very much more concerned about what was happening to their own country and to its economy. But it doesn't mean it's going to change course because, as I said, ultimately, the ultimate solution, if you want to retain control, is to do that which they have up to now resisted

doing because of all the legal problems, which is banned the eye of death. And, you know, that isn't impossible. Germany has banned parties, political parties before, going all the way back to the 1950s. It is something that would be an immense thing because none of the parties that were banned previously were particularly big parties, whereas the IFDA is now becoming a very big party. But the legal precedent for it does exist. All right. We will end the video there at the durand.com. We're on X.

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