IN HER DEATH, AS IN HER LONG LIFE, Queen Elizabeth II has shown that the British monarchy still exercises an unseen but immense influence abroad. Nobody in our history has wielded so much “soft power” to such effect.
Nowhere is this more true than in Germany. On the day she died, German state broadcasting was interrupted, the Bundestag observed a minute’s silence and countless Germans wept as if for an old friend.
“There are no words that can even come close to honouring the outstanding importance of this Queen,” said Angela Merkel. In dubious taste, she enlisted Elizabeth II in the cause of “Europe”, but her “deepest gratitude” for her encounters with the Queen was doubtless sincere. Every Federal German Chancellor since the first, Konrad Adenauer, has felt the same.
Other German politicians rightly emphasised her contribution to postwar reconciliation. President Steinmeier recalled the Queen’s state visit in 1965, which marked a turning point in relations between Britain and Germany. Footage of that visit shows ecstatic crowds greeting the young monarch, elated by her affirmation that Germans could once again hold their heads high. Her appearance in West Berlin (the first of seven visits to the city) was a beacon of hope for that bastion of freedom at the height of
