by Michael Hollister
Exclusive published at Michael Hollister on May 24, 2026

5.094 words * 27 minutes readingtime
For readers with less time, this analysis is also available as a compact Briefing: the same source base, condensed into the most important core points and roughly ten minutes of reading time.
Friedrich Merz After One Year

A Taking of Stock

It is Forsa director Peter Matuschek who speaks the sentence no one else needs to say. “That someone gets under 15 percent approval,” he said following the release of the RTL/n-tv trend barometer on May 12, 2026, was something he had never seen in his career. The figure Friedrich Merz posted that day is 13 percent. Eighty-seven percent of Germans reject the work of their federal chancellor. By comparison, Olaf Scholz – whose chancellorship will go down in history as the embodiment of political weakness – hit his low point at 28 percent approval. Merz falls fifteen points short of that. A survey by the US firm Morning Consult, which compares the popularity of heads of government in 24 democracies, declared him in April 2026 the least popular democratically elected head of government in the world – rated worse than Donald Trump, worse than Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The chancellor’s response to this is more remarkable than the number itself. “No federal chancellor before me has had to endure something like this,” Merz complained in late April 2026 in Der Spiegel. It is a bitter grievance. It demands from the people who gave him his mandate a respect that is apparently being withheld.

My grandmother had two sentences ready for questions of this kind, sentences that had taken shape in a German Palatinate farmhouse after the war. The first was: “My boy, don’t listen to what they say. Watch what they do.” The second: “Respect is not something you receive. Respect is something you have to earn.” Both sentences are the evaluative framework underlying this article. They are older than any political doctrine, simpler than any theory of statecraft, and they work wherever people must distinguish performance from words. In a probationary period, for instance.

Friedrich Merz was elected federal chancellor on May 6, 2025. Today, on May 18, 2026, that probationary period is over. A sober accounting is due. What did this man promise before he took office? How much of it did he keep? And what do the answers mean for the question he himself has raised – whether he is owed respect or not.

The Break Before the Oath

There is a peculiarity of Merz’s chancellorship that shifts the benchmarks. The greatest breach of a campaign promise took place before he became chancellor. During the campaign, Merz had made the debt brake a matter of party identity. “We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem” was the guiding principle the CDU carried into every talk show until shortly before the federal election on February 23, 2025. Hans-Ulrich Rülke of the Baden-Württemberg FDP later summarized what observers of the party had known for years: Merz had promised “like a broken record” to defend the debt brake.

On March 18, 2025, 512 members of the outgoing – that is, already voted-out – Bundestag voted for a law that restructures the constitutional debt rule. Two hundred and six members voted against. The bill, introduced by the CDU/CSU and SPD parliamentary groups, established two things simultaneously. First: a special fund of 500 billion euros for “infrastructure and climate neutrality” through 2045, whose debt-financed costs are exempted from the debt brake. Second: a carve-out from the debt rule for defense expenditures exceeding one percent of gross domestic product. The draft had emerged from the exploratory talks between Merz, Söder, and the SPD. It was a vote conducted by a parliament the voters had already sent into retirement, to approve a constitutional amendment that the newly constituted Bundestag, about to convene, might not have been able to bring about in that configuration.

Merz himself commented publicly on the process. In a ZDF documentary filmed inside CDU headquarters, he said: “I personally am paying for this with a considerable loss of credibility as well. But I believe that, in a few years’ time, even that part of the population that understandably views it very critically today will say it was the right decision.” The sentence speaks for itself. A man who has not yet taken office as federal chancellor acknowledges, before entering that office, that he is losing credibility, and asks the voters whose trust he has just won to await a later moment of enlightenment.

The Federal Finance Ministry broke down the special fund in its April 2025 monthly report: 100 billion euros to states and municipalities, 100 billion into the climate and transformation fund, 300 billion available to the federal government for “additional investments.” In March 2026, the federal government announced that more than 120 billion euros would flow into investments in 2026 alone – “only possible through the special fund.” The NZZ called the process a “debt orgy” in August 2025. It is a description that hardly any CDU member would have agreed with twelve months ago. Today, no one in the party disputes it anymore.

The Chancellor Vote in the Second Round

On May 6, 2025, Friedrich Merz stood before the German Bundestag to be elected the tenth federal chancellor of the Federal Republic. He failed. In the first round, he fell short of the required majority – a situation the Federal Republic had never previously encountered. No chancellor had ever before failed to pass the first round. Only in the second round, on the same day, did Merz reach a majority, with a procedural amendment to the rules of procedure required and votes from the left contributing to that majority. During the campaign, Merz had explicitly ruled out seeking majorities with the Left Party.

Critics have called him “chancellor of the second ballot” ever since. This label is not merely a play on words – it is factually accurate. And it raises a question that no one in the CDU has openly answered to this day: with whose votes did the man who had cemented firewalls against both the far right and the far left simultaneously ultimately become federal chancellor? The Junge Freiheit – a publication by no means hostile to the chancellor – spoke on the anniversary of the vote of the “embarrassing start” to the “series of lies and mishaps” that followed. It is a formulation that has gained traction in conservative circles. The arithmetic truth behind it is more sober: whoever fails the first round as chancellor begins the office carrying a burden.

Migration – The Promise That Won Him the Election

There is hardly a topic in the 2024/25 campaign with which Merz more clearly bound voters to the CDU/CSU than migration policy. His five-point plan, worked into every interview in the fall of 2024, demanded “de facto entry bans” for persons without valid documentation. CDU Bundestag member Julia Klöckner put it in a public statement so plainly that no one could walk it back afterward: “On day 1 of a federal government under Chancellor Merz,” the borders would be “closed by directive authority.”

Let us look at what was done. In the coalition agreement that the Union and SPD signed after 45 days of negotiations in April 2025, nothing remained of day-1 border closures. Instead, the text speaks of pushbacks “in coordination with European neighbors” – a formulation any jurist recognizes for what it is: an abandonment of the original position. The demand to place criminal offenders and persons deemed security threats in deportation detention without time limit was reduced in the agreement to a “review mandate.” The figures from the first months in office speak for themselves. Between early May and late July 2025, 474 asylum seekers were prevented from crossing the border by the Federal Police. In the same period, approximately 23,000 people filed first-time asylum applications in Germany. By mid-2025, 226,500 people with a legal obligation to leave were living in Germany, of whom 184,988 held tolerated status – formally required to leave, factually permitted to stay. In 2025, an additional roughly 110,000 visas were issued for family reunification.

In March 2026, Merz stepped before the cameras and announced that by 2029, 80 percent of Syrians living in Germany should return to their homeland. A task force had been established with the transitional government in Damascus, and transitional president Ahmad al-Sharaa had been received at the chancellery. At the time of this announcement, four deportations of Syrians had been carried out. Four. Approximately 226,000 Syrian nationals had by then been naturalized in Germany. Even his own Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul publicly distanced himself from his chancellor’s stated target.

What remains is the gap between Klöckner’s day-1 promise and the reality twelve months later. Whoever voted CDU/CSU on the basis of that promise – and a substantial segment of the electorate did exactly that – sees that gap every day when they open a newspaper.

The Welfare State Under Pressure

On May 12, 2026, Friedrich Merz appeared before the national congress of the German Trade Union Confederation. He was the first CDU chancellor in eight years to use that platform. What he had to say to the roughly 400 delegates can be summarized in two sentences he himself spoke during his just-over-thirty-minute address. On pension reform: “This is not malice on my part or on the part of the federal government – this is demography and mathematics.” On the reform of dependent coverage under statutory health insurance: “All of this will be felt by many people, but it is necessary.” At several points the chancellor was interrupted by booing and laughter from the audience.

What stands behind these sentences? The dependent coverage reform reflects a cabinet decision – the so-called GKV Contribution Rate Stabilization Act, prepared in the Social Ministry under SPD Labor Minister Bärbel Bas and passed by the cabinet. Under this law, non-employed spouses and civil partners will in future pay a minimum contribution of roughly 225 euros per month for health and long-term care insurance, regardless of household income. Previously they were covered free of charge. Those affected include single-earner households, part-time families, and couples in which one partner handles childcare or caregiving. The same law contains an instruction to the Federal Joint Committee to review skin cancer early detection. The routine screening for all persons aged 35 and over, established in Germany for years, is to be offered in future only to “defined risk groups.” The German Dermatological Society warns of a cost explosion from skin cancer diagnosed too late.

On the citizen’s basic income – known as Bürgergeld – Merz had promised during the campaign to turn it “from its head onto its feet” within the first 100 days, to rename it, and to attach stricter sanctions. One year later, none of these promises has been implemented. Labor Minister Bas has rejected cuts with the words that this would “not happen with us.” What is coming is a renaming to “basic income support for job seekers.” Nothing more.

In the background, figures are running that few citizens consciously register because they are only visible in nuances on a pay stub. The Cologne Institute for Economic Research puts the burden ratio – taxes plus social contributions as a share of gross domestic product – at around 41.5 percent for 2025. It is a historic high. For 2026, a marginal decline to 41.4 percent is projected. The average supplemental contribution to statutory health insurance rose from 2.5 percent in 2025 to 2.9 percent in 2026. The contribution assessment ceilings were raised noticeably for 2026. Taken together: the social contributions burden in Germany is reaching record levels under Friedrich Merz, while benefits such as free dependent coverage and routine skin cancer screening are simultaneously being cut.

Whoever promised during the campaign to deliver economic relief and a policy shift that frees working people from the grip of the contributions burden has, one year later, delivered the precise opposite. The pension entry question remains open. Merz in Der Spiegel, late April 2026: “I am not fixating on birth dates – that is irrelevant. What matters is years of contributions, not age.” Anyone reading that on paper knows: retirement at 70 is not off the table. DGB chairwoman Yasmin Fahimi countered on May 12, 2026 with a sentence that hit hard: “We have already paid for that with the raising of the pension entry age, the abolition of phased early retirement, and the reduction of the pension level.”

The Economic Turnaround That Wasn’t

In January 2025, Friedrich Merz appeared at the CDU’s campaign launch in Mannheim and invoked a “policy shift for a country with a future.” A third consecutive year of recession was looming, Merz said – “an unmistakable sign that the economy has gotten out of step.” Businesses needed “new room to breathe,” faster procedures, more prosperity. Economic competence was the Union’s central campaign argument – BlackRock and supervisory board seats notwithstanding – and Merz was regarded as the man with the competence that Olaf Scholz had lacked.

The figures available since Merz took office speak an unambiguous language. In the second quarter of 2025 – the first full quarter of his chancellorship – German gross domestic product shrank by approximately 0.1 percent. The International Monetary Fund projects 0.1 percent growth for 2025, the OECD 0.4 percent. Germany is thus at the bottom of the eurozone. For 2026, the IMF expects 0.9 percent – still at the lower end of the eurozone. Corporate insolvencies rose by 22.2 percent in 2024 and the trend continues. Consumer relief measures – on electricity prices or the solidarity surcharge – that were not among the 100-day promises per se but played a role in the conservative campaign universe have not materialized.

At the Bundestag debate marking the one-year review on May 6, 2026, Green MP Julian Joswig reduced the situation to a pointed remark: “The only thing that has reliably grown after one year of Federal Chancellor Merz and Federal Economics Minister Katherina Reiche is the disappointment.” The black-red coalition had, with the 500-billion special fund, “better opportunities than any other federal government,” but had put the money into “electoral gifts like the mothers’ pension” rather than future-oriented projects. It is a finding that comes not from a fringe political party but from the Bundestag floor, backed by budget data.

Foreign Policy – The Escalation Chain

Perhaps nowhere is the gap between stated ambition and outcome as clearly documented as in foreign policy. There are three world regions – the United States, Iran, China – and three affronts. They follow a logic every business attorney knows: whoever publicly takes shots at a negotiating partner should be prepared for that partner to remember.

Let us begin with the United States. Friedrich Merz served from 2009 to 2019 as chairman of the Atlantik-Brücke, Germany’s central transatlantic lobbying organization. During the 2024 US campaign, he positioned himself – according to Bundestag member Markus Frohnmaier, speaking in a plenary session on June 4, 2025 – against Donald Trump. Current Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul and CSU leader Markus Söder had spoken out “explicitly in favor of his opponent Kamala Harris of the Democrats.” Merz himself is alleged, in that account, to have described Trump “as a danger to democracy.” After Trump’s election victory in November 2024, the transatlantic relationship carried a burden that no amount of press releases could smooth away.

On June 17, 2025, on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada, Merz gave an interview to ZDFheute live that will go down in the annals of German foreign policy. On Israel’s conduct in the Iran war at the time, he said verbatim: “This is the dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us.” He added: “I can only say, the greatest respect for the fact that the Israeli military, the Israeli leadership, had the courage to do that.” If Israel could not fully destroy the nuclear weapons program on its own, there was the option of the United States – “for that it lacks the necessary weapons, but the Americans have them.” It is the language of a man who describes a war in which, according to Iranian source estimates, more than 1,000 Iranians had been killed by early February 2026, using the vocabulary of a cleanup operation. The statement triggered a domestic debate as well. Tagesschau, WDR, and n-tv covered it extensively; Merz himself later affirmed that he did not regret the choice of words.

In April 2026, at a school event at the Carolus-Magnus-Gymnasium in his constituency of Marsberg, the same chancellor said of the United States: “The Americans obviously have no strategy.” Trump’s response followed on his Truth Social platform. Merz was “totally ineffective” on the Ukraine war, was “doing a terrible job,” and Germany was a “broken country” – particularly on migration and energy. The US president announced the withdrawal of 5,000 American troops from Germany. Within ten months, the relationship between a man who was historically the most significant transatlantic lobbyist of his generation and the government of the alliance partner had turned from “great relationship” to public humiliation. Whoever describes a man during a campaign as “a danger to democracy” and positions himself in favor of his opponent should not be surprised if that man, once president, shows little enthusiasm for cooperation.

Iran, the second stop. On February 5, 2026, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on the platform X a message personally accusing Merz of “political naivety” and a “repugnant character.” Araghchi wrote explicitly: “When Israel killed more than 1,000 Iranians in June 2025, he was effusive.” In doing so, the Iranian foreign minister linked the “repugnant character” charge directly to the “dirty work” statement of the previous year. Araghchi called Germany “an engine of regression” and expressed the hope “that Germany will once again have a more mature and honorable political leadership.” It is an attack by a foreign minister on a sitting federal chancellor without precedent in German diplomatic history. Merz’s response: “This is obviously an expression of great nervousness and insecurity.” More remarkable than the insult is the line it traces: whoever publicly welcomes a war against a third country as federal chancellor should factor in that the diplomatic response from that third country will also be public.

Third stop: China. In early October 2025, a two-day trip by Foreign Minister Wadephul to Beijing was planned. On the Friday before the Sunday departure date, the Foreign Office announced that the trip would be postponed. The official explanation from the spokesperson: Beijing had “confirmed no adequate additional appointments beyond a meeting between the minister and his counterpart Wang Yi.” The taz called the episode “a foreign policy disaster.” ZDF spoke of a “diplomatic scandal.” t-online: “diplomatic super-GAU.” In diplomatic language, which carries its own codes in Asia, the refusal of appointments below the foreign minister level is a clear signal that the guest is not welcome. The rescheduled visit in December 2025 was hardly better. Wadephul arrived, met Wang Yi, met the commerce minister, met Vice President Han Zheng. The subsequent press conference lasted under twenty minutes. Wadephul, as China’s state media outlet Global Times itself observed, “took no questions from Chinese media.” Western business media commentary described Wadephul as a “supplicant.” It is not imaginable that a foreign minister under Helmut Schmidt or Helmut Kohl would have been received in Beijing in such a manner. It is not even imaginable that a foreign minister under Angela Merkel would have been treated this way.

Three world regions, three affronts. One can debate whether this list is coincidence or pattern. Those who know foreign policy know that great powers watch one another. When Trump, Araghchi, and the Chinese leadership respond to the German head of government at the same level, in the same phase of a chancellorship, that is the language in which great powers communicate to one another: there is not much to be done with this one.

BlackRock, Ukraine, and the Cui Bono Question

There is a thematic complex in Merz’s biography that surfaces in German public discourse whenever the balance of his actions is commented upon by outside parties – that is, by third parties. The taz ran a headline in December 2025 on coverage of the 8th German-Ukrainian Economic Forum: “Merz sets his sights on Ukraine – just like his former employer BlackRock.” This headline does not come from an opponent of the chancellor in alternative media. It appears in a Berlin mainstream outlet left of center. It deserves an examination of the factual parallels.

Friedrich Merz served from 2016 to the end of March 2020 as chairman of the supervisory board of BlackRock Asset Management Deutschland AG, the German arm of the world’s largest asset manager. On the precise nature of that role, BlackRock itself spoke plainly in the press release announcing the appointment. Merz was to “take on a broader advisory role in which he will promote relationships with key clients, regulators, and regulatory authorities in Germany for BlackRock.” Translated: relationship cultivation with the most important addresses in business, government, and politics. A lobbying function in the classical sense.

What does BlackRock have to do with Ukraine? In 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly confirmed for the first time a possible leadership role for BlackRock in rebuilding his country. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink estimated the reconstruction need at that point at 750 billion US dollars. In conjunction with the bank JP Morgan, BlackRock began developing a “Ukraine Development Fund” in 2023 that was to raise up to 15 billion dollars. In January 2025, immediately after Trump’s election victory, BlackRock paused the investor search – citing “political uncertainty” and insufficient investor interest. But that was not the end. In November and December 2025, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko reported that “a joint working group had been established” with BlackRock – following an online meeting with Trump’s negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. BlackRock also holds 5.30 percent of Rheinmetall, Germany’s largest defense contractor and primary supplier of military aid to Ukraine.

What has Merz done as chancellor regarding Ukraine? Germany has, according to the federal government, committed 79 billion euros in bilateral assistance since the start of the war in February 2022. In the 2026 budget, the allocation for Ukraine assistance was raised from an original 8.5 billion to 11.55 billion euros, including 400 million euros directly into the Ukrainian defense industry. Germany was Europe’s largest military supporter of Ukraine in 2025 and will, according to the Federal Defense Ministry, continue that role in 2026. In December 2025, Merz himself appeared at the 8th German-Ukrainian Economic Forum in Berlin and told hundreds of company representatives: “Investments in Ukraine are investments in the future – for you as well.” Addressing the Kremlin, he added: “We are not letting up – we are stepping up.” Economics Minister Katherina Reiche of the CDU declared at the same event that it was “entirely legitimate” to seek the participation of German firms in Ukrainian reconstruction.

Those are the facts, placed in parallel. What meaning each reader draws from them is a matter of individual judgment. The claim not being made here is that Merz shapes his Ukraine policy in the interest of his former employer. Such a claim would not be supported by evidence. The observation being made here is that the former BlackRock relationship manager is politically shepherding a war in whose downstream business BlackRock has been historically and currently involved, and that this constellation belongs to the questions a responsible voter should ask themselves. The Latin term for that is cui bono.

The Assessment – The Performance Review

When an employee must be evaluated at the end of a probationary period, there is a formulation in German HR practice that everyone who has ever read a personnel file will recognize. Stets bemüht – “always endeavored” – is one of the harshest things that can appear in a German employment reference. It is the legally precise way of saying that someone gave their best effort without achieving results. It is a defeat rendered in elevated language.

Friedrich Merz has, in one year, produced a record that makes even the formulation stets bemüht look generous. The debt brake, which he declared a matter of party identity, he qualified before taking office through a special fund of 500 billion euros. The day-1 border closure his party promised he reduced to 474 pushbacks in three months, while 23,000 first-time asylum applications were filed in the same period. The Left Party deal he ruled out he drew upon for his own election as chancellor. The Bürgergeld reform he announced for the first 100 days is, after 365 days, a renaming. The dependent health insurance coverage he never intended to touch is being burdened with a 225-euro minimum contribution. The skin cancer screening is being narrowed to risk groups. The economic turnaround he promised is a projected GDP growth of 0.9 percent for 2026 – last place in the eurozone. The transatlantic bridge he cultivated for twenty years is now a threat to withdraw 5,000 US troops. The foreign policy that was to lead to diplomacy has produced an Iranian foreign minister who publicly credits him with a “repugnant character” and a Chinese leadership that treats his foreign minister as a supplicant.

The numbers with which the German people have receipted this record are without precedent in their concentration. Forsa, May 12, 2026: 13 percent approval. Morning Consult, April 2026: 76 percent disapproval – the worst figure for a democratically elected head of government across 24 democracies. Ipsos, January 2026: 17 percent consider the chancellor’s political work credible, 64 percent consider it not credible. YouGov, April 2026: AfD at 27 percent, CDU/CSU at 23 percent – the Union’s lowest figure since December 2021. INSA, early May 2026: nearly 50 percent of respondents wish for an early end to the coalition.

Friedrich Merz complained publicly in Der Spiegel in late April 2026. “No federal chancellor before me has had to endure something like this.” The answer to that is provided by the grandmother from the Palatinate. Respect is not something you receive. Respect is something you have to earn. When 87 percent of a nation withholds approval from its head of government and 64 percent deny him credibility, that is not a mood, not a campaign, and not an unfair treatment. That is a finding.

Don’t listen to what he says. Watch what he does.

Michael Hollister
is a geopolitical analyst and investigative journalist. He served six years in the German military, including peacekeeping deployments in the Balkans (SFOR, KFOR), followed by 14 years in IT security management. His analysis draws on primary sources to examine European militarization, Western intervention policy, and shifting power dynamics across Asia. A particular focus of his work lies in Southeast Asia, where he investigates strategic dependencies, spheres of influence, and security architectures. Hollister combines operational insider perspective with uncompromising systemic critique-beyond opinion journalism. His work appears on his bilingual website (German/English) www.michael-hollister.com, at Substack and in investigative outlets across the German-speaking world and the Anglosphere.

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27. ZDFheute – Merz: Israel macht in Iran „Drecksarbeit für uns alle” (June 17, 2025): https://www.zdfheute.de/politik/g7-gipfel-merz-100.html
28. Tagesspiegel – „Widerwärtiger Charakter”: Irans Außenminister attackiert Kanzler Merz: https://www.tagesspiegel.de/internationales/widerwartiger-charakter-irans-aussenminister-attackiert-kanzler-merz-und-hofft-auf-regierungswechsel-15221129.html
29. Euronews – „Widerwärtiger Charakter”: Irans Außenminister schießt gegen Merz: https://de.euronews.com/2026/02/05/widerwartiger-charakter-irans-aussenminister-schiesst-gegen-merz
30. Jüdische Allgemeine – «Widerwärtiger Charakter»: Irans Außenminister attackiert Merz: https://www.juedische-allgemeine.de/politik/widerwaertiger-charakter-irans-aussenminister-attackiert-merz/
31. t-online – Merz droht Iran – Außenminister kontert: „Widerwärtiger Charakter”: https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/ausland/internationale-politik/id_101115758/merz-droht-iran-aussenminister-kontert-widerwaertiger-charakter-.html
32. t-online – Absage von Wadephuls China-Reise: Der Streit spitzt sich weiter zu (October 28, 2025): https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/aussenpolitik/id_100973014/absage-von-wadephuls-china-reise-es-herrscht-alarmstufe-rot.html
33. taz – Außenpolitisches Desaster: Wadephuls China-Reise kurzfristig abgesagt: https://taz.de/Aussenpolitisches-Desaster/!6124051/
34. ZDFheute – Wadephul reist doch nicht nach China – Besuch verschoben: https://www.zdfheute.de/politik/wadephul-china-reise-absage-100.html
35. Mining.com / Reuters – Germany’s top diplomat sees progress in China rare earth talks (December 2025): https://www.mining.com/web/germanys-top-diplomat-sees-progress-in-china-rare-earth-talks/
36. Global Times – German FM kicks off China visit amid recent China-EU engagement: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202512/1350072.shtml
37. Lobbypedia – Friedrich Merz (BlackRock supervisory board role 2016–2020): https://lobbypedia.de/wiki/Friedrich_Merz
38. politik & kommunikation – Merz wird Aufsichtsrat von Blackrock verlassen: https://www.politik-kommunikation.de/personalwechsel/merz-wird-aufsichtsrat-von-blackrock-verlassen/
39. taz – Wiederaufbau in der Ukraine: Der große bekannte Unbekannte (December 2025): https://taz.de/Wiederaufbau-in-der-Ukraine/!6138839/
40. UBN – BlackRock hat die Entwicklung des Ukraine-Wiederaufbaufonds nach Trumps Wahl eingestellt: https://ubn.news/de/blackrock-hat-die-entwicklung-des-ukraine-wiederaufbaufonds-nach-trumps-wahl-eingestellt/
41. Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten – Rheinmetall, BlackRock und Co.: Das Ukraine-Geschäft mit Krieg und Wiederaufbau: https://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/711253/rheinmetall-blackrock-und-co-das-ukraine-geschaeft-mit-krieg-und-wiederaufbau
42. Bundesregierung – So unterstützt Deutschland die Ukraine: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/deutschland-hilft-der-ukraine-2160274
43. BMVg – 365 Tage: Wichtige Weichenstellung und Aufwuchs für kriegstüchtige Streitkräfte: https://www.bmvg.de/de/presse/weichenstellung-aufwuchs-6097806
44. Deutscher Bundestag – Antrag fordert Untersuchung zu Ukraine-Hilfen (79 billion bilateral): https://www.bundestag.de/dokumente/textarchiv/2026/kw05-de-ukraine-1136952
45. Handelsblatt – Haushalt: Bundesregierung plant Erhöhung der Ukraine-Hilfe: https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/haushalt-bundesregierung-plant-erhoehung-der-ukraine-hilfe/100171019.html
46. 20 Minuten – Friedrich Merz: Nur 13 Prozent Zustimmung in Forsa-Umfrage (May 12, 2026): https://www.20min.ch/story/deutschland-sowas-noch-nie-gesehen-umfrage-ohrfeige-fuer-friedrich-merz-103561649
47. Statista – Bewertung der Arbeit von Bundeskanzler Friedrich Merz 2026: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1614084/umfrage/bewertung-der-arbeit-von-bundeskanzler-friedrich-merz/
48. The European – INSA-Umfrage zu Kanzler Merz und Neuwahlen: https://www.theeuropean.de/wissenschaft/insa-umfrage-zu-kanzler-merz-und-neuwahlen
49. news.de – Friedrich Merz in der Umfrage-Krise: Fast die Hälfte der Wähler wünscht sich ein Koalitions-Aus (INSA May 13, 2026): https://www.news.de/politik/859609674/koalitions-aus-von-bundesregierung-friedrich-merz-gewuenscht-insa-umfrage-offenbart-absturz-cdu-spd-im-osten-und-bei-waehlern/1/
50. Euronews – Düstere Umfragewerte: Deutlicher Rückschlag für Merz und die CDU: https://de.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/05/13/umfragewerte-ruckschlag-merz-cdu
51. 20 Minuten – Merz auf Tiefstwert: 87% der Deutschen unzufrieden mit der Bundesregierung: https://www.20min.ch/story/umfrage-ohrfeige-das-macht-kanzler-merz-falsch-103561716

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