German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the coronavirus pandemic is the greatest threat to Germany since World War II.
Merkel gave a rare televised address, usually only done for her New Year speeches, to her country on Wednesday addressing the coronavirus and Germany’s efforts to fight it, according to the Washington Post. The prime minister has played a largely unseen role throughout the pandemic and did not publicly address the health crisis until after Bild, Germany’s largest tabloid, published a front-page headline slamming Merkel: “No appearance, no speech, no leadership in the crisis.”
“This is serious. And we must take it seriously,” Merkel said, according to the Telegraph. “There has been no such challenge to our country since German reunification — no, not since the Second World War II — that relies so heavily on us all working together in solidarity.”
“These are not simply abstract numbers or statistics. It is someone’s father or grandfather, a mother or grandmother, a partner. They are people. And we are a community in which every life and every person matters,” she continued. “This is what an epidemic shows us: how vulnerable we all are, how dependent on the considerate behavior of others.”
Merkel took criticism for comparing Germany’s role in combating the coronavirus to World War II, which Nazi Germany started when they invaded Poland and orchestrated one of the largest mass genocides in history.
You guys the full quote from Angela Merkel is actually worse, if it can be believed.
“There has been no such challenge to our country since German reunification – no, not since the Second World War II – that relies so heavily on us all working together in solidarity.”
— Emily Zanotti (@emzanotti) March 18, 2020
That’s rather poorly worded https://t.co/gi45GTl3ly
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 18, 2020
That was when Germany declared war on… THE WORLD. https://t.co/pCBnlw28hS
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) March 18, 2020
