The 18th-century philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder is credited in Germany with coining the maxim: “Talk is silver, but silence is golden.” The saying has come to define Germany’s political culture. Olaf Scholz was economical with words and drew mockery for his wooden, monosyllabic replies as the “Scholzomat” or even the “coma chancellor”. Scholz was not entirely different from his predecessor. Angela Merkel grew up in East Germany’s communist dictatorship and learned early that words could be dangerous. She spoke cautiously, almost clinically, in the monotone of a central banker. Every word served a purpose. That was precisely why everyone listened closely.

Friedrich Merz, by contrast, is anything but a soporific speaker. The trained lawyer has a sharp tongue and visibly enjoys the sound of his own voice. In this, the conservative chancellor resembles the French president, Emmanuel Macron – another beau parleur. And like Macron, Merz is a know-all. He rarely misses a chance to show his audience how clever he is.

In this, the 70-year-old chancellor is not endearing himself to German voters, who traditionally like their politicians to be affable but not overly slick. Worse, Merz’s overconfidence has a tendency to backfire. He sometimes loses his audience in explanatory detours and his command of the facts is less sure-footed than his delivery suggests. In a recent wide-ranging interview on one of Germany’s leading political podcasts, Machtwechsel, Merz delivered a flurry of inaccurate or contradictory-sounding statements.........

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