When I recently picked up a rental car in Las Vegas — I was in America to cover the elections — the agent at the counter insisted on “upgrading” me to a BMW. “So you feel at home,” he said, looking at my German driver’s license, smiling. I took the keys and made a mental note: Outside Germany, Germany is still intact.
I often find this when I travel. Outside Germany, Germany is still a car country, home to a flourishing economy. Outside Germany, Germany is still a prosperous country, where everybody drives a BMW or the like. Outside Germany, Germany is still a well-ordered country, a pleasant place both politically and socially. I smiled back at the agent. But inwardly, I winced. Because in Germany, Germany doesn’t feel like Germany anymore.
On Monday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a vote of confidence at the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, officially ending his government.
It was a formality: The three-party coalition had fallen in early November, when Mr. Scholz dismissed the finance minister, Christian Lindner, prompting his Free Democrats to quit the administration.
The move left Mr. Scholz, a Social Democrat, with a minority government alongside the Greens. Rather than stagger on, he decided to call snap elections that will be held on Feb. 23. The no-confidence vote was a final piece of housekeeping.
At first glance, the story of the government’s breakdown looks like a rather dull “House of Cards” political thriller, centered on a budget fight. Underneath the noise, however, there’s an existential crisis. The economically prosperous, socially cohesive and politically stable Germany has gone. And this government, ideologically torn and rocked by outside shocks, proved unable to cope. How did we get here?
In the fall of 2021, things felt very different.
After Angela Merkel decided not to run again after 16 years in office, Mr. Scholz defeated her Christian Democratic successor and formed the first three-party government in recent German history. Younger politicians like Annalena Baerbock, the foreign minister, and Mr. Lindner came in.
It was the first time the Greens, an economically left-leaning party rooted in the ecological movement of the ’80s, had shared power nationally with the Free Democrats, a pro-civil liberties and pro-business party.
In interviews for a book I was writing, many of those younger politicians talked about overcoming their ideological barriers to modernize Germany after Ms. Merkel’s long reign, which they saw as overly attached to the status quo. They talked enthusiastically about digitizing the country and promoting green industries. The energy felt genuine. Led by the steady, moderate Mr. Scholz, the government looked well set to tackle the country’s challenges.
But problems soon stacked up. 
The first was Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which threw the new government into crisis management mode: frantically buying gas on the international markets to replace Russian energy, trying to protect consumers and companies from soaring prices and organizing weapons deliveries to Ukraine.
After Mr. Scholz announced a “Zeitenwende,” a turning point in foreign policy, the government allocated 100 billion euros to rebuilding Germany’s military.
All that came as the economy was faltering.
While other Group of 7 countries are growing, Germany is about to register its second consecutive year of recession.
