Keep Calm And Vote For Merkel

Interesting posters have recently appeared all over our town, calling for our citizens to vote for Angela Merkel in the upcoming German Federal elections at the end of this September. They appear to be the work of the Junge Union, the youth organization fraction of the CDU and the CSU, the two German conservative parties who, together with the FDP, form the coalition government of Germany, also referred to as the second Merkel cabinet.

The posters (see photo) appear to the unitiated eye to be very low-key and straightforward, with a pleasant blue background and a simple white font. The text is "Cool bleiben und Kanzlerin wählen" which literally means "Stay cool and vote for the Chancelloress" (that's Angela Merkel). In case you were unsure whether it was about Angela Merkel, the text is capped by a little logo of a pair of white hands with the fingertips pressed together, which is Merkel's signature pose. The hand logo appears, as mentioned, above the text, almost like a little crown.

Now I bet you're thinking, that sounds familiar. But most of our townspeople are walking past it without batting an eyelid. In contrast to this cupcake, who upon seeing it for the first time, chortled, pointed, chortled again, said, oh that's clever, and promptly took a photo.

If you ask the average German here what they think of the poster, they'll tell you that the blue background is very pretty, and also neutral - not the usual color of the CDU, whose colors are usually black or orange. They also find the little hand logo amusing. Anything else? I ask. Nope. Do you know where the idea for the poster comes from? Yes, the Junge Union.

What I love about this is that the Germans, long reproached with a lack of humor, have taken something quintessentially British and humorously turned it into their own. We've been seeing various humorous versions of the second World War poster "Keep Calm And Carry On" for quite a while now, but this is the first time I've seen a German version of it. And when I explain its significance to my fellow townspeople, they are surprised, even slightly amused, but I can tell that they don't really get the joke completely.

The irony of course is that the original poster was referring directly to a state induced by events that would be created by Germans. And it was intended to encourage the British public to show the Germans what they were made of. That was what was going to help the British win the war. So the poster really falls into the category of anti-German war propaganda.

I am wondering if the Junge Union's decision to customize this poster in a propaganda parody was a bit "tongue-in-cheek" or whether they just thought it would be a really good idea to use (what they thought was) a well-known slogan. Basically, it's falling a bit flat here, and that's sad. The Junge Union, clearly staffed with a bunch of Bright Young Things, might just have been a bit too clever.