Angela Merkel arrived in Essen on the feast of St Nicholas bearing gifts.
It was a return to the city where, after shafting her mentor Helmut Kohl, Angela Merkel was elevated from his mousy Mädchen to Germany's CDU leader.
Some 16 years later, and after 11 years as chancellor, Merkel secured huge party backing to run for a fourth term next year. To do so, the trained scientist rigged the experiment: adding just the right mix of ingredients to achieve her desired result.
After a dry 45 minutes, Merkel jolted awake 1,000 delegates by ramping up her rhetoric, promising speedy deportations for failed and criminal asylum seekers – and a ban on veils.
The delegates, in particular the CDU’s beleaguered conservative wing, cheered loudly at what appeared to be the making of another, tougher Merkel.
With a darkening public mood on security and refugees, the German leader had been urged to take a tougher line by CDU state leaders, in particular in North Rhine-Westphalia, which elects a new government in May.
Political chameleon
Merkel delivered in spades. But has she changed? Not really. Angela Merkel has always been a political chameleon, sensing public mood and changing the colour of her message appropriately.
And so it was in Essen. Those who wanted to hear “Merkel to ban veils” heard just that, while anyone who thinks a veil ban is a populist move – and possibly unconstitutional in Germany – heard “ban if possible”.
After ticking the law-and-order boxes – promising no repeat of the 2015 refugee crisis, insisting that German law takes precedence of Sharia – she switched gears again.
Europe’s values are its future, she said, and while the continent must not be naive to threats, it must stand true to values of tolerance and diversity.
Freedom and security are two sides of the same coin, she told delegates, and sacrificing one to preserve the other is a false promise.
“Someone like me who grew up in East Germany knows that politics against freedom is against human nature,” she said, “that politics against freedom is an outrage.”
Merkel gave her party delegates what they – and the wider German public – wanted to hear. She presented herself as a steady pair of hands in an “off-kilter world” and made a final plea worthy of Eva Peron herself: “Above all, in times like this, you must, must, must help me.”