Olaf Scholz’s humiliation leaves German power vacuum in heart of Europe

Any chancellor would face serious questions after such a political earthquake, even if they were popular.

But Mr Scholz is deeply unpopular and his personal approval ratings are so low they have broken records. More than 70 per cent of Germans are dissatisfied with his leadership, according to one recent poll.

In June’s European elections, Mr Scholz led his SPD to their worst federal election result in more than a century.

His warring coalition government is one of the least popular German governments in modern history.

Two thirds of Germans were dissatisfied with the “traffic-light coalition”, which is struggling to fill a 17 billion euro blackhole in its budget.

His lack of charisma and communication skills are acute. Germany is one of the most generous donors to Ukraine but gets no credit, thanks to Mr Scholz.

Voters in Germany are rebelling against the coalition’s net zero policies in the face of the cost of living crisis triggered by a war in Ukraine, which has divided public opinion.

Mr Scholz is also unlucky. The regional elections were held nine days after the terrorist murder of three people at a festival in Solingen. The suspected knifeman is a Syrian man.

Crackdown on illegal immigration

The chancellor ordered a crackdown on illegal immigration this week, including carrying out its first deportations to Afghanistan since it fell to the Taliban and reducing benefits for asylum seekers arriving in Germany from other EU members.

It came too little, too late for voters in Thuringia and Saxony, as, once again, Mr Scholz failed to convince.

He is likely to resist pressure to call a snap election. His dysfunctional coalition may stagger on until the federal elections next year but that now seems certain to achieve nothing but delay his inevitable ousting at the hands of the CDU.

Mr Scholz won the chancellorship campaigning as a “Merkel 2.0” after serving as the centre-Right CDU chancellor’s deputy in the previous coalition.

Ironically, it is her policies on open borders and Russia that have helped condemn him to a far shorter stint in office than Mrs Merkel’s 16 years in power.

As for her party, its biggest headache at the next election won’t be winning it.

It will be which parties to form a coalition government with from the unpalatable choice of the extreme Right and Left or the discredited remains of the SPD, Greens and FDP.

The fact the SPD was the only party to vote against the 1933 Enabling Act that gave Hitler the power to make laws and paved the way to the rise of Nazi Germany, will make this defeat even more bitter.