A bad run in the recent parliamentary elections for Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), has sparked in-fighting in the highest ranks.
Despite remaining Germany’s largest party, the CDU and CSU lost more than one million voters to the far-right anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD), who won 12 per cent of the vote. The CSU had its worst election result since 1949.
Now Merkel’s own colleagues have indicated plans for a tack to the right to recapture voters disenchanted by the Chancellor’s open-door refugee and immigration policy which allowed thousands of migrants into Germany in 2015.
The First Minister of Saxony, Stanislaw Tillich, told Funke: “We lost ground right of centre. Many of our supporters didn’t feel they could vote for us any more.
“People want Germany to be Germany. They don’t want parallel societies or increasing crime rates.”
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The CDU head of the regional government in Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff, also said people wanted to know “how Germany can protect its identity”, and called for a change in direction.
CSU leader Horst Seehofer, considered one of Angela Merkel’s biggest political rivals, also believes the party closed itself off to right-wing voters.
Head of the CSU executive committee, Alexander Dobrindt, has even discussed forming a new party, with a more right-wing focus.
Mrs Merkel’s right-wing rivals are set to clash with politicians supportive of her move towards the centre.
The turmoil could spell trouble for Angela Merkel as she enters her fourth term as Chancellor of Germany as leader of a now more polarised party.
She previously led a broad coalition including the left-wing Social Democratic Party (SPD), and brought her party towards the centre with her pro-refugee stance.
However, while her four terms as Chancellor are unprecedented, Mrs Merkel is unlikely to see a fifth if she is not able to reconcile her party members with fresh tactics.
She has already begun to harden her stance on immigration and refugees and is likely to have to continue to do so – or Theresa May could find herself negotiating Brexit with a new German leader.