德国执政的中右翼基督教民主联盟（CDU）青年支部“青年联盟”（JU）影响力之大，令该党所有重量级人物都感到有义务前来“朝贺”。在上周末于波恩举行的青年联盟代表大会上，每位大佬登场都享受拳击手般的入场待遇，配有闪烁的聚光灯和主办方精选的主题音乐。CDU党魁、深陷困境的总理弗里德里希·默茨（Friedrich Merz）入场时播放的是“We stay united through the storm”（我们将在风暴中保持团结），想必颇感欣慰。
SUCH IS THE power of the Junge Union (JU), the youth branch of Germany’s ruling centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), that all the party’s big beasts feel obliged to pay it homage. At last weekend’s JU congress in Bonn, each was given a prizefighter’s entrance, complete with flashing spotlights and theme music selected by the organisers. Friedrich Merz, the CDU’s embattled chancellor, will have been happy with “We stay united through the storm”.
北莱茵-威斯特法伦州州长、默茨的潜在竞争对手亨德里克·伍斯特（Hendrik Wüst）入场曲为“You should know that baby you’re the best”（宝贝你该知道你是最棒的），他登场时显得有几分茫然，随后发表了一场平淡无奇的演讲。至于大会口号“Tomorrow is loading”（明天正在加载），要么是对往昔“信息高速公路”美梦的讽刺致敬，要么是试图听起来稍微有点“数字化”味道。
Hendrik Wüst, the premier of North Rhine-Westphalia and a potential challenger to Mr Merz, looked a little bewildered on entering to the thump of “You should know that baby you’re the best”, before delivering a dull speech. As for the congress’s slogan, “Tomorrow is loading”, it seemed either an ironic nod to information-superhighway dreams of yore or an attempt to sound vaguely digital.
无论如何，都比去年那句令人尴尬的德式英语“What the Future?!”（未来何在？！）强多了。
Either way, it was better than the toe-curling Denglish of last year’s “What the Future?!”
青年联盟是德国有志青年保守派社交、喝酒、吐槽“母党”（即CDU）的聚集地。他们生龙活虎，虽谈不上多元：除寥寥数位女性外，似乎人人都叫约翰内斯。最关键的人物是34岁的青年联盟主席约翰内斯·温克尔（Johannes Winkel），他已成为默茨的心头刺。去年，温克尔曾威胁要搅黄政府的养老金上调计划。在今年的演讲中，他直指CDU活在过去，把微调包装成雄心勃勃的“改革”，正冒着灭绝的风险。
The JU is where Germany’s ambitious conservatives come to network, drink and complain about the Mutterpartei (mother party, ie, the CDU). They are a lively bunch, if not a diverse one: bar a smattering of women, almost everyone seems to be called Johannes. The most important is the 34-year-old Johannes Winkel, head of the JU, who has emerged as an irritant for Mr Merz. Last year Mr Winkel threatened to torpedo the government’s plan to raise pensions. In his speech this year he said the CDU was living in the past, passing off minor tweaks as ambitious “reforms” and risking extinction.
青年联盟的意见之所以举足轻重，是因为他们在联邦议院拥有20名议员——成员们爱强调，这比默茨执政联盟12席的多数优势还要大。温克尔警告称，如果旨在遏制成本的新养老金改革被稀释，去年的造反将相形见绌，未来将有更大动作。
The JU’s opinions matter because their group in the Bundestag has 20 MPs—which, as members point out, is larger than the 12-seat majority held by Mr Merz’s coalition. Mr Winkel has warned that last year’s insurrection will pale next to what will come if a new pension reform, designed to rein in costs, is watered down.
如果这些年轻保守派感到愤怒，是因为没有什么比背叛更让人痛心。正是青年联盟（JU）的真正信徒组成了先锋队，推动了梅尔茨多次竞选基民盟（CDU）主席，第三次尝试于2021年成功。他们当时以为，终于来了一位正统保守派的救世主，能冲刷掉安格拉·默克尔长达16年执政留下的软弱中间路线。（青年联盟和梅尔茨在一点上达成一致：默克尔16年的统治是一种耻辱。）
If these young conservatives are angry, it is because nothing hurts so much as betrayal. It was the true believers of the JU who formed the vanguard of Mr Merz’s multiple attempts to become CDU leader, the third of which succeeded in 2021. At last, they thought, a true-blooded conservative saviour to wash away the mushy centrism of the long Angela Merkel years. (One thing the JU and Mr Merz agree on is that Mrs Merkel’s 16-year reign was an embarrassment.)
但自从梅尔茨赢得去年大选以来，接连不断的只有失望：借贷狂欢、党内斗争，以及对社会民主党（SPD）——这一初级联合伙伴——的无休止让步。在去年的青年联盟大会上，梅尔茨敦促青年联盟冷却其改革热情，疏远了所有人。今年他表现得规规矩矩，全力支持拟议的养老金改革。他的演讲“算不上成功，但也算不上失败”，一名代表冷哼道。
But since Mr Merz won last year’s election it has been disappointment upon disappointment: borrowing binges, in-fighting and endless concessions to the Social Democrats (SPD), the junior coalition partner. At last year’s youth bash Mr Merz alienated everyone by urging the JU to cool its reformist zeal. This year he was on best behaviour, offering full support for the proposed pension reform. His speech “wasn’t a success, but it wasn’t a failure”, sniffed one delegate.
梅尔茨也展示了他能调动现场情绪。他因谴责由左翼民粹主义政党“左翼党”主导的柏林拟议联合政府，赢得了周末最大的掌声；左翼党最近在首都赢得了选举。基民盟内外许多人认为，该党的柏林分部充斥着反犹太主义者和颠覆分子。然而，就当代表们的愤怒达到顶点时，左翼党却与绿党和社民党达成协议，开始联合执政磋商。
Mr Merz also showed he can press the crowd’s buttons. He earned the weekend’s biggest applause by deploring a proposed coalition in Berlin led by the populist-left Die Linke party, which won a recent election in the capital. Many in the CDU, and beyond, believe that party’s Berlin branch is crawling with antisemites and subversives. Yet just as the delegates’ fury peaked, Die Linke clinched an agreement with the Greens and SPD to begin coalition talks.
这促使青年联盟通过了一项决议，由另一位约翰内斯发起，要求对任何此类政府实施“政治和社会层面的排斥”。决议配有一张身穿阿拉伯头巾的年轻男子的照片，以及口号“Nie wieder ist jetzt!”（“勿忘历史，刻不容缓！”），这是一种近乎歇斯底里地援引大屠杀的表述。
That inspired the JU to pass a resolution, spearheaded by another Johannes, demanding “political and social ostracism” of any such government. It featured a picture of a young man in a keffiyeh and the slogan Nie wieder ist jetzt! (“Never again is now!”), a rather hysterical invocation of the Holocaust. These days it is easier for youth delegates to rage against leftists than against the populist-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
如今，青年代表们抨击左翼比抨击民粹右翼的“德国另类选择党”（AfD）更容易。基民盟整体并未对这个摧毁了其民调领先优势的政党手软；默茨也对“德国另类选择党”说了狠话。但在萨克森-安哈尔特州议会，一些基民盟代表可能很快就会打破党的路线，给激进派提供他们在该州执政所需的票数——上个月，“德国另类选择党”在该东部州的选举中赢得了近半数席位。一位名叫约翰内斯的第三人叹了口气说，萨克森-安哈尔特州的基民盟是一枚“失控的导弹”。
The CDU as a whole has not gone soft on the party that has destroyed its polling lead; Mr Merz had harsh words for the AfD, too. But some CDU delegates in the parliament of Saxony-Anhalt, an eastern state where the AfD won a near-majority in an election last month, may soon break the party line and give the radicals the votes they need to take office there. The CDU in Saxony-Anhalt, sighs a third Johannes, is an “unguided missile”.
难怪代表们很难相信基民盟已经找到了恢复元气的办法。“党正在崩塌，”一位代表私下透露，并补充说，他不好意思告诉朋友自己是党员。基民盟的年轻一代似乎充满自信，偏偏就在这一刻他们对“母党”失去了信心。但正如一位基民盟元老所言，青年联盟总是在长辈们挣扎时蓬勃发展。年轻人总以为自己最懂。而这些年轻人手握议会席位数量，足以证明这一点。■
No wonder delegates struggled to believe that the CDU had figured out how to recover. “The party is crumbling,” confided one, adding that he is embarrassed to tell his friends he is a member. The CDU’s young guard seems to be bursting with self-confidence at precisely the moment it has lost faith in the Mutterpartei. But as one CDU grandee puts it, the JU always thrives when its elders are struggling. Kids tend to think they know best. And these ones have the numbers in parliament to prove it. ■