Somewhat fortuitously, Mercedes says its decision last year to make its production carbon-neutral from this year left it well placed to respond. “We had a big advantage, because we finalised a large green energy contract for all of our factories last year,” says Jörg Burzer, the MBG board member responsible for production and supply chains. “This is a contract which focuses on wind, solar and hydroelectric power.”

Germany’s businesses and households had grown accustomed to plentiful Russian gas and oil for many years. Russia accounted for more than half of the country’s natural gas supply in 2020.

Mercedes is less dependent on these supplies than some of Germany’s energy-intensive industries, notably steelmakers, pharmaceutical companies and chemicals producers such as BASF, which said in October it would permanently “downsize” its European operations. However, the carmaker still relies on gas for certain production processes, particularly in its foundries.

Burzer says MBG was able to effectively halve its gas usage by turning off the gas power plants at its sites and by ramping up renewables. “We are very strongly focused on green energy,” he adds, “but even without the mild start to the winter we would have been well placed to get through.”

On a visit to the company’s enormous site at Sindelfingen, about 40 miles east of Rastatt, Burzer gestures out of the boardroom window at the sprawling plant where some 35,000 people are employed. “You can’t see it from here, but behind the chimney is the multistorey car park, the first one here where the roof has been completely covered with solar panels.”

يعد هذا اسمًا من برنامج "ألف سقف" للشركة ، والذي تم إطلاقه هذا العام ، والذي سيشهد ألواحًا شمسية على أسطح المصانع في جميع أنحاء ألمانيا وخارجها. وقد أعلنت مؤخرًا عن خطط لبناء مزرعة رياح بقوة 100 ميغا ، وارسو ، وارسو ، وارسو ، وارسو ، وارسو ، وارسو ، وارسو ، وارسو ، وارسو ، أوروبا وقد تم الكشف عن تفاصيل مشروع تطوير الرياح البحرية الكبير المخطط له.

The energy shock to Europe’s industrial powerhouse has not been as extreme as initially feared: although smaller German firms have borne the brunt of soaring costs, gas storage facilities have been successfully filled before the onset of winter.

ربما كان التحول في النهج الدبلوماسي للبلاد أكثر زلزالية. دفعت حرب بوتين المستشار ، أولاف شولتز ، إلى الابتعاد بشكل فعال عن النهج الذي استمر عقودًا من قبل Wandel durch Handel: الاعتقاد بأن التغيير الاجتماعي والسياسي في البلدان الأخرى يمكن تحقيقه عن طريق التجارة.

His predecessor, Angela Merkel, has come under fire for Germany’s diplomatic failures, but refuses to criticise the decision to facilitate even greater Russian gas supplies through the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, halted by Scholz just before the Kremlin’s troops poured into Ukraine.

كان هناك أيضًا احتجاج على دور المستشار السابق للحزب الاشتراكي الديمقراطي (SDP) ، جيرهارد شرودر ، الذي قاد البلاد من 1998 إلى 2005 قبل استثمار صداقته مع بوتين من خلال أدوار مربحة في مجالس إدارة شركة نورد ستريم 2 وشركة النفط الروسية الحكومية روسنفت.

Now another of the pillars of its economy is up for reassessment: its relationship with China. Germany is in the middle of a “structural shift” following the shocks of the war, the energy crisis and pandemic disruption to global trade, according to analysts, even if the business community has only belatedly started to adapt.