Germans See the Smurf in Olaf Scholz. Putin Might, Too.
Scholz succeeds Angela Merkel facing plague at home and talk of war to the east. Will he rise to the occasion?
Flashing that smurf-like grin.
Photographer: Hannibal Hanschke/AFP via Getty Images
Earlier this year, Olaf Scholz, the former finance minister being sworn in today as German chancellor, was sitting in on one of many coronavirus crisis meetings. He was looking inscrutable as he often does, which can come across as smug. He could have been thinking about anything, but a Bavarian colleague reprimanded him for “grinning like a Smurf.”
By something close to national consensus, the label was declared a perfect fit and stuck. In real life, Scholz isn’t blue and doesn’t live in a mushroom house. But many of the Germans I’ve asked swear they see a resemblance. When Spitting Image, the satirical British TV show, launched its “Krauts’ edition,” Scholz was duly cast as a Smurf.