Prior to this year's G-8 summit, which begins in St. Petersburg, Russia on Saturday, US President George W. Bush spent 36 hours in Germany. He met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in her constituency in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, on the Baltic Sea coast. Bush and his wife Laura stayed in a luxury hotel in the seaside resort Heiligendamm and they were welcomed by Merkel in the quaint town of Stralsund on Thursday. That evening, they relaxed together at a barbecue  in the village of Trinwillershagen.

The idea for the visit was born in January, when Merkel visited Bush in Washington and spontaneously decided to invite him to the region where she grew up. One of the reasons often cited for the invitation is that Bush has repeatedly professed an interest in Merkel's experiences growing up in former East Germany. Ties between Berlin and Washington have slowly improved over the past few years following their low point during the war in Iraq. But the two politicians have quickly developed a close friendship since Merkel became chancellor last November. Friday's German newspapers focus on both aspects of the visit, the personal as well as the political.

An editorial in the conservative daily Die Welt examines the similarities between Bush and Merkel and the political reasons for their alliance. The editorial opens by identifying Merkel as a replacement for Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. According to the commentator, Bush liked to cite Koizumi, and US-Japan relations more generally, as an "example of how enemies can become friends thanks to intelligent democratization." With Koizumi stepping down at the end of September, however, "George W. Bush needs a new best friend -- and he's found that friend in Angela Merkel." The German chancellor, who grew up in East Germany, is described as a "perfect symbol" of the transition to democracy -- much more suited to this function than Koizumi: "The Americans have gotten sick of hearing Koizumi's name. The example of Japan always seemed a little stilted. Japan doesn't enjoy the same sympathy as Germany. With congressional elections coming up in November, it's a good thing for Bush that Angela Merkel is around."

The commentator goes on to survey the international political context in which the alliance between Bush and Merkel was formed and continues to develop, citing the left-wing leadership of Venezuela, recent turmoil in the Middle East, and the possibility of military conflicts with North Korea and Iran. "Merkel's governing coalition finds itself in a situation in which many things indicate that war may break out. It doesn't have to happen that way, but it might," the commentator writes, adding that "in such a situation, a German chancellor likes to stay in close contact with Washington." Hence both Bush and Merkel have good political reasons for cultivating their friendship, Die Welt suggests. They're also "very similar," the commentator points out: "Both are governing with fragile, internally divided majorities. And both have difficulties avoiding conflicts between domestic and foreign policy."

"A barbecue in Trinwillershagen is no joke, as Bush rightly points out," the commentator concludes. "Trust is a precious asset. Roosevelt and Churchill knew it -- and let no one say that's distant history."

The center-left daily Süddeutsche Zeitung focuses on an idea that keeps coming up when Bush and Merkel meet -- that of freedom. "Freedom is a central concept in the surprisingly well-developed friendship between Angela Merkel and George W. Bush," the commentator writes, noting that Merkel likes to address the US role in the defeat of Nazi Germany when she meets Bush, as well as her own "twofold experience in an authoritarian and in a liberal democratic state." The concept of freedom satisfies the specific political -- and perhaps even psychological -- needs of both politicians, the commentator suggests: "One is tempted to think that this is an encounter between two people each of whom feels fully understood by the other, especially when it comes to aspects of their personalities that are usually misunderstood. Bush feels Merkel understands his missionary zeal and his desire to free the world from tyranny; Merkel seems to feel that her unusually strong desire to address her own biography is better understood by Bush than by many of her compatriots."

Yet while the concept of freedom may be effective in terms of cementing the alliance between Bush and Merkel, its long-term political consequence are highly problematic, the commentator goes on to suggest: "Freedom is enormously valuable, but using the word carelessly in international politics can quickly make it vague. There is even the danger that it becomes a mere catchword, used to cover up problems or even mistakes." Specifically, the commentator cites the examples of Iraq and the Palestinians: "The price Iraq is paying for its freedom is getting higher every day. The Palestinians are suffering more and more for having taken the freedom of electing a government the West doesn't approve of."

In other words, Bush and Merkel would do well to be more cautious in their invocation of freedom, the commentator argues. In regions such as the Middle East, he points out, "the concept of freedom must become less appealing to the extent that the West gets caught up in contradictions while defining it -- no matter how understandable the motives may be in each specific case."

Conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung devotes a brief but pungent editorial to a specific aspect of the meeting in Stralsund -- the way Harald Ringstorff, the Social Democratic premier of the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania who welcomed Bush at the airport in Rostock, has defended Left Party politician Wolfgang Methling's participation in an anti-Bush demonstration on Thursday. The commentator is irked that Ringstorff cited the right to demonstrate as one of the achievements that came with the fall of the East German state. "Is that really correct?" the commentator asks. "What's new about East German politicians gathering their followers around them in order to demonstrate against US imperialism?" Methling's participation in the demonstration was not an indication of how democracy has prospered in former East Germany, but rather "an indication of how many aspects of the former East German state have survived," according to the editorial.

More generally, the commentator argues that using Bush's visit to Stralsund as an opportunity to criticize his policies is unacceptable behavior for Germans: "One can dislike President Bush for various reasons. But the representative of a nation that Germany has owed so much to for the last 60 years -- such as the right to demonstrate in Stralsund -- ought to be welcomed more heartily." The commentator concludes by noting that while Bush will certainly "not have missed the quarrels surrounding his visit," he didn't let himself be provoked, but rather behaved with a "self-control that our narrow-minded regional politicians should take as their model."