"[P]rior to her trip last week, Merkel and her staff insisted that one had to look at things pragmatically. No matter how loudly Berlin protested, the Americans would have ignored it because they know that Germany is dependent on them, Merkel advisors argue. "We were somewhere between being a supplicant and a yapping dog," says one Chancellery official. Now, Merkel would seem to have chosen her preferred role: as a supplicant."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/chancellor-merkel-sacrifices-nsa-investigation-for-unity-on-ukraine-a-967596.html