The memoirs of the former German chancellor Angela Merkel, even before their publication, captured the attention of the public in Germany and the world, while her political legacy is the target of criticism in light of today's crises. In the excerpts from the book published so far, as well as in several interviews, Merkel referred to politically current and controversial issues: among other things, her experience with US President Donald Trump, her policy towards Russia and Ukraine, and her view of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
During four consecutive terms, Merkel led Germany and Europe through the global financial crisis, the eurozone debt crisis and the covid-19 pandemic. She has faced criticism for allowing Germany to become increasingly dependent on cheap Russian gas and Chinese trade, even after Russia's annexation of Crimea and industry warnings about overdependence on China.
Critics also partly blame her for the rise of the far right and high energy costs, as a result of her decision to open Germany's borders to refugees and phase out nuclear power.
They say that she lacked vision, and that she did not implement the reforms necessary to ensure the future strength of Europe's largest economy, which is now facing a crisis of its economic model.
"During her tenure, Merkel was widely regarded as a very effective politician and a reliable person," Marcel Dirsus of Kiel University's Institute for Security Policy told Reuters.
"However, since her departure from power, many Germans view her political performance much more critically - either because her policies are seen as a failure or because her passivity is seen as the cause of many of Germany's current problems."
Under such circumstances, it was widely expected that in the autobiography entitled Freedom: Memoirs 1954–2021, which she wrote with her longtime chief of staff Beate Bauman, Merkel would offer new insights, admit mistakes and explain her actions.
However, according to Melanie Amann, deputy editor-in-chief of "Spiegel", who interviewed the former chancellor before the book's publication, "readers will find quite a few passages in which she admits to minor mistakes or regrets the trivial side effects of major decisions, which in themselves are not considered in detail".
"As for what now appear to be her major failings — such as overburdening the welfare system with refugee policies or failing to stem the rise of the far right — those are either eluding answers or remaining vague," Aman points out in a New York Times column.
Admitting mistakes
The deputy editor of "Spiegel" points to a segment in the memoir in which Merkel recalls a mistake from the beginning of her political career, when she was the leader of the opposition to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. In a 2003 Washington Post column, Merkel attacked Schroeder for his criticism of the impending US invasion of Iraq: "Schroeder does not speak for all Germans," read the headline.
The mistake that Merkel admits is not her support for the war in Iraq, although she now believes that the invasion was wrong, Amman points out. The error was not in judgment, but in behavior. "It was wrong," she writes in her book, "to attack your own head of government directly on the international stage." Internal differences should not be resolved "on foreign territory", writes the former chancellor.
And the British "Guardian" notes that "Sloboda" is not a book of grandiose apologies and confessions of guilt.
Although Merkel's migration policy and attitudes towards nuclear energy have been under scrutiny for years, she believes that they were not wrong. "On the contrary, it was the right decision," she states in the book, commenting on the decision to accept more than a million refugees, mostly Syrians, in Germany in 2015. Her 2011 policy, which led to the decommissioning of the country's remaining nuclear reactors, was the result of the accident in Fukushima, Japan, "changing my view of the risk that nuclear power poses." She says that she would not recommend the use of nuclear energy in the future either.
Britain's referendum on leaving the European Union in 2016 really shook Merkel: she saw it as "a humiliation, a shame for us", which weakened the EU, and wondered whether she and other European leaders could have done more to keep Britain in Union. "I was tormented by the question of whether we should have made more concessions to Great Britain," she writes. While not a full admission of error, Merkel concludes that Brexit was a blow Britain's neighbors might have been able to prevent.
Merkel is also correcting her stance on domestic fiscal policy, though she doesn't frame it as remorse. The "debt brake" mechanism, which limits Germany's budget deficit to 0,35% of GDP, was enshrined in the constitution during her first term. It has been a key policy she has staunchly defended during her rule, in the face of criticism that it is leading to a chronic underinvestment in infrastructure.
But in a book published three weeks after the government of her successor, Olaf Scholz, fell over the debt brake issue, she casually suggests that the mechanism now needs to be reformed, "to enable higher levels of debt to be taken on to invest in the future".
Ukraine and the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008.
In the book, Merkel lays out several reasons why she and the then French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, were right to block Ukraine and Georgia from joining NATO's Membership Action Plan (MAP) in 2008 - a decision that followed the Russian invasion 2022. harshly criticized by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
"I thought it was illusory to assume that the Membership Action Plan (MAP) would provide Ukraine and Georgia with protection from Putin's aggression, and that that status would have a deterrent effect to the extent that Putin would accept events without doing anything."
"Ukraine might need years to come under the protection of NATO, and during that period Vladimir Putin would certainly have taken some action," she points out. "And what would happen then? Would it be conceivable that NATO members responded militarily - with material as well as troops - and intervened? Would it be conceivable that I, as the Federal Chancellor, asked the Bundestag for such a mandate for our Bundeswehr and would I get a majority to support it? Those were my considerations".
"In another context, which I no longer remember in detail, he (Putin) told me later: 'You will not be chancellor forever. And then they will become members of NATO. And I want to prevent that. I thought: Neither do you you will not be president forever. However, my fears about future tensions with Russia in Bucharest have not diminished".
Merkel adds that certain leaders from Central and Eastern Europe had empty wishes: "It seemed that they wanted that country to simply disappear, to not exist. I couldn't blame them... But Russia, fiercely nuclear-armed, existed ".
Vladimir Putin
The former German chancellor describes Vladimir Putin as someone who was "always alert to avoid condescension and always ready to retaliate, including power plays." "You could find it all childish, disgusting. You could shake your head at it. But it wouldn't remove Russia from the map," writes Merkel.
"He was not interested in building democratic structures or prosperity for a well-functioning economy in his country or anywhere else. On the contrary, he wanted to counter the fact that the United States had come out of the Cold War victorious. He wanted Russia to remain the indispensable pole in a multipolar world after the end of the Cold War. To achieve this, he primarily relied on his experience in the security services".
In the book, Merkel also described a diplomatic incident from 2007 when Putin allegedly deliberately used his black labrador, Koni, to intimidate her.
In her memoirs, she states that, knowing that Putin sometimes brings his dog to meetings with foreign guests, she asked her assistant the previous year to ask Putin's team not to bring the Labrador, because he is afraid of dogs. When they met in Moscow in 2006, as she stated, Putin respected her request, but gave her a large stuffed dog, noting that it "doesn't bite".
However, during the meeting in Sochi the following year, a large dog wandered around the room and approached Merkel while Merkel sat next to Putin in front of photographers and cameras.
The former chancellor described this incident as torture. "I tried to ignore the dog, even though he was more or less right next to me. I interpreted Putin's facial expressions as if he was enjoying the situation," she wrote. "Did he want to see how a man reacts in an unpleasant situation? Was it a little show of power? I just thought: stay calm, concentrate on the photographers, it will pass," added Merkel.
When asked about the incident on Thursday, Putin denied knowing about Merkel's dog phobia and said he later apologized to her. "Honestly - I already told Merkel, I didn't know she was afraid of dogs. If I had known, I would never have done it. On the contrary, I wanted to create a relaxed, pleasant atmosphere," he said at the press conference. "I turn to her again and say: Angela, please forgive me. "I didn't want to cause you any inconvenience," he added.
Donald tramp
Merkel, according to the "Guardian", says that she made a mistake with Donald Trump by trying to communicate with him "completely normally". "He saw everything from the perspective of the real estate developer he was before he got into politics. Every piece of land could only be sold once, and if he didn't do it, someone else did. That's how he saw the world."
She wrote about an incident when Trump refused to shake her hand in front of photographers at a White House meeting in 2017, even after she whispered to him that he should. "As soon as I said that, I shook my head to myself. How could I forget that Trump knew exactly what effect he wanted to achieve".
"He was obviously very fascinated by the Russian president. In the years that followed, I had the impression that politicians with autocratic and dictatorial qualities fascinated him," writes the former chancellor.
"We talked on two different levels. Trump on an emotional level, I on a factual level. For him, all countries were in competition with each other, and the success of one was the failure of the other. He did not believe that cooperation could increase the prosperity of all."
She drew parallels between him and Putin. According to her, both are childish in their complaints, and both tried to humiliate her in front of the press.
In her relations with both leaders, Merkel tried to maintain a certain level, not paying attention to provocations and focusing on common interests, which mostly meant trade. In the book, she mentions the advice given to her by Pope Francis: "Bend, bend, and bend some more, but make sure it doesn't break." It's a good strategy, but one that didn't prevent Trump from canceling the US's participation in the Paris climate agreement, nor Putin from invading Ukraine shortly after she left the chancellorship, the Guardian points out.
In the book, which was written before Trump's triumph in the US presidential election, Merkel expresses her "sincere hope" that Vice President Kamala Harris will defeat her rival.
In a recent interview with "Spiegel", Merkel said that Trump's victory made her sad. "If someone in politics does not allow win-win situations, but only recognizes winners and losers, then it is a very difficult challenge for multilateralism," she said.
Zaev is brave and determined
The former prime minister of North Macedonia, Zoran Zaev, is the only living politician from the Western Balkans whom Angela Merkel mentions in her memoirs, German journalist Mihael Martens announced.
As that journalist of the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" newspaper stated, Merkel called Zaev "brave and determined" in her memoirs. "Former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz: not mentioned. Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis: same. In the Western Balkans, the only (living) politician Merkel mentions in her memoirs is Zoran Zaev, whom she calls 'brave and determined'. That's about it" , says Martens.
"The only thing remarkable about the otherwise rather boring Balkan chapter lies in the names Merkel does NOT mention in her memoirs: She doesn't mention Aleksandar Vučić, nor Edi Rama, Bojko Borisov or Boris Tadic. Njente," Martens wrote online X.
Don't believe the photo
There are many photos and videos of Angela Merkel when she was in power, but not all of them are what they seem at first glance. A photo from 2015 shows an energetic Merkel, arms outstretched, talking to then-US President Barack Obama ahead of the G7 summit in the Bavarian Alps.
After Donald Trump's first victory in the 2016 elections, the image was often interpreted as a symbolic representation of the succession between the "leaders of the free world" - from Obama to Merkel. However, in the book, Merkel explains that the photographer captured the moment when she was talking about something much more banal: not the geopolitical task before her, but the size of the huge wicker chair she barely fit into during a photo shoot at the previous summit.
Still a feminist
Her first high position was the Minister for Women and Youth in Chancellor Helmut Kohl's cabinet, but Angela Merkel never emphasized her gender, and as she states, she did not want "to be defined as part of a group." As a conservative, she also disagreed with Simone de Beauvoir, who believed that "feminism and a socialist vision of the world belong together". Even in 2017, when during a discussion with Ivanka Trump she was asked if she considered herself a feminist, she avoided the answer. In her memoir, she is more direct.
He emphasizes the great contribution of his most loyal advisers, Beate Bauman and Eva Kristiansen, as well as female colleagues whose achievements have not been sufficiently appreciated, such as Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini and former Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite. If she were asked now if she is a feminist, she says she would be (a little) clearer: "Yes, I am a feminist, in my own way."
Although the memoirs of a woman, who has long been considered the most powerful in the world, in the opinion of some do not meet expectations, the book nevertheless offers an honest self-portrait of a person who for decades seemed extremely reserved, Melanie Aman from "Spiegel" points out.
There are also oddly amusing parts in the book, in which she describes how her personal stylist finally "got to do her hair" and how she loved smoked pork with kale so much that she kept offering it to guests at the office. There are moments when, as Merkel writes, she "swallowed" her anger, held back "so as not to cry" or desperately told herself to "keep calm".
"In the end, she won over her opponents with patience and insight, but never with personal attacks or intrigue," Aman points out and adds that Merkel, in the end, "was a person who did not get up from the negotiating table until she reached a compromise, who calmly navigated through the many crises of her chancellorship, never promising easy solutions to complex problems.
"She certainly made mistakes. Yet, for more than a decade and a half, she projected stability and authority, shaping a type of political leadership that has all but disappeared. It's not just the Germans who will miss her," concludes Aman.
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