Angela Merkel publishes blunt memoir 'Freedom'

Angela Merkel's book was launched with fanfare in the West but also in China. Tickets for Tuesday evening's initial presentation of the former German chancellor's 736-page opus at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin sold out online within minutes of going on sale a few weeks ago.

Merkel's "Freedom: Memoirs 1954-2021" looks back on her life from her childhood and youth in former East Germany, German reunification, and her political rise through the end of her 16-year chancellorship in 2021. The book is being simultaneously published as an audiobook and in translation in several languages, including French and English. After that, the 70-year-old former leader is expected to embark on a tour of major European cities to promote the work.

Relations with Trump and Putin

In excerpts released ahead of publication and several high-profile newspaper interviews, Merkel reveals her thoughts on current events. For example, she details her experience with Donald Trump during his first term as US president, the difficulties of being the first female candidate for chancellor, and her decision to welcome almost large numbers of displaced people in 2015. She also explains her relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and her policies on Ukraine — which are now viewed somewhat skeptically by critics in Berlin.

Her memoir is unexpectedly coinciding with Germany's federal election campaign following the collapse of the coalition government under her successor as chancellor, Olaf Scholz. According to Ralph Bollmann, a journalist and author of a Merkel biography, the election is likely to cast a long shadow over the reception of her book.

So, too, will other unexpected political developments internationally, such as Trump's reelection, Bollmann told DW. "Back then," he said, referring to Trump's first term, "she was downright celebrated in the US as his liberal-democratic opponent. This will certainly help her with marketing now."

Merkel will be in Washington on December 2, when she is set to present her book in the United States alongside her friend and former US President Barack Obama.

Within Germany, Bollmann sees it as a "miscalculation" on the part of the Berlin establishment to think that Merkel is no longer popular in Germany because of what critics have called her conciliatory approach to Moscow. She still has "many fans in the country" and the book will sell well, Bollmann said.

Refugee policy

What will be more problematic than her foreign policy decisions, he said, will be her "unwillingness to reform her domestic policy." For example, her reluctance to push ahead with difficult issues such as reforming the military or taking powerful climate change action.

"Everyone will simply quote what suits their agenda," Bollmann said. What is striking, however, as Germany faces an election, is how all the major candidates for chancellor are trying to appeal to Merkel voters in their own way.

The main draw of the book will be to glean Merkel's view of key people and events, political scientist and journalist Andreas Püttmann told DW. Never, he said, has "so much broad criticism, retrospective known-it-all attitudes, and hatred been heaped on a top politician as much as Angela Merkel. This is precisely why it is so important for her to "present things from her perspective to a broader public."

As usual with such projects, it remains unclear how much money the former chancellor is going to make from selling her story. Several German media outlets, without citing sources, have cited sums from 10 million to 12 million euros. No one from Merkel's team has commented on these conjectures.

The closest Merkel got to responding to these rumors was when she was referred to in an interview by Der Spiegel magazine as a soon-to-be "multimillionaire" and compared to Obama, who has capitalized on his former job to great success. She said that, like Obama, she hopes to establish a foundation.

"I won't be able to set up anything as big as Obama. But let's see," she said.

The choice of venue for her book launch is considered significant, as the Deutsches Theater is just a few minutes walk away from where Merkel resided in a divided Berlin. She and her husband, Joachim Sauer, are regular guests at the theater, considered one of the most sophisticated theaters in the city. A passage from her book quoted in Die Zeit magazine reads that she went to the theater once a year with her parents, including the Deutsches Theater. She writes of how these visits "always remain in her memory."

This article was originally written in German.

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