Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s memoir’ Freedom timed its release well. Launched in 30 languages in November, it comes when Europe is facing its most uncertain time.
It coincides with the collapse of the ruling coalition in Germany, the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, and American President-elect Donald Trump’s stringent proposals for fresh trade tariff for Europe and additional financial burden for the Nato members.
Many in Germany have started missing Merkel, who ruled for 16 years and was elected to the most important political post in the country four times. She provided political stability and economic growth in her long tenure.
Her memoir is now being hotly debated and many are asking of the legacy Merkel has left behind.
Merkel was born in Hamburg (in erstwhile West Germany) but brought up in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) that was part of the Soviet bloc during the Cold War. Despite having spent 35 years of her life there, she was a believer in the reunification of Germany and she hated the Stasi regime.
“East Germany’s structure could not be reformed from within. It was like a cardigan: If you fasten the first button incorrectly, you always need to start all over again to be able to do it up properly. And the GDR’s first button was fastened incorrectly,” she writes in her book.
She remained politically active for 31 years in a conservative Christian party that was staunchly pro-market and pro-Nato, and went on to serve in the most important post not only in united Germany but also in Europe. Her credo? “Freedom needs democratic conditions — without democracy there is no freedom.”
Merkel’s memoir, however, is not as eloquent as Barack Obama’s. Written with the help of Beate Baumann, it is still an easily readable book. She even employed eight translators for her English translation to ensure her thoughts and feelings were not lost in translation.
In her long political career Merkel engaged with a host of world leaders and faced a host of challenges — from Brexit and the Eurozone crisis to the Ukraine invasion, the refugee crisis and the Covid pandemic. But she managed most of them successfully with a stoic indifference by maintaining a distance between the individuals and the issue at hand.
Early in her career she identified China and India as the two countries she wanted strong ties with. “I had long been convinced that the economic successes of China and India would shift international power relations significantly in their direction,” she writes.
But along with her string of admirers, she also has many detractors who now blame her for over-reliance on Russian gas, an open-door policy for immigrants and shutting down of nuclear reactors in the country. And yet in today’s Germany, many are looking for her stewardship to steady the rocking continental boat.
Freedom
By Angela Merkel
Published by Pan Macmillan
pp. 707; Rs 1,999
