What follows her autobiography?: Angela Merkel reveals future plans

Angela Merkel (70) spoke about her autobiography “Freedom,” which will be published on November 26th. The approximately 700 pages are not just about her chancellorship: “I am now 70 years old, 35 years in the East, 35 years in politics, apparently two lives, but in reality one life, and the second half is without the first not understandable.” For the work, written together with their long-time political advisor Beate Baumann (61), they “absolutely wanted to avoid two volumes, otherwise some would only have read the GDR period and others only the political period.” The two of them “didn’t write the book just for historians. The aim is to tell politics around historical facts in a way that a normal person can understand.”

The announcement of Merkel’s memoir “Freedom” says: “In a more personal way than ever before, she talks about her childhood, youth and studies in the GDR and the dramatic year of 1989 in which the Wall came down and her political life began.” Angela Merkel herself says, among other things, about her book: “For me, freedom is not having to stop learning, not having to stand still, but being able to keep going, even after leaving politics.”

When asked what’s next for her after her autobiography, Merkel told “Spiegel”: “There are many nice things: traveling, meeting friends, reading, relaxing.” She could also easily imagine using her book as a starting point “to talk to young people about democracy, about the history of the Federal Republic, about the meaning of compromise. I think every politician has to ask themselves: How tolerant am I? I towards other opinions, whether from political opponents or within my own party?” Only if politicians set an example can people’s willingness to listen to one another increase. “Such a big thing” like Obama, meaning the foundation of Barack Obama (63), will not be able to raise it. “But let’s see.”

On December 2, 2021, the Bundeswehr said goodbye to Angela Merkel after 16 years in the Chancellery with a big coup. The physicist, who was the first woman to enter the chancellor’s office in 2005, also stated in the “Spiegel” interview that she had not given much thought to “the great symbolism associated with me as a woman. I was sometimes too Disappointed with women. It’s not my experience that we always show solidarity with each other.” The fact that she never ostentatiously presented herself as a woman was not a conscious strategy. Since she was the only female scientist in her working group in the GDR, she moved “naturally among many men” early on.

Merkel also spoke about the male gender in view of the “drama” when the traffic light coalition broke. When asked what Merkel thought about it, she explained: “My spontaneous thought: men!” For example, she felt it was “typically male” to “take things too personally. This should be avoided as much as possible in politics.”