Freedom Memoirs 1954-2021

Angela Merkel, former leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the only female chancellor of Germany, has written a monumental memoir of her life with the help of her longtime assistant Beate Baumann. Especially noteworthy is Merkel's description of her life growing up in East Germany. She received her PhD in quantum chemistry from Karl Marx University in 1986, and after unification in 1990 she earned a seat in the Bundestag. She served as Minister for Women and Youth; Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety; and opposition leader for the CDU before becoming chancellor. As chancellor, Merkel attempted a stable domestic policy, linked to the EU, and guided Germany through the financial crisis of 2008--9. She negotiated an end to the European refugee crisis in 2015 and piloted Germany through the COVID-19 pandemic. In foreign policy, she attempted to negotiate with US presidents and Russian President Vladimir Putin on nuclear policy, climate change, and the environment, and later, Russia's 2014 invasion of Crimea and the Donbas. Overall, Merkel presents a fair appraisal of her chancellorship and the perils of German and EU politics. This is a worthwhile addition to the political memoirs of 21st-century foreign leaders. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals. --Andrew Mark Mayer, emeritus, College of Staten Island/CUNY

Finding herself in the free world. It wasn't long ago that, in the eyes of many, the de facto leader of the Western world was--irony of ironies--a graduate of Karl Marx University. That institution has since reclaimed its original name, Leipzig University, and that leader is now retired. Angela Merkel has certainly earned the right to chronicle, over more than 700 incident-rich pages, her improbable journey from East German Ph.D. quantum chemist to Germany's first female chancellor, a position she held from 2005 to 2021. The book's title isn't hyperbolic: Growing up in the spy-steeped German Democratic Republic, Merkel witnessed how her parents were "on thin ice," forever wary of speaking their minds. The collapse of the GDR inspired Merkel, lighthearted and intellectually curious by nature, to use her new freedom. In 1989 she walked into a political party office and offered to help. "See those boxes back there?" she was told. "Could you unpack them?" From there it was a steady rise to the top, by way of the Bundestag (the parliament) and cabinet ministries. Merkel's prose may be as graceful as her mother's boxy and basic Trabant car, but her spare sentences have their own power, reflecting her rational approach to politics when, having to deal with the "self-righteousness" of Vladimir Putin and the selfishness of Donald Trump, she was the adult in the room. "Never explain, never complain," she writes, citing the axiom linked to the British royal family. Merkel's longtime adviser Beate Baumann helped write the memoir--the female partnership is itself rare--and the voice is confident but humble, and not without heart, as the author recounts a time of prosperity and tumult. The book is as no-nonsense, and often as comforting, as the sausages and potato salad that Merkel dined on to celebrate becoming chancellor--the same modest fare that she ate 16 years later to mark her retirement. A rigorous and sober assessment of a groundbreaking career. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.