Angela Merkel’s Memoir
Only the second half of the 700-page volume covers Merkel’s time as chancellor, when she shared the spotlight with Putin, Xi, Obama and Blair.
Instead, much of the focus is on her experiences growing up, studying and working as a physicist (and marrying her first husband) in East Germany before reunification — a country, she reminds us at the outset, which no longer exists.
The East is what shaped Merkel.
Recalling a conversation she had in late 1990 with the head of the Treuhand Agency tasked with privatizing East German businesses, Merkel expressed her frustration with the loan decisions made by the agency’s “arrogant, twenty-somethings.”
Straight out of law school, they knew everything except how people work, prioritizing “young West German bankers who are just like themselves” over Easterners with a business idea.
Former SED party members, on the other hand, eloquent and adept at making grandiose promises, were successful all over again. “Unscrupulousness is triumphant, as it was under socialism!” she complained.
It’s a remark that could just as well be applied to today’s political dynamics.
Bloomberg 17 January 2025
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