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Angela Merkel interview, November 25, 2024, Peter Rigaud / DER SPIEGEL
Thirty five years ago, on the night of November 9, 1989, The Berlin Wall fell. The Cold War was inevitably over that night. Thousands of East Germans walked into West Berlin, climbed the Wall, and at the Brandenburg Gate began to break the Wall apart. The young people in jean jackets were virtually indistinguishable from young people today. They sat, stood and walked on the Wall–dominated it–free at last. And for a moment it appeared that democracy and human rights were about to spread to the whole world.
One of the people who walked from East to West Berlin that night was Angela Merkel. Who knew that night that she would later become the Chancellor of a reunified Germany–the most powerful nation in Europe economically and politically, and one of the most influential in the world–the longest serving Chancellor in German post-war history.
Merkel has now just released her new memoirs, “Freedom”. Among many experiences, she worked closely with Barack Obama when he was president and she was chancellor. When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, the late renowned writer and commentator Amos Oz wrote to her and said “you are now the new leader of the free world.”
Der Spiegel in Berlin, probably the best known German weekly news magazine globally, just released the first and most wide-ranging interview with Merkel since the release of her book.
The interview, by definition, is a seminal event.
Without further comment, here it is:
“Interview with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel”, Der Spiegel, November 25, 2024
In an interview on the occasion of the publishing of her memoirs, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, 70, speaks about her experiences with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, the road ahead for democracy and the mistakes she may have made.
Interview Conducted by Melanie Amann und Klaus Wiegrefe
Angela Merkel receives her guests in the same place she wrote her book: in an apartment in a prewar building in the Mitte district of Berlin. Framed photos hang on the walls, taken by one of her husband’s sons. They show black-and-white scenes from the city she calls home, skaters flying through the air, people under bridges. Merkel proudly shows off her book. She is one of the very few people who already has a printed copy of the 700-page tome. Her co-author and long-time adviser Beate Baumann is also present for our conversation, but rarely says anything. The former chancellor is in high spirits, looking forward to explaining herself and her book. But first, we discuss the current political situation in Germany.
DER SPIEGEL: Ms. Chancellor, the world seems to be stumbling from one crisis to the next and many Germans are deeply worried about what the future holds. Are you concerned as well?
Merkel: I am a fundamentally optimistic person, but worry is certainly justified. When I look back at my tenure as chancellor, I was able to spend the first two years learning the basic skills necessary before a number of crises began. And since then, we can see that the number of conflicts has only been increasing.
DER SPIEGEL: Insofar as you can assess such a thing from the outside: Is the job of governing more difficult today than it used to be?
Merkel: Through the new social communication channels on the internet, black and white have become increasingly dominant relative to the ability to see gray tones and make compromises. More and more effort is needed to keep things together, to keep Europe together. Pope Francis once gave me the following advice on how to deal with adversarial opinions: “Bend, bend and bend some more, but take care that it doesn’t break.” That was difficult enough in my times. Now, the situation has become even more challenging.
DER SPIEGEL: Your memoirs, which you finished writing before the U.S. election, are set to be published in the coming days. In the book, you wish success for Kamala Harris “with all my heart.” What were your first thoughts when you learned of Donald Trump’s victory?
Merkel: That the public opinion polls were wrong once again. How many newspaper pages were filled with reports about how Harris could eke out a victory? And then you wake up at 6 a.m., look at your phone …
DER SPIEGEL: And?
Merkel: Sorrow. It was already a disappointment for me that Hillary Clinton didn’t win in 2016. I had hoped for it to turn out differently.
DER SPIEGEL: What do you think of Trump?
Merkel: In politics, if you don’t leave room for win-win situations and only see winners and losers, then it makes multilateralism extremely difficult.
DER SPIEGEL: You could be more direct now that you are free from the constraints of office.
Merkel: That was never my style. I have learned, perhaps also from my East German background, to read between the lines. I do not consider this mutual one-upsmanship in the service of supposed clarity to be a political virtue. So many bad things can happen that I don’t want to waste superlatives, neither positive nor negative.
“You can’t just chat with Trump. Every encounter is a competition: you or me.”
Merkel speaking with U.S. President Donald Trump at the 2018 G-7 summit in Canada. Foto: Jesco Denzel/ Bundesregierung/ DPA
DER SPIEGEL: Trump clearly takes a different view. What was it like for you to be in the same room with him?
Merkel: There was one typical scene: During my visit to the White House in 2017, I tried to convince him to shake hands for the photographers because, in my helpful manner, I though he perhaps hadn’t realized that they were hoping for such a picture. But his refusal was, of course, calculated.
DER SPIEGEL: What must a German chancellor know when it comes to dealing with Trump?
Merkel: Trump was extremely curious and wanted to have precise knowledge of the details. But only to explore them for his own advantage, to find arguments that would strengthen him and weaken others. The more people were in the room, the greater was his need to be the winner. You can’t just chat with him. Every encounter is a competition: you or me.
DER SPIEGEL: In your book, you explain his political style through his beginnings as a real estate mogul. “Each piece of property can only be allocated once. If he didn’t get one, someone else would get it. For him, all countries were in competition, and the success of one meant the failure of another.” Must other heads of government adopt this style?
Merkel: Absolutely not. Otherwise, nothing would get done in politics.
DER SPIEGEL: Is he a danger to world peace?
Merkel: He is a challenge for the world, especially for multi-lateralism. What now awaits us is no triviality. Especially because this president is backed by the strongest economy in the world, which, in combination with the dollar, has an extremely strong influence on the global monetary system. In comparison with the effect of American sanctions, it would be ridiculous if we said we would no longer trade with American companies.
DER SPIEGEL: Is the challenge presented by Trump larger this time than it was in 2016?
Merkel: There is now this clear alliance between him and the large companies in Silicon Valley, which have enormous financial power.
DER SPIEGEL: You are referring to the billionaire Elon Musk, who Trump intends to appoint as the head of a government department.
Merkel: When a person owns 60 percent of all satellites in orbit, as he does, that is something that must concern all of us, in addition to the political issues.
DER SPIEGEL: Is Musk, with his network of companies and the reach of his social media platform X, an even greater danger than Trump?
Merkel: I wouldn’t go that far. But politics has the duty of establishing a societal balance between the powerful and normal citizens. During the banking crisis, the euro crisis and the global financial crisis, politics was the last authority that could straighten things out. And if the influence of companies on this final authority is too great, whether through financial power or technological capabilities, then it is an enormous challenge for all of us.
DER SPIEGEL: Is politics helpless in the face of the large internet platforms?
Merkel: No. In democracy, politics is never helpless against companies. But it is important to establish a counterbalance to the furor on social media, such as that fueled by the (right-wing party) AfD in Germany.
DER SPIEGEL: Speaking of furor – when Olaf Scholz recently announced the collapse of his governing coalition, he issued a sharply worded excoriation of his former partner in government, Christian Lindner. Scholz called him “petty” and accused him of violating his trust. Lindner, for his part, complained that Scholz had wanted to force him to violate his oath of office. What were your thoughts as this drama played out?
Merkel: My spontaneous reaction: Men!
DER SPIEGEL: What about it do you think was typically masculine?
Merkel: Taking things personally, for example. That is something you absolutely have to avoid in politics.
DER SPIEGEL: Were you ever tempted to vent your fury as Scholz did?
Merkel: As a woman in the Chancellery, and it is certainly true of men as well, you are faced with tough encounters. It wouldn’t be human to always react in a measured and balanced manner. You experience a lot of emotions. But it is better to scream at the walls of your office than at the German public. As chancellor, I also couldn’t wallow in my state of mind for days on end. I had to leave the anger behind me and see that progress was made.
Chancellor Merkel and FDP chair Christian Lindner in the Bundestag in 2020. Foto: Kay Nietfeld / picture alliance
DER SPIEGEL: Did Olaf Scholz violate the dignity of his office with his comments?
Merkel: I wouldn’t have said what I just did if I thought it was an exemplary expression of dignity. The federal chancellor is charged by the constitution with leading the federal government. The dignity of the office should always guide him.
DER SPIEGEL: Some reacted by saying: Finally, Olaf Scholz is showing strong leadership.
Merkel: Of course, your own team in particular thinks it’s great when you go out and take a clear stance. But that effect usually doesn’t last long, and I’ve seen that here too. When Olaf Scholz expressed himself so bluntly, there was a bit of discomfort in the audience. Some thought: If our chancellor is so out of control – oh my goodness – how bad must things be for our country?
DER SPIEGEL: Your own governing coalition with Lindner’s party, the Free Democrats (FDP), also wasn’t particularly harmonious, and the party failed to clear the 5-percent hurdle for parliamentary representation in 2013 elections. And you relations with the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian allies of your Christian Democrats (CDU), also weren’t always perfect. In your book, you wrote: “Trying to be in government and in opposition at the same time is rarely a winning formula.”
Merkel: Small coalition partners like the FDP, the CSU at the federal level, and even the Greens for quite a long time, have trouble focusing on the greater good. They think they have to offer something special to their supporters, who often do not cover the entire political spectrum or the whole of Germany.
DER SPIEGEL: So it’s not a phenomenon specific to the FDP? It has since been reported that Christian Lindner and other FDP leaders apparently spent months pushing for the collapse of the coalition.
Merkel: I can’t say anything about the specifics. Beyond that: I never experienced the FDP as an easy coalition partner. But they exist, and politics starts by recognizing reality.
DER SPIEGEL: In 2017, you failed in your efforts to put together a governing coalition together with the Greens and the FDP, referred to as the “Jamaica” coalition in Germany because of the colors associated with the parties. In hindsight, after seeing the drama that has accompanied the Scholz government, are you happy about that failure?
Merkel: No, no. You can never predict in advance how a coalition will work. Jamaica would have been a lot of work, and I would have had to spend much more time on the individual partners. But it was a question that will remain unanswered because Mr. Lindner didn’t want to join us.
DER SPIEGEL: Your autobiography has more than 700 pages, with just 400 of them focusing on your 16 years as German chancellor. Some of your predecessors have written several thick volumes about much briefer tenures. Why did you limit yourself to the degree you did?
Merkel: Because our approach to the book was a different one, as described in the prologue. I am now 70 years old, 35 years in the East, 35 years in politics, apparently two different lives, but in reality, just one. And the second half can’t be understood without the first half. That’s why we wanted to avoid two volumes at all costs – otherwise some would only have read the one focusing on my life in the GDR and others would only have read about my time in politics. And 700 pages really is enough, is it not?
DER SPIEGEL: There is a price, however, in the form of large gaps in the narrative. We hardly learn anything new about your relationship with Helmut Kohl or Barack Obama. France and China are limited to just a few pages, and the Middle East is also largely ignored, aside from Israel. Were you just eager to get the book behind you?
Merkel: No, not at all. We had originally dreamed of limiting it to just 500 pages. You don’t always have to write an endless number of volumes to make something understandable. And yes, Beate Baumann and I established significant limits, particularly pertaining to elements of my political work after 1990. We weren’t trying to avoid critical questions of today about major issues of my chancellorship. We know that we are going to disappoint certain people who aren’t mentioned or who would have liked to read more about their favorite issues. But we didn’t write this book just for the historians. Our goal is to explain historical realities involved in politics in a manner that normal people can understand.
“It is better to scream at the walls of your office than at the German public.”
Merkel with then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl at a CDU convention in 1991. Foto: Michael Jung / picture alliance / dpa
DER SPIEGEL: We were struck by the fact that you describe only one real moment of happiness regarding your relationship with your party the CDU: Your election as chairwoman in 2000. You write: “Never again, not even as chancellor, would I experience a congress with such a feeling of unity between the CDU and myself.”
Merkel: That was quite a special moment of the kind you don’t get too many of in a tenure as party leader. But I always felt comfortable inside the CDU. The party carried me for 18 years, which isn’t possible without the loyalty and solidarity of the members. I also always enjoyed going to party conventions, and in the evenings, I would sit down and chat with people for an eternity.
DER SPIEGEL: But you also describe how your rivals within the party worked against you. How the Andean Pact, that group of senior CDU men treated you. You write: “In their eyes, I must have been a stopgap at best as party chair.” Did that facet of the CDU always remain foreign to you?
Merkel: Parties are systems of power, and there are power struggles. I even had understanding for the Andean Pact: They had been there since the mid-1980s and wanted to make plans for the moment when Helmut Kohl left office, which took far too long for their liking. And then came German reunification, and suddenly this woman came in from the sidelines who even profited from the party donation scandal. But that doesn’t make my party foreign to me!
DER SPIEGEL: The CDU has recently and demonstratively turned away from the Merkel Era.
Merkel: Give the vast spectrum of big-tent political parties, it is only natural that after 18 years under my leadership, a craving emerges for a person with a different style. At my birthday party a few weeks ago, which the CDU threw for me, I wished Friedrich Merz all the success in the world and told him: The CDU is my party. That remains the case even if the focus may be different today and if I sometimes disagree with something.
Merkel speaking with CDU chair Friedrich Merz at her 70th birthday party. Foto: Political-Moments / IMAGO
DER SPIEGEL: About Merz, you write: “There was a problem, and from the very start: We both wanted to be boss.” Merz, you write, was “cut to the quick” when you grabbed the position of parliamentary group leader from him in 2002. Did you make any mistakes in the way you treated him?
Merkel: No. Why?
DER SPIEGEL: He clearly felt humiliated Shouldn’t you have tried to hold onto one of the CDU’s most important personalities?
Merkel: It was his decision …
DER SPIEGEL: … to step away from CDU leadership responsibilities and ultimately turn his back on politics – before then returning to the CDU in 2018 after many years in private industry.
Merkel: I also drew the shorter straw against Edmund Stoiber (then head of the CSU) in 2002 on the question of who should run for chancellor. It wasn’t easy for me. But I understood that we would have had no chance of winning the election if part of the CDU was constantly opposing me. Stoiber was in a better position to bring conservatives together. I expect the same awareness from others.
DER SPIEGEL: Merz has no experience in government and sometimes seems a bit short-tempered. Does he have the stuff it takes to be chancellor?
Merkel: He must now run a campaign, during which he can prove as much.
DER SPIEGEL: We would like to know if you think he’s up to the job.
Merkel: If you’ve come as far as he has, you must have a few attributes that qualify you. You don’t become a chancellor candidate for no reason.
DER SPIEGEL: In your memoirs, the fact that you are a woman plays a large role. Your looks were negatively commented on; we won’t repeat here the spiteful nicknames you were given.
Merkel: Early on in my political career, I was often very disturbed by the hostility I faced. But even then, Ms. Baumann always said: Look at the contempt for Norbert Blum, who was labor minister at the time. And don’t forget Helmut Kohl, who they called a pear. In hindsight, I am extremely grateful that nobody encouraged me to feel sorry for myself. Politics is not the right career for those who wallow in self-pity. Indeed, I think that anyone wanting to have a career at all shouldn’t be too sensitive.
Angela Merkel together with her office manager and co-author Beate Bauman in 2005, on their way to a televised debate with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Foto: Peer Grimm / picture alliance
DER SPIEGEL: What was it that drove you, as a woman, to want to be chancellor?
Merkel: I wanted to become chancellor, and I also wanted to do so as a woman. But I never gave much thought to the fact that there was a great symbolism attached to me, as a woman. I was also sometimes disappointed by women. My experience is not that we always have solidarity with each other.
DER SPIEGEL: There is a widespread impression that you never demonstratively presented yourself as a woman or as a feminist. Is that true?
Merkel: Yes, but it was never a conscious strategy. Nobody ever told me, please never speak about being a woman. I also would never have thought to say everyday: “Dear compatriots, I just wanted to point out once again: I am a woman.” In the GDR, I was the only female scientist in my working group, aside from me, there was only the secretary. As such, it was totally natural for me to move among a bunch of men.
DER SPIEGEL: What shaped you more: Your identity as a woman, or your identity as an East German?
Merkel: We spoke about that a lot during the writing of the book. I think that my identity as an East German was more defining. Life in the GDR constantly required one to have the courage to be authentic. I am not referring here to the courage of resistance fighters. Their courage was much greater than mine. For me, it was about muddling through without becoming bitter. Later, I often found myself looking at the West Germans, including colleagues of mine in the Bundestag, and wondering: What would they have done if the Stasi had tried to recruit them? Would they have been as courageous as they sound now?
DER SPIEGEL: Shortly before the end of your tenure, you were critical of the fact that your GDR background had been seen as a “burden.” Now, you write in your book that for many years, you could only speak about life in the GDR with “self-censorship.” Was your GDR heritage perhaps a burden after all?
Merkel: For me, it wasn’t a burden that I had to get rid of, it was part of my life. I was bothered by the journalistic hunt in the post-reunification years for my compulsory university paper on Marxism-Leninism after I mentioned it at an event on October 3, 1992. – Where are the files? What did she write? We’ve got her now! – For some media outlets, my life in the GDR was only good as a source of possible scandal. But I had no time or energy for such sideshows.
Merkel as a university student in the 1970s: “Life in the GDR constantly required one to have the courage to be authentic.” Foto: Privat
DER SPIEGEL: During your tenure in the Chancellery, the party landscape in eastern Germany shifted dramatically. Today, the right-wing AfD is everywhere, the SPD is struggling to achieve double-digits, and the new Bund Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) doesn’t really fit into any political template. Assembling governing coalitions is becoming increasingly challenging, or even seemingly impossible in states like Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony.
Merkel: Which makes it all the more important for those who can form coalitions to not destroy their own ability to do so.
DER SPIEGEL: Are you hoping for a coalition between the conservatives and the Greens at the federal level?
Merkel: I am interested in something more fundamental: I find it unacceptable the way (CSU leader) Markus Söder and others in the CSU and CDU speak so disparagingly about the Greens. Sure, the Greens have completely different views, and I am a member of the CDU and not the Green Party for a reason. But the ability to form an alliance at the federal level must be retained, particularly since conservative-Green coalitions work well in North Rhine-Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein and Baden-Württemberg – and those aren’t exactly the least successful German states.
DER SPIEGEL: In your book, you write that politicians should not talk incessantly about AfD issues: “If they assume they can keep it down by appropriating its pet topics and even trying to outdo it in rhetoric without offering any real solutions to existing problems, they will fail.” Is that directed at the CDU?
Merkel: No, it is directed at everybody, particularly the parties in government. They can’t be constantly demanding things when they have the majority to change things. Some people think that all they have to do to get elected instead of the AfD is to make extreme statements about too many refugees coming to us. They are wrong. The opposite is true.
DER SPIEGEL: It sounds as though you would prefer uncomfortable issues, such as the attack in Solingen, in which an Islamist murdered three people, be ignored.
Merkel: That’s not what I mean. An attack like the one in Solingen is horrific, and democratic parties must, of course, discuss what specific improvements they intend to make. But when an Islamist terrorist defines the entire political agenda, rhetorically and otherwise, over a period of several weeks, that neither promotes efforts to find a solution to the problem nor is it helpful against the AfD.
DER SPIEGEL: You write yourself about the mass sexual offenses in Cologne on New Year’s Eve in 2015 and about the Islamist attack at Breitscheidplatz in Belin in 2016. But you avoid drawing any conclusions.
Merkel: I disagree. The chapter also discusses possible solutions. But just as the fight against right-wing extremism didn’t prevent the awful terrorist activities of the NSU (National Socialist Underground – a group of right-wing extremists that committed 10 murders between 2001 and 2010, with most of their victims having immigration backgrounds), all efforts on migration policy were not enough to ensure that there were no more Islamist attacks.
“The idea of setting up water cannons at the German border was a terrible one for me, and it wouldn’t have solved anything anyway.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel taking a selfie with a refugee from Syria in 2015. Foto: Bernd Von Jutrczenka / picture alliance
DER SPIEGEL: Are such crimes the price an open society must pay for its humanity?
Merkel: In my view, that would be cynical. But there are horrific crimes in every free society. Here, too, such crimes didn’t start with immigration. The crucial thing is that we never allow the terrorists to rob us of our values like freedom and human dignity, in addition to the required severity of the law. Otherwise, they will have won.
DER SPIEGEL: Does it make no difference if the perpetrator was an original element of our society or came to us looking for protection?
Merkel: Of course it does, which is why we need to establish a situation in which illegal migration isn’t dominant, and that we instead take a close look at who is coming to us.
DER SPIEGEL: Precisely that, however, is what you decided against on that September weekend in 2015, when you elected to allow the refugees who were stuck in Hungary to come to Germany. Later, many more people would stream in, without effective controls.
Merkel: I had the feeling at the time that I otherwise would have sacrificed the entire credibility of our lovely speeches about the wonderful values here in Europe and human dignity. The idea of setting up water cannons at the German border, for example, was a terrible one for me, and it wouldn’t have solved anything anyway.
DER SPIEGEL: In your book, you compare the conditions in fall 2015 with the situation at the West German Embassy in Prague shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Several thousand East Germans had found refuge in the compound to force their onward journey to the West. Did your past in the GDR inform the solidarity you demonstrated with the refugees in 2015?
Merkel: Two explanations for my behavior are always mentioned: According to one narrative, I wanted to become secretary-general of the United Nations, so I let everyone into Germany to curry favor with as many countries as possible. The other interpretation is that I apparently suffer from an East German trauma and am therefore sentimental when it comes to border questions. Both are nonsense. Of course I had the images in my head of when the GDR-embassy refugees were allowed to leave the country on special trains via Dresden. But my memories of that event played no role in 2015.
DER SPIEGEL: Are you troubled by the knowledge that some Islamist crimes would likely never have occurred if you had sealed Germany off to the degree possible?
Merkel: I always took very seriously people’s fears of too much immigration and of Islamist terrorism. If you go to a folk festival and are constantly afraid that someone is going to pull a knife behind you, that is extremely unsettling, even if that danger may not be present at that moment. But there is also a second group in the population who is also afraid – of us becoming too intolerant and too hard-hearted. As chancellor, I had to keep an eye on both groups.
DER SPIEGEL: Just a few days after the decision to keep the borders open, you visited a reception center in Spandau, resulting in the famous selfies you took with newly arrived asylum seekers – leading to accusations that you actually triggered many people to flee to Europe in the first place.
Merkel: A friendly face doesn’t trigger anyone to leave their home. I know many refugees from the GDR. None of them would have left home just for the possibility of shaking hands with Helmut Kohl.
DER SPIEGEL: Isn’t that a naïve point of view? You presented yourself to people from dictatorships as a friendly chancellor of the people.
Merkel: When somebody abandons their home and leaves their friends and family behind, it goes without saying that you should first show friendliness to such people, regardless of whether they will be able to stay or not. They can’t expect the best life here in Germany either.
DER SPIEGEL: Some in the Interior Ministry wanted to de facto close the borders after just a few days. The order had already been prepared, which would have resulted in asylum seekers being turned back. But the order was never issued – because of you.
Merkel: I never saw any order at that time, I only read about it later. I told Interior Minister Thomas De Maizière at the time that I believe border controls are necessary, but not refoulement. If someone asks for asylum, it must be checked.
DER SPIEGEL: Today, your CDU together with the CSU – known as the Union – is demanding precisely this solution. That of turning asylum seekers away at the border. What is your take?
Merkel: I still don’t find that to be the right approach. We have introduced border controls and a number of other good policies that are having an effect. But it is delusional to believe that everything will be fine if we just turn back a few refugees at the German border. The EU has to solve this problem together at the bloc’s external borders, otherwise things don’t look good for freedom of movement and the internal market. That would be a step backwards for European integration, the consequences of which are impossible to predict.
DER SPIEGEL: Perhaps your most famous sentence is: “We can do it.” In hindsight, would you say you fell victim to an illusion? About the number of people who would come? Or about the effort and costs associated with their arrival?
Merkel: I knew that we couldn’t handle a situation in which 10,000 people arrived every day. That’s why I negotiated the EU-Turkey agreement. And, of course, problems developed as a result of immigration. But we also demonstrated what our country is capable of.
DER SPIEGEL: Back in 2010, you said that “multi-culti” had “completely failed.”
Merkel: The emotion with which I said that is not something I would repeat today. But the idea that different cultures can live together without great effort from all sides really has failed miserably.
DER SPIEGEL: Effort from all sides? That sounds like you are placing a burden on the country that welcomes the refugees.
Merkel: Correct. There can be no integration without openness and a willingness to change on the part of the host society. There has to be a minimum of knowledge of other cultures. A certain interest must be shown.
DER SPIEGEL: When your political legacy is discussed these days, most criticism targets your approach to Russia and energy policy. Let’s start with Vladimir Putin. Is it true that Putin, a former KGB officer, reminded you of the Stasi officers you encountered in the GDR?
Merkel: When he spoke German, he usually talked rather quietly. That is something that state security officers also used to do. It’s something I noticed.
DER SPIEGEL: You first met Putin in the year 2000. Do you believe he was pursuing a plan from the very beginning, or did he become radicalized over time?
Merkel: I never had any illusions about him. He always exhibited dictatorial characteristics, and I was often bothered by his self-righteousness. But I don’t believe that when he took office 20 years ago, he was planning to attack Ukraine one day. Rather, it was a development where we in the West must also ask ourselves if we have always done everything right.
DER SPIEGEL: Have we?
Merkel: I can’t answer that conclusively. But to be completely clear: There was and there is nothing that might justify Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. But broad Western unity would certainly have been better. We weren’t as strong as we could have been.
Merkel visiting Putin in 2000: “When he spoke German, he usually talked rather quietly.” Foto: action press
DER SPIEGEL: You contributed to that lack of unity yourself. The Americans and some Eastern European countries wanted to pave the way for Ukraine’s NATO membership at the alliance summit in Bucharest in 2008. You stood in the way.
Merkel: Bucharest focused on the adoption of a NATO action plan for Ukraine and Georgia preparatory to accession. I felt it was an imprudent policy that didn’t consider what might happen during the period between the plan’s adoption and ultimate NATO membership – a period that could last years. Putin would not have accepted this interim status as a deterrent and would certainly have done something. And what would happen then? Would military action by NATO member states have been conceivable in 2008? And if not, what would the consequences have been for Ukraine and for NATO? Those were my considerations.
DER SPIEGEL: And that’s why you divided NATO?
Merkel: Conversely: Why is the American position the default and those who have a different view are seen as the dividers? I ultimately accepted a compromise: No to the status of accession candidate but agreement in principle to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia one day. It should also be mentioned that we weren’t alone in our position. France and many others shared our view.
DER SPIEGEL: Do you have the feeling that because of your position during the 2008 NATO summit, you have been made a scapegoat for the war now?
Merkel: It’s not just a feeling, it’s reality. (Ukrainian President) Volodymyr Zelenskyy demanded, for example, that I and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy come to Bucha after the awful massacre there. The message clearly was that our position in Bucharest was responsible for the dead in Bucha.
DER SPIEGEL: Do you find that unfair?
Merkel: I admire Zelenskyy for his courage and his determination during the almost three years of war. But I disagree with him when it comes to Bucharest. I issued warning after warning, also in Bucharest in 2008, that Putin considers the collapse of the Soviet Union to be the greatest political catastrophe of the 20th century – something that he interprets as an existential threat to Russia and the other former Soviet republics. It’s not a view I share, but my warning was correct. Putin marched into Georgia that same year of 2008.
DER SPIEGEL: Did you not hand Putin a de facto veto over Ukraine’s NATO membership?
Merkel: No. That was and remains a semantic dead-end.
DER SPIEGEL: If you recognized so clearly at the time what Putin is capable of, why didn’t you draw any consequences?
Merkel: I did. From my perspective, it was absolutely necessary to try to find a peaceful solution to the conflict with Russia. At the same time, similar to the concept behind the NATO Double-Track Decision (in 1979), we strengthened deterrence. At the 2014 NATO summit in Wales, the goal was agreed on for all alliance member states to spend the equivalent of 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense. I admit: The enthusiasm with which that goal was pursued was rather limited.
DER SPIEGEL: What was it that limited your enthusiasm?
Merkel: In Germany, it wasn’t really because of the CDU. My defense ministers engaged in hundreds of discussions with the SPD. About the acquisition of armed drones, the modernization of American nuclear warheads in Germany. I’ll spare you the details. It didn’t work.
DER SPIEGEL: But you were the chancellor. Boss of the cabinet.
Merkel: Yes, of course. I was the boss. But the boss in a democracy has limited means at his or her disposal, and for good reason.
Ukrainian civilians fleeing Irpin in March 2022. Foto: dia images / Getty Images
DER SPIEGEL: On the one hand, you say that you never had any illusions about Putin. On the other hand, you didn’t effectively stand up to his aggression, neither by improving Germany’s defensive capabilities nor by delivering weapons to Ukraine. You likewise did not end Germany’s dependence on Russian natural gas. The book does not solve this fundamental contradiction.
Merkel: Even during the writing, it was to be feared that the book wouldn’t bring the debate to an end. Many important aspects are forgotten today – such as the fact that Ukraine and Poland were not at all opposed to our imports of Russian natural gas as long as the gas flowed across their territory and they received transit fees.
DER SPIEGEL: Why, after Moscow’s annexation of the Crimea Peninsula in 2014, were you prepared to fill Putin’s war chest with gas deliveries through the Nord Stream 2 pipeline?
Merkel: Putin started the war before any gas flowed through the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Today, other countries are filling Putin’s war chest. And that’s what would have happened back then as well if we had broken off all economic ties.
DER SPIEGEL: You continue to believe today that it was the right decision not to put a stop to Nord Stream 2?
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Angela Merkel, Beate Baumann
Merkel: I stand by my decisions. I also saw it as my duty to import cheap gas for the German economy. We are now seeing the consequences that expensive energy prices have for our country. I would not have been able to find a political majority for suspending gas trade with Russia and I certainly wouldn’t have had the support of industry. I also thought that Nord Stream 2 made political sense as well. How was it possible in the new post-Cold War order to maintain ties with someone like Putin, who some historians classify as a revisionist? By trying to let him share in the prosperity.
DER SPIEGEL: You were wrong. Why is it so difficult for you to see in hindsight that this pipeline was a mistake?
Merkel: Because I invested all my strength in avoiding the situation that has now come about. During the 2015 negotiations in Minsk, I tried to stop the Russian advance in eastern Ukraine. I didn’t believe it made sense at the time to concurrently put a stop to all important economic ties that Putin values as well. And as a side note: I didn’t exactly play an inconsequential role in Europe. It was difficult enough to convince the EU partners every now and then that we should at least implement a few sanctions.
DER SPIEGEL: Following the annexation of Crimea, why were you opposed to supporting Ukraine with arms deliveries?
Merkel: There was a big debate in Ukraine whether an attempt should be made to push Russian troops out of eastern Ukraine militarily. I was of the opinion that such an attempt had no chance of succeeding. On the other hand, I understood that we couldn’t just leave the Ukrainians without protection. It was a dilemma. Ultimately, we didn’t deliver any arms from Germany, but we expended every effort to support NATO.
DER SPIEGEL: In the book, you write that diplomatic initiatives must be initiated at the correct moment. “When that moment has arrived is something Ukraine cannot decide on its own.” Might that also mean the establishment of a peace deal against Kyiv’s will?
Merkel: No. That is not what I’m saying. If we support Ukraine out of common interests, then all steps taken to end the war must be taken together.
Angela Merkel standing at the window of the apartment where her book was written. “All this country’s strengths and weaknesses are, to a certain extent, mine.” Foto: Peter Rigaud / DER SPIEGEL
DER SPIEGEL: At the end of your tenure, your crisis management skills were praised. But the Merkel era was also one of missed opportunities: a lack of digitalization, dilapidated infrastructure, a delayed transition to renewable energies. These issues are mentioned in the book, but there is no explanation.
Merkel: I was chancellor for 16 years. All this country’s strengths and weaknesses are, to a certain extent, mine. Not everything turned out perfectly satisfactorily, and some things got worse. There are always problems in a federalist system, in which the federal government must work together with the states. Digitalization only works if there is a united effort from the mayor all the way up to the chancellor. That was lacking during my tenure. So yes, there you can say: It was Merkel’s fault.
DER SPIEGEL: What’s next for you?
Merkel: There are a lot of nice things: travel, meeting friends, reading, relaxing. I can easily imagine using the book as a starting point for speaking with young people about democracy, about the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, about the importance of compromises. I think that every politician must ask themselves: How tolerant am I of other opinions, whether they are held by political adversaries or others in my own party? Only when politicians set an example can people’s willingness to listen to each other grow again.
DER SPIEGEL: Your longtime confidante Eva Christiansen took a look at the inner workings of Barack Obama’s foundation in the U.S. Are you planning something similar? After all, you will soon be a multimillionaire thanks to your book…
Merkel: I won’t be able to set up something as large as Obama’s. But we’ll see.
DER SPIEGEL: Ms. Merkel, thank you for this interview.