Friday 10th December 2021
No ghostwriter, own words
Merkel wants to explain herself in autobiography
With Angela Merkel, a fascinating politician has gone into private life. Like the greats of her trade, she would like to write an autobiography, says her long-term closest colleague. The former Chancellor does not yet have a publisher, but she does have the central theme.
After leaving office, Angela Merkel wants to write an autobiography that tells the story of the major political crises in her chancellorship. “The Chancellor does not want to retell her whole life,” said Merkel’s long-time office manager Beate Baumann the “Spiegel”. “She would like to explain her central political decisions in her own words, and with reference to her life path.”
A picture from bygone days: Baumann and Merkel, shortly after their election as CDU boss.
(Photo: picture-alliance / dpa)
The book will be a joint project by Merkel and Baumann, who have been working together for almost 30 years. According to Baumann, the project is scheduled to run for two to three years; there is no publisher yet. Support from external authors is not planned: “The Chancellor and I are quite sure that if we should do this book, then we will do it alone, without ghostwriters, without historians, without journalists.” The ex-office manager wants to work as Merkel’s political advisor in the future. “I grew out of the position of office manager.”
Baumann, who praises Merkel as a “power-political natural talent”, accompanied her as environment minister, CDU general secretary, party leader, parliamentary group leader and chancellor. “I never thought: this was going to be big,” she recalled. But after Merkel’s rise to the position of head of the CDU, it was clear to her: “Now it’s about something big.”
Baumann also spoke to the news magazine about her own role. Accordingly, she quarrels with her public image as a tough, relentless power figure in the shadow of Merkel. “Yes, it hurt me a lot,” said the 58-year-old. “Above all, I suffered a lot from the fact that my family, especially my parents who were still alive at the time, were worried about why they were writing about me like that.”