Angela Merkel: Interview-Highlights | Buchpremiere »Freiheit« in Berlin

I naturally knew and still know the controversies that surrounded the political steps. That is, of course, self-evident in a democracy. But about some things I couldn't tell the story the way I might have wanted to. Instead, I was always asked, and that began with my childhood and youth, about which I very much wanted to write. But also about the fact that it was always said: she doesn't explain herself, and one doesn't know why she does what she does. That's not true at all, or well, for me it was clear, but I have to acknowledge that others hadn't realized it yet. And that's why I decided, together with Beate Bauer, to write this book.

I wanted to say in response to your question anyway: I drew my strength the whole time from my life in the DDR, and I didn't have anything else. So I used and exploited this strength that was given to me in those 30 years for my political work. And yet I didn't reflect: what did you actually receive through your childhood? What did you receive through this state rejection? What did you receive through the friends you had? These were basically the things that I used unconsciously. My life wasn't cut off and I didn't start from zero. And that is actually a nice message too: that these possibilities and abilities that I learned and acquired there were enough for 16 years as Federal Chancellor in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Not into a gravel pit lake, into a fine lake in the Uckermark. I was in gravel pit lakes — there are others in Germany, for example in the Rhineland where I come from. But it was cherry whiskey, I believe, that was drunk. An ice-age-created lake, and we had...

We had the graduation party. I must add, though, that I belong to the lucky people who were well prepared by their parents but also experienced the fall of the Wall at an age of 35, when there was still a lot ahead of me. Not everyone experienced it that way, and that's why I don't know if I would have kept going for another 30 years.

Well, I believe I didn't become Federal Chancellor by order, but was elected again and again. There were many, many people who took me seriously as a personality or as a person, and didn't understand me as some kind of trained West German. But when things got tough, sometimes when things didn't go well, there were always these doubts: where does she come from? Has she really understood what freedom is? Does she know our values? But still, the accusation or question remains: why didn't she show herself more as an East German, as someone from the former DDR? And that certainly has to do with the fact that I first understood myself as Chancellor of all Germans, that I had many, many topics that were pan-German, and if I had constantly let it come through that I, with my special East German experience, was telling you again how it is — I didn't want that. But perhaps I also couldn't, because I was so busy and occupied with the other tasks.