Freedom by Angela Merkel review – her lips are sealed

The ex-German chancellor’s memoir details the myriad issues she faced, from the 2008 financial crash to Covid-19, but studiously avoids much in the way of insights and analysis

Ever since the end of the second world war, when Germans somewhat belatedly realised what the rhetoric of the Nazi years had done to their country, it has been a basic requirement of politicians in Germany that they should be boring. The very few postwar political figures whose speeches were exciting to listen to, such as Herbert Wehner or Franz Josef Strauss, met with widespread suspicion, not least because they were unwilling to follow this fundamental precept. Angela Merkel, federal chancellor and head of the German government from 2005 to 2021, was canny enough to adhere to it in full measure.

The dullness of her political utterances is faithfully reproduced in this volume of memoirs. By and large, Merkel’s recollection, assisted by her co-author (her long-term close ally and personal assistant Beate Baumann), is impressive, though I spotted one rather egregious mistake, where she claims that Willy Brandt, West German chancellor in the late 1960s and early 70s, urged his compatriots to “dare more freedom”; what he in fact said was that they should “dare more democracy”. The book has been rendered into American English by a team of no fewer than eight translators, who have remained true to the leaden prose of the German original. The editors at Macmillan claim that they have added explanations to the text “to make it easier for a non-German audience” to understand, but they have not done nearly enough. Merkel seems keen on mentioning every German politician she has ever had dealings with, and as one obscure name follows another through the tedious thickets of narrative detail, presenting individuals even I have never heard of (and I’ve been working on Germany for half a century and more), it is all too easy not just to lose track but also to lose interest.