THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 101 cal sidelines, but in Freedom, her newly released autobiography, written with the assistance of longtime adviser, Beate Baumann, she has finally chosen to break her silence, to our benefit. The narrative can be broken into three overlapping parts. Youth At the outset, Merkel conveys a picture of a happy childhood, spent in the rural area of Templin, East Germany (German Democratic Republic, or GDR), with her close-knit family. But her sense of well-being was not absolute. Once she stepped out the front door, things abruptly changed for this daughter of a Protestant father. Merkel makes plain her annoyance with the petty rules and daily humiliations she suffered early on at the hands of local officials, who made clear, in no uncertain terms, that her religious affiliation would make her entrance into society as a young person more difficult. Worthy of note however, she became an active participant in her local state-sponsored youth group, the Free German Youth (FDJ). In her own words: “My siblings and I learned in many ways what it meant to be a pastor’s child in the GDR. A particular source of horror for me ... was the class book. In it, the origins of parents were noted. Often, substitute teachers made pupils stand up and say what their fathers did for a living” (p. 25). But these various rules and constraints were also advantageous. “You always knew where you stood,” she writes. More important, the academic structure, in its rigor and intensity, propelled her to master subjects that would later stand her in good stead, such as science and Russian. A Swift Rise Merkel’s disarming candor is captured early on when, in effect, she confesses that “I wasn’t born chancellor.” Her social background alone would have ruled out a career in GDR politics, and furthermore, Merkel’s scientific aspirations as a young woman in the GDR did not, by choice, prepare her for such undertakings. But everything in her life changed virtually overnight with the sudden and unanticipated collapse of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989. And with this event, so ended Angela Merkel’s fledgling career in science. Curiously, Merkel leaves us guessing as to why she so abruptly abandoned her short-lived scientific career. But what she does reveal in great detail is how rapidly and successfully she rose within the ranks of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). As Chancellor and Beyond Angela Merkel was the third leader of post-unification Germany, serving from 2005 to 2021. The final part of her narrative addresses the major challenges she confronted during her 16-year tenure. These challenges, among other things, prominently include navigating the shoals of alliance politics (NATO and the European Union) and addressing the energy crisis, the European and global financial meltdown of 2008-2009 and beyond, and the never-ending problems she encountered in dealing with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Freedom is a book well tailored to the tastes and interests of two broadly overlapping audiences. The first one might be labeled “The Attentive Public” (Walter Lippmann): that broad stratum of the educated public who subscribe to, say, Foreign Affairs, The Economist, and The New York Times. Their specific interest in the former German chancellor derives less from her capacity to brilliantly play the game of the “new” German politics, and a great deal more with the personal obstacles she encountered and overcame in her rise to the top. A contemporary German version of the Cinderella story. The other group might be called “The Attentive Public-Plus” (AP-P). They too count themselves as general consumers of German affairs, with the obvious caveat that they have also dedicated themselves to grappling with the more specific problems of that country’s politics. Here one may find successive generations of post–World War II Foreign Service officers specializing in European affairs, including the German desk; U.S. reporters covering fast-breaking stories from Munich, Frankfurt, and Berlin; and a vibrant community of Washington, D.C., think tanks specializing in German affairs (the German Marshall Fund being one of the more prominent ones). In sum, the former German chancellor has delivered to us a must-read book. John Starrels, a Washington, D.C.–based writer, was a senior public affairs officer at the International Monetary Fund from 1990 to 2006. Merkel’s disarming candor is captured early on when, in effect, she confesses that “I wasn’t born chancellor.”
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