Angela Merkel by Stefan Kornelius: book review

Kornelius, in Angela Merkel: The Chancellor and herWorld (2013), covers all aspects of Merkel’s personal and political life from Merkelmania to her future prospects. The novel concludes at the end of her second term in office in 2013.

Merkel (1954-) the German Chancellor is in her third parliamentary term after coming to power in the November 2005 federal election, and winning again in October 2009 and December 2013. She’s been depicted along a continuum of criticisms from a mysterious, quiet, unknown to a dominatrix. But what is her worldview as leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) as leader of the Opposition – and as Chancellor of Germany under the grand coalition with the CDU and the Social Democratic Party of Germany? She is the first woman in Germany to hold both offices. Right now she has the historical burden of the banking crisis that mutated into the Europe economic crisis, as well as domestic issues.

Kornelius starts with Angela Kasner’s upbringing in the German Democratic Republic in the small village of Templin in former East Germany, a one-and-a-half hour drive north of Berlin, under Soviet restrictions in East Germany. He writes of her school years and her visits to Moscow as a research scientist, and hitchhiking in Tbilisi, Georgia. Her political career began typing press releases for the Democratic Awakening Party after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the German reunification between East and West Germany. In 1991 she was appointed as the Federal Minister for Women and Youth. Merkel’s strengths have been described as “order, structure, the ability to plan ahead” as well as an enquiring mind, analytical, and the opposite of impulsive.

The biography is thorough in its detail, especially when outlining Merkel’s relationships with foreign leaders, particularly the British Prime Ministers, the French leaders, and the Presidents of the United States. There are detailed sections on her views about Germany’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan; the crisis in Libya; and Germany’s relationship with Israel. In her speech of 2011 she says, “That historical responsibility of Germany is one of my country’s reasons of state.” Kornelius discusses exactly what Merkel means by “reasons of state.” There is also an interesting section on her relationship with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin – “a much loved country, a difficult President.” Then there is also Merkel and Greece, Spain, India, China, and Italy.

There is an interesting analysis on Merkel’s views of freedom, “having lived for thirty-five years under a regime in which there was no freedom” and receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the United States President Barack Obama in February 2011. “Freedom, said Merkel, is concerned first and foremost with responsibility … In Merkel’s value system, tolerance comes just below freedom and next to responsibility.”

Time and again, Kornelius goes beyond historical events in this authorized biography – he meticulously narrates Chancellor Merkel’s big political decisions through her actions and her words. It’s one of the most detailed political biographies I’ve read in a long while – interesting in its chronology and fascinating in its psychology.