BERLIN (AP) — Angela Merkel, who served as chancellor of Germany for 16 years, will release her political memoirs in 2024.
Her publisher announced Thursday that the former chancellor, who is co-authoring the book with her longtime adviser Beate Baumann, will provide an exclusive, personal look into her political life and work.
“I am pleased to reflect on central decisions and situations of my political work in my book … and make them understandable to a broad public, also with recourse to my personal biography,” the ex-chancellor said in a note released by publisher Kiepenheuer & Witsch.
Merkel, 68, steered Germany safely through a succession of crises including the global financial crisis, the migrant crisis and the coronavirus pandemic.
Looking back at her chancellorship shortly after she left office, she said that while the 16 years in office had fulfilled her, they had also been challenging because of the constant need to pay attention to, prevent, or react to crises.
Merkel, a former scientist who grew up in former communist East Germany, became Germany’s first female chancellor on Nov. 22, 2005.
Named “The World’s Most Powerful Woman” by Forbes magazine for 10 years in a row, Merkel has been cast as a powerful defender of liberal values in the West. Millions of women admire her for breaking through the glass ceiling of male dominance in politics, and she’s been lauded as an impressive role model for girls.
However, since Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine in February, the former chancellor has also been accused of appeasing and engaging too closely with Russian President Vladimir Putin. She has rejected that criticism saying she always tried to work toward calamity being averted.
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