For Finn Kulbatzki it was worth the wait. The business studies undergraduate queued outside Berlin’s Dussmann bookshop for five hours before finally being able to present his copies of Angela Merkel’s autobiography, Freedom, for her to sign.
“I couldn’t believe that I got to stand right next to her,” the 23-year-old told journalists. A beaming Merkel, dressed in a lilac version of one of her trademark blazers, said little, but signed three copies of the hardback for him.
Selfies were not permitted. Nor were personal dedications. The former German chancellor was, as if on a conveyor belt, working to get as many books signed in the 90-minute session as possible. They were efficiently passed to her from a pile by a sales assistant, already opened on the title page, as hundreds queued round the block.
“We grew up with Merkel … she’s as familiar to us as Ronaldo or Britney Spears – more so,” said a group of female office workers in their 20s who had slipped out on a coffee break and were excitedly clutching signed copies. Their return to work was overdue “but I think our boss will let us off the hook once we show her the signature”, one said.
Political Berlin appears to be charmed by Merkel’s 736-page tome, 35,000 copies of which were sold on the first day. Timing, as ever, has been key: the book hit the shelves not only in time for Christmas but three weeks after the spectacular collapse of the first post-Merkel government in an acrimonious row over the budget.
Next month, Olaf Scholz will face a vote of confidence, triggering an election campaign that it is expected to culminate in Friedrich Merz, a man Merkel pushed out of politics two decades ago, becoming the new leader.
On Tuesday, the evening before the Dussmann signing, the sonorous sound of Merkel’s familiar, calm voice floated through the Deutsches Theater, lulling the audience into the kind of comfort zone created when a beloved aunt reads a bedtime story.
Reading from the audiobook version of Freedom before engaging in a two-hour conversation with the journalist Anne Will, she appeared to have the 600-strong audience in her thrall. To those caught up in the political dramas gripping Berlin, her words seemed to conjure up a fanciful, even fairytale, description of what it’s like to be in power.
“How did it happen that after the first 35 years of her life in the (communist) GDR, a woman was allowed to take over the most powerful office that the Federal Republic of Germany has to offer and hold it for 16 years? How was she able to leave it (on her own terms) without having to resign or be voted out mid-term?” Merkel asked.
It is a question her embattled successor will no doubt have been asking himself in recent weeks.
For Henrike Roßbach, a parliamentary correspondent for the Munich daily Süddeutsche Zeitung who was watching from the wings, those inside the theatre experienced “a real hygge moment”. It was, she said, a welcome change from “what’s going on outside, from the Ukraine war and the Middle East conflict to the collapse of the government”, which “in the political version of the Beaufort scale of strong wind events would easily be on level nine to 10”.
One comment on a blog accompanying the livestream of Merkel’s presentation read: “To hear her speak about her life in politics is to be flung back into an era when everything was more or less OK.”
Outside the theatre on Reinhardt Strasse, on the edge of Berlin’s political centre, police kept an eye on a gathering of protesters from various strands of the former chancellor’s enduring opponents, including the Merkel muss weg (Merkel must go) contingent and the anti-vaxxer, Covid-sceptic Querdenkers.
Inside though, under the chandeliers, all seemed well with the world. “Do you sometimes take the train?” Will asked Merkel, in a teasing reference to the despair felt by many about the downward slide Germany is seen to have been taking since she left office (epitomised in the abysmal state of the railways) and facing criticism that this is partly because of inaction by her government.
Merkel was characteristically obstinate. “You know, if it helps, then people should say ‘Merkel’s to blame’, though I don’t believe it helps the country. But this book should really not give the impression that I am of the opinion that when I left office, I left behind me the ideal Germany.”
Not everyone is content with that answer. In the days since the book’s publication, Merkel has been criticised for failing to address accusations about her role in some of the current crises roiling the country and the world, from making Germany dependent on Russian gas, nurturing a too-cosy relationship with Vladimir Putin, to her decision to open Germany’s borders to refugees from Syria in 2015.
An editorial in the Passauer Neue Presse that captures the typical tone of the criticism asked: “Mistakes? Errors? Merkel would have us believe that there was no such thing in her 16 years as chancellor … Everything was done right is the message of the book, because (according to her) it’s the circumstances under which politics are made that are crucial.”
But she has remained steadfast in her view that she always only acted in the best interests of Germany and Europe.
One attender, Theo, who was tuned into the livestream, said he remained a fan. “She’s the best thing to ever have come out of Germany. A 16-year success story,” he said. “I miss her so much.”
