The long-awaited memoir by one of the most important political leaders of our time For 16
years Angela Merkel bore the governmental responsibility for Germany leading the country
through numerous crises and shaping German and international politics and society with her
actions and attitude. But Angela Merkel was not born a Chancellor. In her memoirs co-written
with her long-standing political advisor Beate Baumann she looks back on her life in two
German states - 35 years in the GDR (German Democratic Republic) 35 years in reunified
Germany. More personally than ever before she talks about her childhood youth and her
studies in the GDR and the dramatic year of 1989 when the Wall fell and her political life
began. She shares insights into her meetings and conversations with the world's most powerful
leaders and elucidates with clear and precise examples significant national European and
international turning points and how decisions were made that shape our times. Her book offers
a unique insight into the inner workings of power - and is a decisive plea for freedom. "What
does freedom mean to me? This question has occupied me my entire life. Naturally politically
because freedom needs democratic conditions without democracy there is no freedom no rule of
law no protection of human rights. But this question also occupies me on another level.
Freedom for me is finding out where my own limits are and pushing my own limits. Freedom is
for me not to stop learning not to have to stand still but to be allowed to continue even
after leaving politics." - Angela Merkel
