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I grew up in East Germany,
in the DDR,
in the part of my country that was not free at that time,
in a dictatorship.
My first job after university was as a physicist in East Berlin
at the Academy of Sciences.
I lived close to the Berlin Wall.
Behind it was West Berlin: Freedom!
The Berlin Wall limited my opportunities,
but there was one thing it failed to achieve in all those years…
It couldn't impose boundaries on my own innermost thoughts…
my personality, my imagination, my dreams.
All these could not be limited by prohibition or coercion.
Could people handle silence better in the past?
-Yes, I think so. -Yes?
Well, take the fact that every trip to the supermarket
is accompanied by cheerful music.
That wasn't as common before.
I'm not judging it, before they say I'm complaining.
I'm just saying, I think it used to be quieter.
Granted, I'm from the countryside, so…
And I believe that a lot of my strength
comes from the fact that as a child
I could sleep deeply because it was so quiet.
I'm convinced of that.
I sometimes still seek that silence today.
So, Mrs. Merkel, how does one become a government minister?
Madame Minister, Dr. Merkel…
are you willing to take the oath?
Yes. I swear, so help me God.
Thank you.
A young woman of 37, Angela Merkel, born on the 17th July 1954,
less than two years in politics, just over a year in the CDU party.
Above all other questions, Mrs. Merkel,
isn't this all going a bit fast?
Do you occasionally have the uncomfortable feeling
that things are happening to you
rather than you making things happen for yourself?
Angela Merkel, currently more object than subject.
Without the German reunification,
I'd never have become a government minister.
Would you have become a minister if you weren't Protestant?
Or if you hadn't come from former West Germany?
-Or if you weren't a woman? -Former East Germany.
That's true, and it's a good thing for federal Germany, and--
Did the Chancellor speak to you?
Did he call you up and say, "I'll take you?"
No?
It wasn't like that, but of course we spoke.
The way you appear, speak and think,
do you fit in with these politicians
who claim to know what the public needs, and to have all the answers?
Sometimes I wonder if people idealize politicians
or if politicians really are how people think they are.
There are sometimes misunderstandings.
But they have a different public persona?
I can't judge that, but you can.
But you can watch television
-or listen to the radio. -I don't watch myself on TV.
I don't have time for it.
I don't know about others.
They seem normal to me.
I just always notice that people say that I'm different from the others,
but that's their judgement.
Do you sometimes forget
when you're with your husband or your mother
that you are the Chancellor?
Yes, of course. Then, I'm the daughter or the wife.
So, does it feel like before?
Like when you were a physicist or member of parliament?
Or is it different after all?
The only difference is…
-I can't ignore my phone for too long. -That's the only difference?
I don't always feel like "I am the Chancellor."
So, sometimes you set that role aside in your free time?
Of course, when I'm stirring my dinner,
I don't think, "The Chancellor is stirring her dinner."
Torchbearers.
Stop.
My bare foot angrily stomped the sand
And from my shoulder, I slapped your hand
Micha, my Micha, everything hurts so much
Do that again, Micha, and I'll leave
You forgot to bring the color film
My Michael
Now nobody will believe us
How beautiful it was here
DDR MAGAZINE
You forgot to bring the color film
Good grief
All this blue and white And green is lost now
Now I'm sitting back in our home
And I'm picking photos for the photo album
Me in a bikini
And me at the nudist beach
Me in a sassy mini skirt
Some landscape's in there too, yeah
But, how terrible, hot tears are rolling
Landscape and Nina
All in black and white
Micha, my Micha
Everything hurts so much
Do that again, Micha, and I'll leave
You forgot to bring the color film
My Michael
Now nobody will believe us
How beautiful it was here
You forgot to bring the color film
Good grief…
When you think of the DDR, your upbringing in former East Germany,
what is your earliest political memory?
My first overtly political memory is definitely the construction of the Wall
and the days before.
On the 13th August 1961, German imperialism had to learn:
there is no way through here.
Here are the limits of its power.
Its final defeat starts here.
This is the German Democratic Republic where, for the first time in Germany,
peace has been elevated to government policy.
I remember, the 13th of August was a Sunday
and everyone at my father's church service was crying.
My mother cried, everyone in the church cried…
Your father was a Protestant theologian.
Your mother was a teacher.
In 1954, the year you were born,
your father moved your family to the DDR to work as a pastor.
You grew up with two younger siblings in Templin, Brandenburg.
Have you ever thought, "Father, what have you done?"
No, I always accepted it.
My father wanted to be a pastor in his home church,
so I never questioned it.
-I thought-- -It meddled with your life, didn't it?
Yes, it led to me growing up in the DDR, but I wouldn't say "meddled."
There were difficult times, but I also had many good times in the DDR.
How would you describe the DDR in two to three sentences?
You had to work very hard just to live a normal life.
But with little to show for it.
You were always on the hunt.
In winter, you had to buy summer shoes.
When something was available, you had to buy it.
And you knew that in your job,
you'd never get to the top unless you joined the Socialist Unity Party.
You'd never become department head in a combine.
And also, you always had to be cautious.
Whenever you spoke carelessly in public, as a child or an adult,
you'd always get into trouble.
You had to expect it.
One was very controlled in what one said,
so one at least knew what the consequences would be.
I don't think she understood
that it was such an old boys' club, the CDU party.
Well, she was also lucky
because Chancellor Kohl, after the reunification of Germany,
needed to recruit women and East Germans into his government.
The DDR was completely steamrollered by West Germany anyhow
in this incredibly forceful and dominant act of Helmut Kohl.
So he had to include someone,
and he put two women from East Germany in his cabinet,
threw them into the deep end, and one of them survived.
And that was her.
I know that politicians are often accused that they…
are only acting in their own interest, or superficially,
that they demand too much…
and only think of their own fame.
So, I often feel misunderstood because you are put in a box
that I can't easily accept.
Angela. Here is your chair.
Hello.
How do you personally feel now after a few months in the cabinet?
Does it still feel unfamiliar?
No, it's been over a year now since my first time there
and I realized that they are just people too.
Angela Merkel, live and in color!
Right now, a bit more color than in normal life.
Do you enjoy getting your make-up done?
I don't like doing it myself, but I like getting it done.
It's fun.
We've managed to get our hands on some early photos of you.
It's…
this one.
And we've found a more recent one.
I believe it's the official photo of CDU party.
This one is a bit more glammed up.
The first one is from my early days as a government minister
and the second is more styled.
I'm not at all happy with the newer one because it doesn't feel like me at all.
I wasn't wearing makeup, so it's all retouched.
I was very disappointed with the result.
HERTZ SPECIAL
Dear viewers, I'd love to include you today and over the next few weeks.
Please get involved in our program.
Please give us a call,
tell us your opinion on our Minister for Youth, Mrs. Merkel,
on her character, her politics.
Please call us.
Mrs. Merkel, recently, I discovered a lovely little town called, Templin.
You spent your childhood and youth there.
I also met your mother there, a really open and friendly woman.
She sees you more on television than at home nowadays
and she observes you closely.
Let's hear what she has to say.
For me, Angela was always so full of life,
very extroverted and very open.
This very controlled, focused persona is somehow…
I don't want to say foreign, but new to me.
Of course, through her science studies, she acknowledges this too,
she learnt to think very precisely.
But I hope she keeps some of that openness
because I think it's part of who she is.
Maybe it's already…
a concession to holding a public office.
Your mother says you're making a concession,
but maybe at too high a cost?
I used to be a lively person.
My studies did formalize my thinking a lot and I've now also had the experience
that many things get taken out of context--
So you feel that you haven't changed?
-I have. -You've retained that openness?
No, I haven't retained it.
Today I think much more carefully about who I say what to and for what purpose
and what you can edit in and out and how it can be used later.
She cried once in Helmut Kohl's cabinet,
in a male-dominated cabinet.
And that went badly for her.
That was an almost traumatic experience for her,
"I am not allowed to cry in public,
and that means I should show as little emotion as possible."
In retrospect, that is certainly a weakness.
Federal Minister Dr. Angela Merkel,
are you willing to take the oath?
Yes, I swear it, so help me God.
What you have experienced is the steepest career ever.
It is said that you are a foster child of Helmut Kohl.
How has he fostered you?
Obviously, not that badly if you look at my career.
-You have a PhD in physics? -Correct.
Did you have these career aspirations already as a young girl?
I believe that my studying physics is connected to
the fact that I grew up in the DDR.
You always wondered what you could do that wouldn't involve too much lying
or that wouldn't put you in jeopardy
and because two times two equals four, even in the DDR.
At least mostly, if you calculated it yourself.
For those reasons, I studied physics, but I also enjoyed it.
If I'd had freedom to choose, I may have done something else.
What? I'm curious.
I think, in hindsight, I would have become a teacher,
probably teaching languages, not physics.
Well, the division and living behind a wall
was of course much more evident in Berlin than elsewhere in the DDR.
What I found remarkable was
that when she lived in her first flat in Berlin,
she stood at Friedrichstrasse Station every day, which is little known now,
where the large hall was reserved for Western trains
and the small hall was for the trains to the East.
Everything was neatly separated in the station,
and she waited for her train
and heard the trains going to the West every day.
So, every morning on the way to work,
it was made clear to her that there was another world over there
that was forbidden to her.
During our studies, we also organized discos.
Of course we had to play "60/40," but the atmosphere was still the same.
For the Westerners here: 60% Eastern music, 40% Western music.
I didn't mean the proportion of alcohol to water…
but we had to play 60% music from the East.
We only started those tracks.
They only specified the origin of the tracks,
not the number of minutes to play, so there was some wiggle room there.
But there was always someone monitoring us.
We would organize our own discos in the physics building,
so I'm a bit of an expert.
If you pushed it too far and only played 30 seconds of an Eastern track
and too much of the Western tracks, then someone would come and stop it.
Did you DJ yourself?
No, I was the barmaid.
-Barmaid! -Yes.
Basically, everyone knew that any gathering of 20 people
would include at least one person from the Stasi.
At the workplace…
or at school.
It was a part of life.
The most treacherous thing about it was
that they'd monitor whether you ever made a mistake,
whether you broke traffic rules, or had an extramarital affair,
or had done something that wasn't totally in line with the rules.
And that's when the Stasi very deliberately singled out people,
often in desperate situations, to blackmail them.
So much so that my parents told me, even as a child,
and we talked about this often,
if they approach you, always say you can't keep secrets
and that you'd have to tell someone.
And that was the only way to escape the Stasi.
You had to break through the conspiracy.
What actually happened in the summer of '89 in the former DDR?
It was clear that something had shifted in the Soviet Union.
Suddenly you could read certain newspapers
that said things that were forbidden before.
Of course in all the 40 years of the DDR, people never stopped dreaming of freedom.
It was incredibly exciting.
I went to the sauna that evening and then walked to West Berlin afterwards.
It's a feeling that still brings tears to my eyes.
Where there used to be a dark wall, a door suddenly opened.
Everyone was suddenly given a chance to build something new,
to help shape the future, to dare a new beginning.
I, too, saw a new beginning.
I left my work as a physicist in the Academy of Sciences in East Berlin.
l left it behind me and went into politics.
Because I could finally shape things.
Because new horizons finally felt possible.
Now I can do something.
Back then, maybe a little later, I can't remember exactly,
a friend gave me a book with a dedication.
He wrote, "Go into the open."
And, oh, how I went off like many others too.
Out into the open, into the new.
Dear fellow citizens,
in just a few hours, a dream will become reality.
After more than 40 years of bitter separation,
Germany, our fatherland, is reunited.
When you started out,
were you driven by a desire for freedom or power?
Freedom, of course. No question about it.
The special thing about Merkel is that, in her mid-30s,
she had the chance to start her life afresh.
People don't normally get that chance.
It just doesn't happen.
Now you can change your life,
and that's what made Angela Merkel so interesting.
She moves from science into politics,
and in a short time, she's at the top, and excellent.
And that is a kind of…
self-determination.
That's very impressive.
I'm not asking
if you'll be comfortable for Chancellor Kohl as deputy party leader.
I'm asking whether rebelliousness
and being contradictory, which younger people tend to be,
is an important or less important part of your personality?
Being contradictory is not central to my being,
but as I get older, I'm getting better at it.
I've perhaps had quite a different trajectory to others.
I think I was
less contradictory at 15 than I am today.
I think it's very important in politics.
-Contradiction. -You're learning?
-You're learning it? -Yes
This might sound a bit silly or exaggerated,
but in five years, you might be less comfortable for Kohl than now?
That can't be ruled out, but I can't predict it either.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
In the donation scandal of the CDU,
former Chancellor Kohl is increasingly under fire.
The party urged him again today to clarify the anonymous donors.
Will you relent and give up the names?
I have to tell you something. You know what you're doing here
is a round-the-clock smear campaign.
Well, Helmut Kohl needed money for his party,
and he needed donations, and he had donors lined up.
But large donations have to be declared in Germany,
and these donors…
apparently told him,
"We'll give you money, but you can't make it public."
"We have to remain anonymous."
And then it leaked anyway.
Helmut Kohl achieved a lot and--
-Indisputably. -Yes.
Yes, you may laugh here now,
but some may also acknowledge
that he did things for the German reunification.
For the European Union. Those facts remain.
But that doesn't justify these mistakes.
I regret that if, as a consequence of a lack of transparency and control,
I may have broken certain party financing laws.
I'm going to find out the truth,
and those who made further mistakes,
let me tell you,
they will have to live with the consequences, but--
Ladies and gentlemen, this was our show.
Do you expect us to believe that this wasn't a backstabbing move
asking Mr. Kohl to accept the consequences?
I believe that many party members have a lot of questions,
and also feel uneasy,
and it was in this context that I wrote this article.
I remember that day very clearly, reading that article
in which Angela Merkel got rid of Helmut Kohl, then leader of the CDU,
saying it was time for a new kind of politics.
That was the first time I thought,
"She's got guts, that woman."
I'm not afraid, I don't have a guilty conscience.
And "pity" is also the wrong word.
Personally, I owe Helmut Kohl a lot.
I've had a great time as a minister in his government.
But I've also felt let down.
Mrs. Merkel.
Great, that you could come.
You're very busy at the moment.
We'll start as always: age?
Forty-five.
Height?
168 cm.
Weight?
A little over 70kg.
Okay. Zodiac sign?
Cancer.
What was the title of your PhD thesis?
The calculation of rate constants
of elementary reactions of simple hydrocarbons.
I'm impressed.
Does Angela Merkel have what it takes to be Chancellor?
Just as much as the current or any other Chancellor.
It is not a question of gender,
but she does have to change a few things, I have to admit.
I don't know who advises her on what clothes to wear.
That's a complete mystery to me.
Do you mean more trendy?
Or more modern?
She just needs to…
For example, on the Sabine Christiansen show with Hillary Clinton,
her outfit was too modest.
Let me put it like that.
That's why…
That won't do. She needs better advice.
Mrs. Merkel, I want to talk about women in politics.
Do they have to compromise more
because they are resented for taking radical positions?
I don't think so.
Overall, I think…
that politics is a tough business anyway.
Secondly, perhaps women are more closely scrutinized.
Even if they do things well, people always try to find fault.
And thirdly, maybe it's also the case that compromise
is something that women also choose to do.
I personally think it's right and good
to bring different opinions together to forge a consensus.
Experience has taught us that you can have a great idea,
but you won't get very far if you don't find allies.
A gift such as this is only possible since women also have a say in politics.
The solution to the riddle is revealed on the back
so that, dear Hillary, you're not confused either.
What I have only learned by observing Merkel
is how baroque and energy wasting male politics actually is.
It's all about competition, retaliation.
It's sweaty old boys' networks stirring up rumor and so on.
So, all these emotions which to us now seem inherent to politics
are a sort of poor man's Shakespeare,
all of which Angela Merkel just could not afford.
She needed all the energy to get into this strange system at all.
So, only maximum efficiency, including emotional efficiency,
is what enabled her to get this far.
A basic explanation for the success of Angela Merkel
is expectation management.
She always managed to set expectations as low as possible
for herself, for summit outcomes, for negotiations,
to be able to say afterwards, "It went better than expected."
So, because she always set her own expectations so low…
she was underestimated.
That is also a secret of her success.
Strong men especially always underestimated her
and then paid a high price for that.
This election is like no other.
There is a lot at risk.
Germany needs a clear direction and reliable politics.
DECISION FOR GERMANY.
SEIZE OPPORTUNITIES!
When the TV shows white noise
I lie down on the bed and imagine
What it would be like If I were someone else
Like chancellor, emperor, king or queen…
VOTE FOR CHANGE!
Day in, day out
I'd get around a lot
I'd travel to the USA
Bite Ronnie in the calf like Waldi did…
We want to serve Germany.
I want to serve Germany.
If I were king of Germany
All this and much more
I would do
If I were king of Germany
All this and much more
I would do…
You'll be the Chancellor of Germany.
How do you feel?
I feel…
I feel good.
I would do
If I were king of Germany
I swear that I'll dedicate my efforts to the wellbeing of the German people,
promote their welfare, protect them from harm,
uphold and defend the constitution and the laws of the Federation,
perform my duties conscientiously and do justice to everyone.
You are the first democratically elected female head of government in Germany.
This is a strong signal for many women and certainly for some men too.
I want to send you my greetings, Comrade Vinogradov,
as the mission chief.
Thank you so much.
I am so glad you salute us.
Thank you.
You understand what I am saying?
Hello, Madame Chancellor, our warmest welcome!
In today's show, a one-on-one with Germany's most powerful politician,
Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Welcome, dear viewers. I'm pleased to welcome you,
and I'm pleased that our Chancellor is here.
Angela Merkel, welcome.
Good evening.
Let's talk about Putin.
Your first visit to Putin was on January 16th.
Do you speak Russian
or do interpreters handle complicated topics?
If it's a complicated issue, the interpreters handle that anyway.
President Putin speaks better German than I do Russian,
so when in doubt, he speaks German.
He lived here for several years.
And when he speaks Russian, I mostly understand him pretty well,
but I rarely speak it myself.
Do you relate to the Russian people because you know their country so well?
Yes. I think that makes a difference.
I know it quite well because of our history.
I can put myself in their shoes in some situations.
Russia hasn't always had it easy.
They don't have…
They have experienced a very different history.
And I want the country to be successful.
Good morning.
And welcome
to our beautiful flight.
And…
let's get rid of the cameras first.
At the start of 2007, when I visited President Putin,
Germany held the EU Council presidency in the European Union.
This was the infamous visit with the dog.
And there he told me for the first time
something which he has now also said publicly,
that for him the disintegration of the Soviet Union
was the worst event in the 20th century.
And I said to him, for me that was the luckiest thing in my life.
It meant I could experience freedom
and do what I like and what gives me joy.
It was quite clear, that this was a great difference between us.
And that dissent just continued to evolve,
and we have not succeeded in all these years
to really end the Cold War, if you are really honest today.
It is always…
Despite all progress and the joy of the European unification
and the many countries joining from Eastern and Central Europe,
the issue of Russia has remained.
With Putin, one should never forget the starting point.
Putin is a really good friend of former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder…
and he meets this woman who "stole" the chancellorship from his friend,
so to speak.
And in simple
male thought structures…
this means that he not quite wants to "avenge" his friend,
but he does want her to know that he preferred her predecessor.
That's how Putin treated Merkel in the beginning.
And this is a behavior…
This…
this rough…
sometimes condescending lecturing manner.
Merkel experienced this again and again.
You were bitten by a dog once.
He wanted to intimidate you.
Was that really how it happened?
Someone said to me recently
that it was a female Labrador, and he asked beforehand.
Maybe he wanted to bring you joy?
Well…
you can believe that if you want.
On my first visit to the Kremlin, before the Sochi visit,
it was…
Putin had said to me,
"I heard you have a problem with dogs" and gave me a big stuffed dog.
So, in that respect, I can't see that dog in Sochi as a loving coincidence.
-And he didn't ask? -Dog.
I wasn't aware of anyone asking.
Maybe my people didn't dare to tell me,
but I really can't imagine that.
No, no.
It doesn't matter anyway.
A brave chancellor has to be able to deal with a dog…
Merkel's failure in the Russia question
was not how she dealt with Russia,
but how she dealt with German energy and German security.
For Merkel, Germany's prosperity was most important.
That was always her highest priority.
She wanted to both maintain and expand Germany's prosperity,
and she was certainly successful.
That's one of the big achievements of her Chancellorship.
But now we know the cost of that.
The price was this close reliance on Russia.
It provided us with cheap energy, and that was part of our prosperity.
We paid those cheap rates.
Next, you have to choose between East or West.
I can't choose both, can I?
We could ask general questions?
General questions? Let's stick to the West.
I have enough memories of the East.
The land of unlimited opportunity
was for many years of my life
the land of unattainable opportunities.
From films and books,
some smuggled in from the West by relatives,
I got an idea of the United States.
I was passionate about the American dream,
the opportunity for everyone to be successful,
to make it in life by working hard.
Like many other teenagers, I was crazy about jeans of a certain brand
that were not available in the former DDR
and which my aunt regularly sent to me from the West.
I was passionate about the vast American landscape
which seemed to evoke the spirit of freedom and independence.
In 1990, my husband and I flew to America for the first time,
to California.
Never will we forget our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean.
It was simply magnificent.
One morning, I entered a shop and was asked,
"How are you?"
So I started mumbling, then another big, smiley, "How are you?"
So I was forced to come out of my stiff North German shell
and respond with a jolly, "Great!" which I managed to muster.
Barack Obama, in the beginning,
he wanted to speak by the Brandenburg Gate in Germany…
and she refused because she wanted to reserve that place for presidents only.
And then he spoke at the Siegessäule in Berlin instead
in front of 200,000 people, full of enthusiasm,
and he was still only a candidate.
And then she made it clear
that she is always very skeptical when people are celebrated like a Messiah.
The Medal of Freedom for Angela Merkel
is her highest, best and most beautiful accolade.
That was, I would say, her most important award,
her most important recognition.
That country, her land of desire,
the values embodied by the United States,
the transatlantic relationship, that's important to her,
and to receive it from a president like Obama
who really told a sort of fairy tale.
For many years, like many others, I dreamt of freedom…
including the freedom to travel to the USA.
But that I would one day stand in the Rose Garden of the White House
to receive the Medal of Freedom from an American president,
that was certainly beyond my wildest dreams.
"Everyday life" or "state of emergency," which would you rather talk about?
Everyday life.
-But sometimes they are the same. -Yes…
Sometimes.
Most of us don't know the feeling of exhaustion on the run
coupled with fear for your life or for that of your children or partner.
We are lucky.
And I say quite simply, Germany is a strong country,
and the way we deal with this has to be,
"We did so much, we can do this."
It is true that…
for her, the idea that a person
who…
had lived in a state that had walled her in,
who had experienced that walls cannot be a solution in the long run,
that this same person could be responsible
to build new walls in the form of fences, that was something that…
both emotionally and personally…
was impossible.
Merkel! Merkel! Merkel!
Please, a photo?
Not now. I have to say something.
From Berlin, the Chancellor in the refugee crisis.
Can we really do it, Mrs. Merkel?
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Nice to have you all with us.
Thank you for being here.
Welcome, Madame Chancellor.
Thank you.
Right now the whole world is pressuring you
to finally admit that we can't do it after all,
to take in hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of refugees.
We can't cope.
Are they right? Can we not do it after all?
We can do it. I'm convinced of that.
Germany is a strong country.
Germany is a great country.
I like my country, and I'm not the only one.
Millions of others like this country,
and so the task is simply to believe that we can do it
and then we will manage it.
I have no doubt at all.
Imagine, we were all to say we can't do it.
Then what?
Borders for Angela Merkel represent
the most distressing and threatening part of her life.
And she did not want to be in any way responsible
for borders being erected again.
I can understand that very well.
And yet I think, in terms of state policy, the decision not to close the borders
after the correct decision to open them initially
was a decision that…
caused more harm than good.
Germany for Germans! Foreigners out!
TRAVEL ENJOYMENT
ENEMIES OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE
GERMAN HATERS TO THE GULAG
We have zero tolerance
for those who do not respect the dignity of others.
We are going to hunt her down.
We are going to hunt down Mrs. Merkel.
TRAITOR OF THE PEOPLE
MERKEL MUST GO
Well, it's part of life for a politician to get insulted now and again.
I'm not bothered by this.
What I am bothered by is
the hate and the mood in our country.
And my response is very clear:
we have to draw a line in the sand.
POLICE
To be completely honest, if we have to start apologizing for the fact
that we show a friendly face in an emergency situation,
then this is not my country.
This is the Erste Deutsche Fernsehen showing the Tagesschau.
Your host today, Jens Riewa.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Tagesschau.
The Republican Donald Trump will be the new US president.
Germany and America are connected by shared values.
Democracy, freedom, respect for the law
and the dignity of people
regardless of origin,
skin color, religion, gender,
sexual orientation or political belief.
Based on these values,
I offer the future president of the United States of America,
Donald Trump, a close partnership.
And now I'm struggling with this farewell.
Of course, when you've worked well with someone,
then the goodbye is difficult,
but we are all politicians, and democracy lives off change.
And the United States constitution strictly lays this out,
"After eight years, there will be a new president."
So, then…
So, then the task is
for Germany to continue to have good transatlantic relations
and to look forward.
And if we want to meet,
we have free movement in all of Germany, thank God,
so we are not "in different worlds" as we say.
In that sense, she certainly is in the political world,
in the whole world, quite an exception.
Firstly, that she never used politics to enrich herself.
Secondly, she didn't use it to further a certain caste of people.
I mean, how distrustful must she be of a man like Trump
even before his election?
Someone who presents himself as a billionaire,
but you don't know whether it's a billion in debt or in the bank.
She always puts herself into the other person's position.
In smaller circles, she would often say,
"What would we do if we were Trump?"
"What does he need to do to appeal to his voters?"
And if I can imagine that,
then maybe I can succeed or put forward an argument
that particularly appeals to him.
Facial expressions often give us away--
Yes, that's true!
-Mine in particular. -Do your facial expressions reveal…
-Reveal? -Do they reveal more than you'd like?
I think you have to be true to yourself.
Sometimes they give things away.
-Do you-- -I mean, it's not a tragedy either.
If you only wear a poker face, then that wouldn't be much fun for others.
Is Donald Trump still a partner for the G7?
Look, these discussions are important, understanding each other's point of view.
In these tough negotiations, we don't sit around smiling at each other.
We discussed customs, trade and relations to Russia and--
But Donald Trump thinks that he no longer has to comply
with the constitutional value-driven world order.
He does it his way, in bilateral talks, by way of "deals."
Yeah, you can even make multilateral "deals."
We do this all the time at the European Council--
I am surprised by your calmness.
Look, the situation is not pretty.
I spoke of disillusion, which is a very strong word for me.
I might even say it is depressing.
But I personally…
I still personally remember the wall,
the East German dictatorship, the fear of the Stasi spying apparatus,
the lack of freedom and the constraints.
So, the end of the division and the establishment of democracy remain
and will always be something special to me.
Because I know that democracy was hard won and I know that
democracy must also be lived, fulfilled, and protected.
It needs us as much as we need it.
Democracy is not a given.
But we must repeatedly work together to maintain it, every day.
Sometimes I fear that we take democratic success for granted.
As if we don't have to worry,
as if it's passed down from generation to generation as a matter of course.
But we are experiencing
visible attacks on important values such as freedom of the press.
We are experiencing a society in which lies and misinformation,
resentment and hatred are stoked without inhibition and without shame.
Merkel said in her inaugural speech, "I want to serve Germany,"
and she has repeated it since, and that's how she sees herself.
This sense of duty in the Protestant tradition,
it's not about you, you're not the center of attention.
You stay…
It sounds a bit lofty, but "humble."
"I am the first employee of this Republic."
She embodied that.
She never came close to scandal.
She's never been suspected of enriching herself
or ever showed any inclination for corruption.
Thank you.
You have to come back for the cameras.
With the certificate?
The longer you've been Chancellor, the longer you have to stand.
Thank you.
Standing here before you today, I feel, above all,
gratitude and humility.
Humility before the office which I was able to hold for so long.
Gratitude for the trust that I was able to experience.
The 16 years as Federal Chancellor were eventful
and often very challenging years.
They challenged me politically and personally.
At the same time, they always sustained me.
Our democracy survives on its capability for critical debate and self-correction.
It lives on the constant balancing of interests
and from respect for one another.
It thrives on solidarity and trust,
also on the trust in facts,
and on the basis that everywhere where scientific evidence is denied,
where conspiracy theories and hatred are spread,
opposition must be loud.
When I was 16, I whispered
I want to be great, be a winner
Be happy, never tell a lie
When I was 16, I whispered
I want…
I want it all
Or nothing
For me
It should rain red roses
I want to experience all such miracles
The world should reform itself
And keep its sorrows to itself
And later, I said
I don't want to be alone
And yet be free
Well, Angela wasn't good at defending herself.
That was…
because she wanted to live in peace with the world.
It was a problem,
and if anyone hit her, maybe during playtime,
she'd say to me, "Mother, I ran away."
I'd ask, "Did you hit back?"
"No, I ran away."
It shall manage my destiny
With love
And then at some point,
she was 13, we'd been working on it, I said,
"You must defend yourself.
If someone hits you, you have to hit back.
You have to."
I cannot be content
I still want to win
Want all
Or nothing
And…
at maybe 13, during math class,
there was a classmate that bothered her so much
that she gave him a good old slap in the face.
And the teacher said, "Bravo!"
Then we knew that she'd be all right.
She'll find her own way.
…what is expected
Keep the most
I want