Whose legacy is it?: Germany grapples with Merkel's 'no regrets' legacy as govt 'breaks into pieces'

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00:00Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel is coming out with her new memoir this Tuesday.

00:05It's called Freedom, and its 700 pages are full of reflections on her journey from growing

00:09up behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany to her political life as head of the biggest

00:14economy in Europe.

00:16Morgan Air takes a closer look.

00:19In a now infamous moment in 2017, when then President Donald Trump refused to shake her

00:24hand in front of cameras, the former chancellor says in her new memoir that the president's

00:29actions were deliberate.

00:32Trump knew precisely what he was doing.

00:35He wanted to give people something to talk about with his behaviour, while I had acted

00:39as though I were having a conversation with someone completely normal.

00:44She went on to say that Trump claimed she had ruined Germany and that he was fascinated

00:49by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

00:53I had the distinct impression he was captivated by politicians with autocratic and dictatorial

00:58tendencies.

01:00On Putin himself and their many meetings, Merkel said he was

01:05someone who was always on guard not to be traced badly and always ready to dish out

01:09punishment including power games with a dog and making others wait.

01:16She's referring to a meeting in Russia in 2007 when President Putin brought his Labrador

01:21despite knowing about Merkel's fear of dogs.

01:24In her book Merkel also defends some of her decisions during her 16 years as chancellor.

01:30One of those moments she reflects on is a NATO summit in 2008 when President George

01:35W. Bush declared his desire to extend membership to Georgia and Ukraine.

01:40Angela Merkel and other European colleagues opposed it.

01:44The ex-chancellor explains her resistance to include the former Soviet states in NATO

01:49saying it would have pushed Putin to act more aggressively to prevent Ukraine from joining

01:53the alliance.

01:54We're going to talk more about Merkel's life and work now with German expert Cornelia

02:00Wohl who joins me live from Berlin.

02:02Cornelia, thank you for taking the time to speak to us today.

02:05Let's start more specifically talking about Angela Merkel's relationship with Putin.

02:09She was one of the few leaders to actually be able to speak Russian to Putin.

02:13What kind of effect did that have on their relationship?

02:18Well Merkel was certainly somebody who mistrusted Putin from the very early meetings they have

02:24because she says he reminded her of the Stasi personnel she'd known in East Germany.

02:29And because she spoke Russian, because she had a very good idea of his mindset, she was

02:35always very clear that she thought he was dangerous, even though at the very beginning

02:39of her term he did not have the full vision laid out of what he would do later, which

02:44he formulated quite clearly as time went on.

02:48And despite that, she actually got a lot of criticism over the years about her relationship

02:52with Putin.

02:53In the book she says that despite all the difficulties, she was right not to let the

02:57contacts with Russia be broken off.

02:59Do you think now in retrospect she was right to have done that?

03:04She says she stands by her decision and she explains it with the same context but a little

03:09bit differently.

03:10She says what we say now would have been the right strategy, so a stronger, more determined

03:16stronger stance and also possibly sanctions or cutting off economic ties.

03:21At the time were possibly what would have triggered the reaction that Putin was planning

03:25anyway.

03:26The NATO summit you just referred to in 2008 was a moment where really the European countries,

03:32Germany and France, split from the U.S. approach, the U.S. which really wanted to send a strong

03:36signal with NATO accession granted to Georgia and to Ukraine.

03:41And Germany and France said that that was a dangerous game because what would happen

03:45during the secession period, what would happen by the time that you say these two countries

03:50will join the NATO alliance, is that delivering an argument, for example, for Putin to use

03:55and that's something she wanted to manage because she wasn't sure that starting with

04:00the secession talks NATO would have been able to really defend these two countries.

04:04In 2008 when then Russia attacked Georgia she said she felt that she was vindicated

04:10but now the argument is made the other way around including by Ukraine and Vladimir Zelensky.

04:15Had you given us some more hope at that time maybe we would have been able to defend ourselves

04:20better.

04:21Cornelia, what about Merkel's relationship with French presidents over the years?

04:25I mean 16 years in power she saw quite a few go by.

04:29Well we've always said the German-Franco relationship is very important and Angela

04:34Merkel certainly had to move from a lot of Franco-German couples into a relationship

04:41that was important to her but it was quite different to work with Jacques Chirac, to

04:46work with Nicolas Sarkozy, François Hollande and later Emmanuel Macron.

04:49I think she always tried her best.

04:52There's chemistry that is part of that relationship of course as well but more fundamentally there

04:57are also some very substantial areas of disagreement that we now see have broken out possibly even

05:04worse and that will always halt advance on foreign policy and European issues.

05:09The final years of Merkel's leadership were defined by the mass refugee influx of 2015.

05:16There are some critics now that say that she's to blame for the rise of the far right in

05:19Germany thanks in part to that open door migrant policy.

05:23Is there any truth to that?

05:25The two parts of her legacy that are most critically evaluated now and you have to remember

05:31Merkel disappeared from politics until this very moment where she published her memoirs.

05:36People are now really trying to say these 16 years to a certain degree laid the bedrock

05:43of the crisis we're now facing.

05:44On the one hand it is the issue of migration because she was a very strong defender of

05:50the politics in 2015 and 2016 to let migrants come in more freely and then to negotiate

05:57at the same time for example with Turkey in order to manage this migration that she had

06:03welcomed and that she said Germany should welcome.

06:06The second is the relationship with Russia and these two items of her legacy now come

06:10out at a moment where she wants to publish her memoirs but nobody knew it would also

06:15be at the same time that the German government would break into pieces.

06:19So the question to a certain degree that Germany is now grappling with is whose legacy is it?

06:24Is it Merkel the chancellor?

06:26Is it the CDU her party?

06:28And how much is the candidate that will run for that party, Friedrich Merz, part of that

06:32legacy?

06:33And how much is it part of the coalition government that she ran as a chancellor which

06:36included the SPD and Olaf Scholz who was in that government?

06:40So currently discussing the legacy of Angela Merkel's work really is also a question about

06:45what government do we want to support going forward and I do think it will influence the

06:49election.

06:50And there's another interesting piece of this puzzle that doesn't seem to be out there so

06:54much in regards to these memoirs is that we have to remember that Merkel was one of the

06:57first women in power and for such a long time.

07:01How much do you think just the fact that she was a woman in this boys club of her day

07:05is going to really be part of the memoirs as well?

07:09It's certainly part of the great interest that many people have in her career.

07:13She's always been a very timid feminist.

07:17She doesn't describe herself as feminist.

07:18She never really put the feminist claims on her own requests or demands but she's been

07:25a woman in all of these decisions and she says it was part of what I wanted to achieve

07:31almost independently of the fact that I was a woman but of course the role model that

07:34she then became is quite important.

07:37I think she is today a little bit more at ease with, she was once asked are you a feminist

07:43and she almost wasn't able to answer.

07:45She's more at ease in saying that there is some feminism in that just having had that

07:48career and it's now being reexamined but it's also something that possibly worked because

07:54it wasn't a subject of discussion.

07:56It was just that she was a woman and she wanted to be part of these discussions.

08:01She wanted to be at the table.

08:02She wanted to be the person running the party and later the government and that made her

08:07a very unique figure and still somebody that a lot of people consider as a role model.

08:12It certainly did and that book is coming out in 30 languages so I'm sure it's something

08:15a lot of people around the world will be reading.

08:17Cornelia Wall, thanks so much for taking the time to speak to us there live from Berlin.

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