Angela Merkel recounts being the first and only in new memoir

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🗓️ 26 November 2024

⏱️ 17 minutes

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Summary

In her new memoir, Angela Merkel writes about the many dilemmas she had to navigate as Chancellor of Germany. Dilemmas her male colleagues never had to sweat. Like, can you wear a pantsuit instead of a skirt in the Bundestag, Germany's parliament? She decided the answer was, yes.

Merkel is the only woman ever to rise to the most powerful political post in Germany. She served as chancellor from 2005 to 2021.

Angela Merkel has gone toe-to-toe with world leaders like Vladimir Putin, led Germany through times of turmoil and become a role model for other women aspiring to positions of leadership. But her legacy is complex.

She gets into all of this in her new memoir, "Freedom."

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Few people in the world can claim to have worked closely with the last four American presidents.
0:07.2	Angela Merkel is one of them, the first woman to lead Germany.
0:11.4	She worked with President George W. Bush on climate change shortly after she became Chancellor in 2005.
0:17.8	I thank you for your leadership on this issue, and I'm looking forward to working with our fellow
0:21.3	GA members.
0:22.2	Thank you all.
0:23.2	I must make me, very heartily, for your
0:26.5	power for your fulngstereke here, and I'm for me on the
0:28.8	meeting.
0:31.0	Hurt.
0:31.2	Thank you.
0:31.7	That's what I said?
0:33.2	That's good.
0:35.4	Great.
0:36.4	Almost 100%.
0:37.3	Almost 100%. Almost 100%.
0:38.4	Merkel called Barack Obama a friend, and the pair shared an unwavering commitment to the post-World War
0:46.1	II global order.
0:47.3	Our alliance with our NATO partners has been a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy for nearly
0:52.0	70 years in good times and in bad, and through
0:55.1	presidents of both parties, because the United States has a fundamental interest in Europe's
1:00.6	stability and security. The commitment that Angola and I share to this guiding principle has
	...

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