When Angela Merkel met Donald Trump at the White House in 2017, he avoided shaking her hand for photographers – even after she whispered to him that they should.
“As soon as I said that, I shook my head inwardly at myself,” the former German chancellor writes in her 720-page memoir.
“How could I have forgotten that Trump knew exactly what effect he wanted to achieve.”
In 2005, Ms Merkel was the first woman to rise to Germany’s highest office before stepping down in 2021.
During her 16 years in power, she served alongside four US presidents, four French presidents and five British prime ministers.
In her new memoir, titled Freedom, she takes aim at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “power games” and US president-elect Donald Trump’s fascination with authoritarian leaders.
Seeking the pope’s advice on Trump
Ms Merkel reveals that she sought advice from Pope Francis on how to deal with Trump when he was first elected US president.
Angela Merkel says Donald Trump saw everything “from the perspective of the property developer”. (Reuters: Jonathan Ernst)
In extracts published by German newspaper Die Zeit, Ms Merkel hoped to find ways of convincing a man she saw as having a property developer’s winner-or-loser mentality not to quit the Paris climate accords.
“He saw everything from the perspective of the property developer he was before entering politics,” she writes.
“Each parcel of land could only be sold once, and if he didn’t get it someone else did. That’s how he saw the world.”
Ms Merkel says she asked Pope Francis in general terms for advice on dealing with people “with fundamentally different views”.
But, she writes that the pope immediately understood she was referring to Trump and his desire to quit the climate accord.
“Bend, bend, bend, but make sure it doesn’t break,” Pope Francis told Ms Merkel, according to her account.
Angela Merkel says Donald Trump viewed all countries as being in competition with each other. (Reuters: Annegret Hilse)
Written before Trump’s re-election, the book expresses the “heartfelt hope” that Vice-President Kamala Harris would defeat her rival.
Trump ‘obviously very fascinated’ by Putin
In her memoir, Ms Merkel details how Trump viewed all countries as being “in competition with each other, in which the success of one was the failure of the other”.
“For years, the many German cars on the streets of New York had been a thorn in his side,” she writes.
“That Americans were buying them could, in his opinion, only be due to dumping prices and alleged exchange rate manipulation between the euro and the dollar.”
In her memoir, Ms Merkel writes that Donald Trump is captivated by “politicians with autocratic and dictatorial traits”. (Reuters: Marcos Brindicci)
Ms Merkel also recounts getting the impression from Trump that he was interested in the “dictatorial traits” shown by other world leaders.
“He was obviously very fascinated by the Russian president,” Ms Merkel writes.
“In the years that followed I had the impression that politicians with autocratic and dictatorial traits captivated him.
“We talked on two different levels. Trump on an emotional level, me on a factual one.
“For him, all countries were in competition with each other, in which the success of one was the failure of the other.
“He did not believe that co-operation could increase the prosperity of all.”
Putin’s power games
Similar to being denied a handshake from Trump, Ms Merkel recounts a moment where Putin kept her waiting at the Group of Eight summit she hosted in 2007.
“If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s unpunctuality,” she writes.
When Ms Merkel visited Putin’s residence at the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi that same year, Putin’s black labrador Cony was present during a photo opportunity – Ms Merkel says the Russian president knew she was afraid of dogs.
Putin appeared to enjoy the situation, she writes, and she didn’t bring it up — keeping as she often did to the motto “never explain, never complain.”
Knowing she was afraid of dogs, Vladimir Putin let his Labrador roam around during a meeting with Angela Merkel. (AP: Mikhail Metzel)
Merkel says she was irritated by Mr Putin’s “self-righteousness” in a 2007 speech in Munich in which he turned away from earlier attempts to develop closer ties with the US.
She said that appearance showed Mr Putin as she knew him, “as someone who was always on guard against being treated badly and ready to give out at any time, including power games with a dog and making other people wait for him.”
“One could find this all childish and reprehensible, one could shake one’s head over it — but that didn’t make Russia disappear from the map,” she writes.
Ms Merkel writes that she experienced Mr Putin as “someone who didn’t want to be disrespected, ready to lash out at all times”.
At one point she appears to suggest that Mr Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine was timed to follow her departure from office.
“You won’t always be chancellor, and then they’ll join NATO,” he said of Ukraine. “And I want to prevent that.”
Some Central and Eastern European leaders, she added, had been guilty of wishful thinking.
“They seem to want the country to just disappear, to not exist. I couldn’t blame them … But Russia, heavily nuclear armed, did exist.”
Obama told Merkel to ‘follow her feelings’
Ms Merkel’s memoir has been released in more than 30 countries, but she will launch the book in the US next week at an event in Washington with former US president Barack Obama.
The pair formed a close political relationship when they were both in office, with Ms Merkel concluding after their first meeting in 2008 that they could work well together.
Angela Merkel discussed her decision to step down with Barack Obama, who encouraged her to follow her heart. (AP: Michael Sohn)
More than eight years later, during his last visit as president in November 2016, she was one of the people with whom she discussed whether to seek a fourth term.
Mr Obama, she says, asked questions but held back with an opinion, and that in itself was helpful.
He “said that Europe could still use me very well, but I should ultimately follow my feelings,” she writes.
There was no such warmth with Trump, who had criticised Ms Merkel and Germany in his 2016 campaign.
Ms Merkel was still popular with voters at the end of 16 years in office.
However, her legacy has come under greater scrutiny, with some blaming the huge bets on Russian energy made by her governments for both Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and Germany’s current economic doldrums.
In recent years, her own conservative party has distanced itself from its former leader, who has herself expressed little regret about her actions and largely kept a low profile since leaving office.
ABC/wires
