Regrets, feminism, and Trump’s ‘fascination’ with Putin: key takeaways from Merkel’s memoir 

The former German chancellor’s book Freedom gives insights on Brexit and her East German upbringing

Angela Merkel with Donald Trump in 2017: She says she made the mistake of trying to engage with him as if he were someone 'completely normal'. Picture: AP /Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Angela Merkel was notoriously discreet and privacy-conscious as Germany’s chancellor, rarely veering off message during her 16 years in office.

In her eagerly anticipated political autobiography Freedom: Memoirs 1954-2021, she has hardly turned into a gossipmonger overnight. But across 721 pages — published on Tuesday in German and English thanks to nine different translators working on chunks of the book simultaneously — there are glimpses of a Merkel previously unseen.