YouSaid · the spoken record

Angela Merkel

lines on the record: 57
first: 2024-12-09
most recent: 2024-12-09
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I don't know actually. I think it came out in 19 different countries, but the United States and Britain obviously have one translation.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To our voters, we should know what they want from us and we should contribute to their wishes becoming true, a peaceful life that is, what most people hope for. So each and everyone who does his or her own bit to society does something similar as politicians. It's a wonderful profession, but it's not the number one profession, I would say.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are so many people, let me say, who are standing up for something important. Researchers, for example, who develop vaccines, people who every day care for people in old age homes or other places. Everyone is giving his or her best. And for me, it was always a service I rendered to the people allow them to follow their passions. As a politician, However, that's the difference, is permanently in the public eye and that has good and bad sides to it. It was important for me to create a certain safe haven for me, a protective area. I never did home stories, for example, because then that you cross a boundary that would have limited my scope as well. But to take my work seriously as a politician, we have a huge task. We should make life more pleasant.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Will be possible to ensure the security of Israel on the one hand and to uphold the right of existence of Israel, that it is no longer put into question by countries or organizations, by countries such as Iran. We need to work on this. But Arab states that no longer see Israel as the number one enemy are very important in this overall concert of nations. And I wish for the Palestinians too to enjoy a peaceful and quiet life. I think it will only be possible if there is a two-state solution, although it becomes ever more due to the settlement policy ever more improbable. But I think it is a democracy, not everything is Prime Minister Netanyahu. There is a vibrant civil society there. So I do hope that Israel will chart a good course for its future and Germany will always Israel in this”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, wanted to prevent any further rapprochement between the Arab states and Israel. Something terrible happened. Everything is destroyed. I'm not altogether certain what the United States will be doing. I hope”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I do think that he does, I hope so. Anything else would not be good for the US. He once, after all, the United States to be important, to be great. And the transatlantic partnership makes America also greater. Sometimes they say we are the only beneficiaries, but that's not true. If you look at the map of the world, if you look at the sheer dimension of challenges, there are very, very good reasons for the United States of America too, for Europe and the European part to be needed by them. The Middle East. If you look at the Abram Accord, that was actually something that improved the situation, the relationship between the Arab world and Israel. And I'm a little bit afraid that this terrorist act of Hamas on the 7th of October”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Here in your podcast, I will not make any sort of predictions about what the Trump presidency too will look like. Can only say from my experience of these four years that I think he does know that cooperation also, in particular with the European Union, within NATO, is not only good for us, but also good for the United States.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And they have achieved enormously enormous things over the past few years, we mustn't say we don't want this because then perhaps a country is evolving that wants to be just as important as the United States of America. That would not be okay. The big issues, the big challenges of humankind. I mean, nobody seems to be talking about climate change and the challenges that that entails, but we will only be able to contend with these huge challenges and master them with somebody such as China as the biggest emitter.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“While my analysis is that I would very much argue, although China does have a different political system, to see to it that China is included in a rules-based international policy. I mean, for four years I've had experience to work together with Donald Trump in the previous Trump administration. They don't like multilateralism all that much. they're more transactional. They do deals between two partners, but with international organizations that actually have been established to come to multilateral results is not something that they appreciate greatly. So that makes it so difficult. I do think that China's aggressive, at least in part, aggressive ambitions need to be contained. When I think of the South China Sea, for example, we have to work for free trade. But, you know, if China is actually doing something,”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In Britain, I know this is a big issue, too. We always have to remember we have to work together with the countries of origin, with the neighboring countries along the Mediterranean, for example, come to sensible conclusions so that illegal migration is fought against, is combated because these people play, they pay traffickers enormous sums of money who play with their lives. They drown either in the Mediterranean or they drown in the English Channel. So we have to determine through legal migration who comes and who not.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Chance there were many, after all, many people fleeing the Syrian civil war. And I said, you will all get a fair hearing according to international rules. You will then be either allowed to stay or you will have to leave. The alternative would have been to take very stringent border patrol measures such as sending water cannons, pushing them back to Austria. For me, this was not something that I considered to be correct. But at the same time, I knew obviously that I had to do something in order to prevent every day coming 10,000 of people. And together with Mark Roche and the European Union, we concluded that the agreement with Turkey, which actually then led to a reduction in the flow of refugees, 95%. We gave money to the people there so that they could be making a living for themselves in Turkey, be closer than their home.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think they evolved already during the Euro crisis when we were talking about a common currency, these envy complexes, our good Deutschmark would save us, would put us in a better position evolved then. And then once we were able to manage that euro crisis, it became stronger later on during the refugee crisis. But the question you face as a politician invariably is you had these refugees there. They were along the German border, on Union territory, and I knew that it's not always popular to receive so many refugees, but we have a set of values, have we not? I mean, we give these nice Sunday speeches how much we stand up for human rights, and I didn't say each and every refugee is allowed to stay in Germany. I said you will be given a fair opportunity.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Just because we're changing over from the Russian theme to something else. Let me say something in the end. Anything I said just now doesn't justify in any way this aggression, this war of aggression that is in direct contravention of international law that Putin did. And you can understand why the Russian population is in such dire straits. This is against peaceful life. After 2015, I actually realized how often I use this particular phrase before and how differently it was seen after. Whenever you see a problem that is extraordinary, that is perhaps difficult. I always thought, well, will we manage that or won't we? And I actually tried to encourage myself and also others by saying, we can do this. It was reinterpreted, if you like, in the way that I had invited everyone to come because we will be able to do this. But that's not truth or it's simply nonsense, quite frankly.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In a way, incorporated into the state structure and very close to the state. All of this, that people really cannot determine their own fate is in direct contravention to a democratic development. And this is the Poles, the Baltics have totally different traditions. I've had also totally different traditions. And in Russia, there is no tradition really to hark back to. I had a wish fee, I would have loved after 1990 to see an economic and liberal development for people in Russia to be better than it is and that it was yet.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, I would actually wish for Russia to enjoy a democratic and prosperous development. The Russian population doesn't have a good life under this leadership. And I very often thought about how we can bring democracy to Russia. For example, also this privatization that was pursued by the United States that you give certain shares to each and everyone, to people and saying, now you can participate in wealth. Well, most people actually at the time used it to make quick money and then spent the money or give the shares away. So there was a huge concentration of property rights, which actually prevented a proper middle class, perhaps with smaller business, for example, to develop. The situation that we naturally have, also the separation of the clergy and the state and the church, if you like, in Russia is...”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think he thought that he was the best person for Russia. He firmly believed that. And I was certain of that. At the very latest, when he said that to me, but I think he thought that he was the right president for this country. He's not a Democrat. I mean, how do you actually see whether somebody is a Democrat? Well, when that person accepts that he can vote it or she can vote it at a loss. But he always wants to be accepted and be in power.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Nation, although he should know better, he defined opponents such as NATO, for example, who actually weren't opponents. I mean, the NATO is no longer, Nature today is no longer the native of the Cold War. I mean, it is set up in the way it was, but we no longer have a Cold War. But he needed an external opponent in order to restore strength nationally and show pride.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that was his plan. He looked very closely at how matters developed in the 90s, and he knew exactly what he didn't want. But he doesn't understand, or maybe he didn't want to understand what an enormous boon freedom can be, what enormous luck. Describe this at one point in time. He thought that any kind of democratization movement, for example in Ukraine, the Orange Revolution, that this was influenced by the West. He could simply not or didn't want to envisage that people actually wish for that as the American Constitution says the pursuit of happiness. It's something like that exists. So there was a genuine clash of two completely different visions of the world. And I believe in order to strengthen his own”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He didn't know that much about economy, about economic prosperity. So very quickly, he resorted to restoring this strength with methods he had learned as a KGB agent. He was actually able to domesticate, if you like, the oligarchs, to tame them. They were allowed to operate, but only under him under the premise that...”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is somebody who, as a president, was seen by the Russians to lead them out of this chaos, out of these superiority through the oligarchs, the fact that the economy was collapsing by transitioning it to market economy. They wanted people to get their wages, to work against inflation, where not everything is eaten up by 50 to 60 percent of inflation. And Putin, and I think that's something that he was actually quite clear about from the beginning, this incredible sentence that he said, the worst event to him was the collapse of the 20th century, was the collapse of the Soviet Union. And I said, quite frankly, I thought Nazism, national socialism was the worst event of the 20th century. But he wanted to turn Russia into an important power again. That was what he was after all the time. And I think”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I believe that we have to look at how the fall of the war, what sort of repercussions it had on Russia. And with the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia obviously lost a lot of its importance, its weight. And Russia has not been able under freedom to develop so successfully its economy as many other countries were able to do. With Putin,”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The countries of the Western Balkans, we promised that they would be members of the EU. None of them is member of the EU. And so there's a lot of disappointment out there. And I was very careful in what I promised them. They always, as Central and Eastern European countries wanted to have their comrades with them, wanted to have the others with them. But I always said, let's be careful there. Let us not overstretch the Union. And it's most important that the Western Balkan countries are not disappointed that they get a decent chance to be at the table.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The union has become much more complicated with different traditions, also as regards the relationship with Russia. Many of the Central and Eastern Europeans had dramatically difficult experiences when they were part of the communist empire with them. But the handling of the EU, the sheer handling of the EU with so many member states is different than in those times when there were less than 10 people, because each and every one of those 27 wants to take the floor. It's much more difficult to find compromises than the number of net payers has been reduced, and the recipient countries have become more because economically speaking, quite a lot of those new countries were not so strong because of their socialist background. So things have become more complicated, more costly.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think on the one hand, the European Union did thus have didn't use its advantages, particularly of the internal market, because I think otherwise we would all be much weaker. We also, I think, concluded sensible trade agreements with certain parts of the world, which is important too. But through the accession of the Central and Eastern European countries,”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But allow me to conclude by saying it would never have been enough for those who simply didn't want to be a member of the EU. So yes, the European Union quite often is very bureaucratic, which is why I was so sad about Britain leaving, because you were always making the point of competitiveness needing to be there. And that's also something I write, I felt abandoned. I mean, your country is such a great country. Also, you're globally important. Churchill gave a speech in Zurich. You're part of Europe and all of a sudden, such a country is leaving the European Union. I felt disappointed and abandoned, yes? But, I mean, for the British, this didn't play a great role. I mean, you live here.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Question Could I one have done more? Well, it's a question I ask myself time and time again. But I do think we actually try to accommodate David Cameron at the time and Britain and we were actually people were laughing about us when Tony Blair, it was about the post-workers directive. You allowed people from Central and Eastern Germany coming into the country and pick up Oreg immediately and we had transition periods. It helped you in your economy. The economy boomed. Later on it was a burden because the families lived here, you had additional cost. We didn't do this. And maybe in a way we were therefore had less rapid growth for a number of years.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, firstly, I think that political action, one political measure actually also entails another one. So if you take a political decision out of a free will, and what I say about Damien Cameron, I worked well together with him, is my opinion. He may see it differently, but I had the impression that he had actually delivered himself into the hands of those who were skeptical towards Europe and who was asking for more and for more and for more again. All the way until the referendum. Maybe under different circumstances one might have thought it can be won because it was, after all, not a landslide win for the levers.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, certainly the global financial crisis, the euro crisis, and the flows of migration, Brexit, an incredible event from my point of view. I hadn't bargained for that. I would never have thought this possible. And then COVID, obviously, the pandemic, I suppose, was probably in many ways the toughest because I always said it's actually imposed so many things on people in a democracy when you have to limit their freedom of movement just to save lives. Sorry, something I forgot. Ukraine, the war of aggression of Russia, which actually happened after my term had ended, but the annexation of Crimea happened during my term, and the Russian interference in Donbass, that was something that showed very clearly that this hopeful path of 1990 that finally Russia would be part of a more open world, that this unfortunately was not as successful as we had hoped.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Americans, they always spent money as if there was no tomorrow. And I said, what about the debt burden for future generations? And we lived through the euro crisis very quickly because there were a number of countries who lived above their means, who incurred enormous debt. And there was pressure.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know where I said that in the book, but obviously there was pressure. I mean, think of the global financial crisis I must say, from my point of view, it was incredible how we could get there. I came from the GDI. I knew the command economy. I was so happy that we had social market economy finally. And then the bankings, the banking sector creates such a drama, shows no sense of responsibility is sort of putting fire to the whole world. And then all of a sudden all of the states needed to step in. All of a sudden, everyone was calling for the state with huge programs. We had to prevent the banks, where to help the banks and prevent huge masses of people lost their job. And I was so disappointed about their lack of responsibility, of a sense of responsibility. That was a tough hour. I felt a lot of responsibility there, a lot of pressure. There were very different cultures, very different clash of civilizations. If you had also the British under Gordon Brown, you had the...”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I found a good rhythm. I had time from time to time that I made for myself to read and to have some leisure time, not to make too many because otherwise you're so you're always busy, you know, you're restless, you don't have any idea anymore what's important and what not. So trying to keep for myself this certainty what is important and what not.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, after my election and when the coalition was put together briefly before I gave my oath of office, I was hugely doubtful whether I was able to do that. But once you're elected, once you're in this position, and when you thought about this hard and long before that, usually it works. And it was obviously, I had a very full agenda, very full calendar when I was traveling. What's so great was that I had so many people in logistics and preparing, in giving me good papers. I didn't have to find out all the facts for myself that supported me enormously. I had great people to ask questions to and was getting good answers. So that was very good, but it was also necessary because there were still so many decisions left that you had to make every day. So my day was rather full. I love to do that. I love doing that. And then after a brief period of time, I think...”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's very important to see that in situations where a country has difficulties, political difficulties, you don't lord it over them. You don't sort of gloat, but that you're very sensitive and that you show the sensitivity towards your partner and that you don't hurt the partner. Because otherwise these when you hurt someone, this hurt will be something that will remain ingrained in the other person's psyche and also in this historical legacy. So when there were difficult situations with those countries with whom I was in a relation, I always tried to be helpful and understanding.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I believe that Franco-German cooperation is a political one, but it is also rooted in our history. In the experience that if we work against one another, we have always invariably brought trouble and suffering over us. In France, the situation is anything but easy right now. Also in Germany, there's a new election. I don't want to comment. As you know, I'm out of politics.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The question of the right moment in time, Kairos, if you like, is very important and decides whether you can be successful or not. In the book, I write that later on once I had actually left office, I bought a sculpture of Kairos, if you like serendipity, something like that. You should either, you grasp that particular opportunity or you allow it to pass, you buy. And my experience was that people quite often weren't able to wait, that they jumped the gun, as it were. And then, if you're in a competition situative, it's not so good because then others already know your hand. Waiting until the bright moment comes, yes, well, that's, I believe, something that I've been quite good at.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From the same, but from the same generation. Now he has this opportunity. Obviously at the time he was not particularly happy with the outcome of this, with the fact that I prevailed. But these competitions are among men sort of a daily occurrence and patience, okay, patience. Well,”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, if there is, I think, for any kind of life, this particular stroke of luck at this particular moment in time is important. Had I been born, I don't know, 20 years before that, I would not have lived to see that happening. I was lucky, yes. I was lucky to have been born into a historical period that made this possible for me. When you talk about Friedrich Matz, obviously that was something I had to contend with. Friedrich Max and I both of us were gifted. We were very different, but only one could be head, could be boss, if you like. So that was obviously, that's, I mean, you, men have that every day in politics, sometimes also between men and women. And so in this competition, in this rivalry, I was the one to prevail. What's interesting is that he is now the candidate for the chancellorship. So years after...”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you see, from my perspective, I actually thought to keep my powder dry for these very important moments, not every day hitting sort of my fist on the table, as it were, but there are always certain crossroads where you have to show, I think, what you call leadership. But in the in-between time, you don't have to do that all the time, throw your weight around, as it were. But there are moments like this. And it's nice of you to say so, because sometimes people say they accuse me of never actually coming up with any kind of decision, but sometimes I did. And sometimes people didn't like that once I did it.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was a leap into the void, if you like. There was no protection, no net, if you like. Actually, Democratia Christiana was something that came to my mind. I thought they were not able to deal with this donations issue. They were basically collapsing. I didn't want that to happen to the CDU. So this is why I wrote this article, but I didn't know what this would end up. And it was interesting because the intermediate level in the CDU, there were quite a lot who criticized me. I had supporters, but they were the ones who criticized me most harshly. The ordinary members, the foot soldiers in the party, if you like, they knew exactly what was at stake and they supported me. And so I navigated a set of regional conferences at the level of the federal level and the low-level”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Title that clearly called out this what I thought was not only a mistake but an offense in a way. I learned a lot of Himmakul. I admired him so much but I could do this still because I was not part of the old boys network. I wasn't homegrown, so to speak, to the CDU. I did have a little bit of a distance and a different vantage point.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For the environment, which was a huge step for me, but also a joy because I was allowed to chair the first climate conference, COP1. John Gammer was my colleague there, my counterpart. And it was such a joy to me to discover the world, to discover globalization, to get a feel for what this means. And then later on, we were voted out of office. There was a change in government. It was such a stroke of luck that Wolfgang Sch ⁇ uble appointed me Secretary General. So that made it possible for me to get the party better, to also be a little bit creative in my profession. And then when the donations, the party donations scandal erupted and Corps was embroiled in that, I think that was probably the beginning of my then success story later on. I wrote an article in the Frankfurter Allegheny.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First, I have to say that at the time I was in a favorable situation because I was relatively young. I was a woman and I came from the east, so I ticked all the boxes for cabinet member. The quota was filled and Hamut Kohl actually used this. He appointed me Minister for Women. There was a big government department, youth, senior citizens and women and split this up among three. I was given sort of the women's resource and the women's. Familiarly obviously that's something that in the CDU was so important that they wouldn't entrust it to me because I was not married. I didn't have children and so on. And it was actually a great boon to me because it's a small, it was a small ministry. I was able to land in little baby steps. How does an administration work? How does this particular field of politics work? So I was able to cope. Then I became ministry.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Played an enormous role. There was compensation paid for out, for example, those people who had been disappropriate. But this disadvantage in our biography, what it meant that you were not allowed to study because I was against the state, what sort of time I lost for my life when I was in jail, for example, for political reasons. These compensations somehow were on the back burner. And that horrified a lot of people, quite frankly, certainly disappointed them. So then our federal constitutional court asked for the pensions to be paid out to those who had been in the army, in the state security of the GDR, that they were in a way sort of compensated, offset. A lot of money was paid out to that, but those who were not allowed to study, those who were actually the victims because they had been in prison, they only got a very small amount of money.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“a true blue member of the Sidu and then he wrote about me No wonder that she who came to the CDU with the ballast of East Germany that she couldn't actually be a diet in the war member but that hurt me very much because my past to be called a dead weight if you like for the people in the GDR this was also insulting because these people under very difficult circumstances raised families worked, had interests, had friends and that somehow didn't seem to play a role. Now the second part, property in Western democracies plays rightly so a very important role in the GDR it was not it was a subordinate issue there was rarely property of for example you didn't own your plot of land because that belonged to the state later on when we had unification this particular part”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well first it was a very difficult time because the GDR as you know was from an economic point of view a very inefficiently organized state so the market economy then the introduction of market economy led to huge unemployment which was a big shock even in my constituency for example after unification 20% of the people were even years afterwards without a job on the dole. So they were not allowed if you like to participate in this new Germany as they would have liked to. Then there was this experience by the West Germans that it was so great for us to be unified again. But if I look back there was not enough curiosity with regard to us. What sort of life did we Easterners lead before that? When I stopped I spoke about my time as CDU chairperson people wrote is she actually part”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So called DSU Democratic Social Union, a little bit similar to the Bavarian CSU, and democratic awakening. So we felt like those who had stood up, the new ones, the decent ones who were not part of the bloc parties, and so we could survive this time. actually merging with the CDU and then at the unification party we became the whole CDS.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was obviously a huge disappointment because their program, the political program was something and their platform that I was completely convinced of social market economy combined with environmental approach. But people voted for parties. I mean, they also saw West German television during GDR times. So they were voting for parties they were familiar with. The CDU, for example, was a so-called block party that was somehow affiliated to the SED, but people knew Helmut Kohl, so they didn't really choose the CDU when they saw CDU, they thought of Kohl, many of them. But then something happened that I think was very intelligent, a very intelligent move by the Western CDU, because as partners in the election campaign in 1990, they did not only sort of incorporate the CDU, but also the”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Minutes maybe, but and then everything as I saw, all the important thing were mentioned. But then later on, I was actually shocked to hear myself speaking for a longer period of time. So that was interesting.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Person sort of looking after the computers then because they didn't have a Pressbooksman became a press spokesperson for their party then later on deputy spokesperson for the then GDR government but I was more if you like doing the service routine for the politicians and I looked at matters observed matters until German unification was achieved and I did not always go in line with those who were for whom I worked and I thought well maybe I should be a candidate I was looking for a constituency and then what was difficult to me at first was to always say the same thing because of the politician you have to repeat repeat repeat and and only then people understand they become accustomed to your ideas and as a scientist you know the exact opposite is what is expected from you each and every presentation needs to contain a new element in the beginning I had a very hard time talking at all five or six”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think I should say in the beginning that in West Germany I would probably not have studied physics. I also studied physics because actually I was quite good. I wasn't such a bad scientist either, but I actually was much more interested in people than in figures. But the natural sciences in the GDR actually had the advantage that 2 plus 2 was still four and gravity was still gravity. In the natural sciences, you couldn't bend matters. You couldn't interpret it the way the party wanted. And this is why I studied physics. Later on, when I had the possibility to sort of get closer to people, understand them a little bit more, I was of the conviction we needed new politicians, not the old guard in the GDR. So I want to join one of the newly established parties, Democratic Awakening. And the first thing I did, however, was being sort of a service.”
2024-12-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 111. Angela Merkel: Putin, Trump, and Europe's future · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source