Freedom

For 16 years, Angela Merkel was Chancellor of Germany. She led the country through numerous crises, shaping both Germany and international politics with her actions and attitudes. In her memoirs, cowritten with her long-time political advisor Beate Baumann, she reflects on her life in two German states _ 35 years in the German Democratic Republic, 35 years in reunited Germany. More intimately than ever before, she talks about her childhood, youth, and studies in the GDR and the dramatic year of 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell and her political life began.