Merkel : endgame

Angela Merkel is not who you think she is. The German Chancellor was defined by her humanitarian response to the 2015 migrant crisis.

She paid a high price in public approval and at the ballot box for opening Germany’s borders.

Her unrivalled authority has gone but it would be a mistake to consider Merkel has lost her appetite for power. This timely reappraisal of Europe’s longest-serving elected leader shows what really happened behind the scenes of the refugee drama and Merkel’s scramble to survive its aftermath.

It shows how she remained ruthlessly calculating throughout the challenges of her re-election campaign in her determination to preserve her position and her legacy. To many, Angela Merkel remains an enigma. This book probes behind her carefully constructed façade to give readers the inside story of her historic return to power and an insight into what she still aims to achieve as she enters the endgame of her chancellery. David Charter has been Berlin bureau chief of The Times since 2011.

He has contacts at the highest levels of German power who have revealed what really makes Merkel tick.