THE CHANCELLOR
THE REMARKABLE ODYSSEY OF ANGELA MERKEL
KATI MARTON
William Collins, 344pp, £25 The first English-language biography of Germany’s joint-longest-serving Chancellor, by Hungarian-american Kati Marton, was received very differently on either side of the Atlantic. It was favourably received by the New York Times, where Jacob Heilbrunn called it a ‘masterpiece of discernment and insight’, but it drew stinging notices from UK reviewers. They all, though, granted that Marton’s task was made exceptionally difficult by Merkel’s intensely private lifestyle and refusal to give interviews.
Peter Conradi in the Sunday Times conceded that Marton gave ‘lively descriptions’ of Merkel’s top-level meetings, thanks to the high-ranking movers and shakers she interviewed. As the widow of Richard Holbrooke, US ambassador to Germany 1993-94, she had also met the Chancellor. This closeness, though, led her to an almost ‘sycophantic’ approach that didn’t view Merkel’s legacy critically, especially her handling of the 2015 refugee crisis.
The Times’s Oliver Moody similarly commended Marton for her supply of anecdotes but deplored her inaccuracies and ignorance of European politics. ‘The book’s account of virtually every aspect of Germany’s political system, from coalition formation to Covid policy, is variously shallow, incomplete, misleading or flatly wrong.’
In the Guardian, Philip Oltermann disputed Marton’s depiction of Merkel as a feminist and suggested she found Merkel commendable as the not-trump, her chancellorship ‘gossip-proof’. He was still waiting for a study that probed Merkel’s private motivations: ‘Marton’s diligently compiled but often overly reverential chronological overview is not it.’
It’s an almost ‘sycophantic’ approach