Original subtitles

In Their Own Words was made possible in part

by contributions to your PBS station,

from viewers like you. Thank you.

Narrator: From two World Wars...

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

to the inhumanities of the Holocaust,

to enduring Communist aggression,

Germany's history is one to be reckoned with.

But at a time when the country

was facing an uncertain future,

one woman would emerge

intent on creating a new Germany.

A country free of the shadows of the past

and a steadfast vision

of a moral and principled future.

Angela Merkel: Letting go of the old,

is part of the new beginning.

Narrator: Her formative years were spent

locked behind the Iron Curtain.

Flula Borg: East Germany was a very different place

from West Germany.

Jennifer Jenkins: The Stasi is the East German

secret police.

George W. Bush: It was a very secretive life.

Her mother would say to her,

don't speak in public

for fear of the Stasi.

Narrator: A quantum chemist

covertly studying Western politics

from inside the Eastern Bloc.

Stefan Kornelius:: Angela Merkel basically had two lives,

a person who knew how to handle secrets,

and a person who sucked in

everything she could get from

Western democracy.

(crowd shouting and cheering)

Narrator: But when the Wall would fall,

the scientist was set free.

Kati Marton: She took off her lab coat!

Hillary Clinton: She wanted to help build a new Germany.

Narrator: Liberated, she would climb the ranks

of German government.

Jenkins: She's like a master chess player,

she's shrewd and strategic.

She's constantly underestimated,

which in a way becomes like her superpower.

(crowd chanting) Angie! Angie! Angie!

Narrator: Angela Merkel took on

the male dominated establishment

to become the country's first woman Chancellor.

Merkel: Openness always involves risks.

Surprise yourself

with what is possible.

Narrator: During her nearly two decade run,

she saw her homeland endure

countless crises.

Refugee: We are human, just like you!

Narrator: But no matter how heavy the burden,

Merkel remained methodical,

composed and restrained.

Jenkins: She gives this impression of being very quiet,

but there's a roaring engine in there.

G.W. Bush: She was a value-laden politician

who also had the capacity to solve problems.

Narrator: Angela Merkel evolved

into one of the world's most respected leaders,

a powerful woman who quietly and cautiously,

chipped away at the glass ceiling,

until she shattered it, like no other.

Merkel: Nothing can be taken for granted,

everything is possible. Thank you.

(applause)

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

♪ ♪

(crowd shouting)

H. Clinton: It was astounding when the Wall fell.

(crowd cheering)

I'm not sure many people

thought that they would see

such a total collapse

of the Soviet Union.

(crowd cheering)

And the freeing of East Germany

and all the rest of what we

used to call the countries behind the Iron Curtain.

It was a moment of real exhilaration.

(crowd cheering)

G.W. Bush: All of a sudden,

freedom became available

to all of Germany.

Borg: I think we were just so pumped and it felt

like a very exciting time

of possibility and friendship.

Jenkins: When the Wall comes down, a lot of people

rush to this incredible happening,

they dance on top of the Wall.

(crowd cheering)

Angela Merkel doesn't go.

It's really interesting that she's not in that crowd.

Kornelius: She decided to go to bed.

Marton: That is part of the complex story

that shaped Angela Merkel.

And it all starts

in her extraordinary childhood.

Christoph Heusgen: Angela Merkel was born

in Hamburg, in West Germany.

Her father was a

protestant pastor,

but then was asked by the Church

to go and serve in East Germany.

H. Clinton: But, East Germany was under

Soviet Communist oppression.

Borg: East Germany was a very different place

from West Germany, it was dark and gray.

The buildings were frozen in time.

Jenkins: The existence of the East and West German states

is a result of the defeat of Nazi Germany,

♪ (dramatic music) ♪ (artillery fire)

which then created

some opposing German states,

one in the West Bloc, one in the East Bloc.

G.W. Bush: There was two different political systems,

one that was open and free,

and one that was closed and suspicious.

Borg: Looking at East Germany,

and I did go a few times as a child,

it is like if you have been to a restaurant

and they show you the desserts,

and they are the desserts they made in the morning,

that they have hair-sprayed to preserve themselves.

That is what East Germany looked like to me.

You go and everything is like, 'oh, this is 1955,'

it's just perfectly preserved, the signs,

the walls, everything, nothing has been touched.

It's a very strange thing.

And then you look left and it's 'oh, capitalism, hi.'

Marton: It was a dictatorship,

it was an authoritarian government,

it was a surveillance state.

Jenkins: Angela Merkel was just three months old

when they moved to a parish

about 50 kilometers north of Berlin.

♪ (soft dramatic music) ♪

Marton: The crucial pieces

that shaped Angela Merkel

are the fact that she was

the daughter of a pastor

in an atheist state,

where religion was basically illegal.

Kornelius: Their church was a hotbed

for opposition movement,

for uprising against the system.

So Angela's family were watched

by the East German secret police.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

Jenkins: The Stasi is the East German secret police.

East Germany has in the Stasi

these things called the IM's.

And the IM's are the informal collaborators.

And there are hundreds of thousands of these.

So, you were not on the payroll of the Stasi,

but you informed... the people you worked with,

you informed on your neighbors,

on your family members.

Heusgen: You become very careful.

You look twice before you do something.

You also look twice at people

that you get to know to see,

can I trust the person or not?

G.W. Bush: She used to tell me that her mother

would say to her, 'don't speak in public

for fear of the Stasi

learning things they shouldn't know about our family.'

In other words, it was a very secretive life.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

♪ ♪

Kornelius: One time, the Stasi approached her

and wanted to recruit her as an informal informant.

♪ ♪

Marton: Merkel was trained from

her earliest childhood

to be ready for the Stasi to try to recruit her,

and so she had her lines ready.

♪ ♪

She told them that she was a chatterbox.

♪ ♪

Kornelius: The attempt to recruit her didn't work,

she told the Stasi that she couldn't keep a secret

and that really deterred that.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

George Packer: In 1953, there was an uprising

of East German workers,

and it was brutally repressed

by the East German state.

♪ ♪

And it was a message to East Germans

that there would not be any room

for political opposition, for freedom.

And that precipitated a move, a migration of East Germans

out of the country and to the West.

♪ ♪

Jenkins: Around three and-a-half million people

moved from East to West

between 1949 and 1961.

♪ ♪

People thought they had better professional opportunities

in West Germany,

but also the freedom to travel,

the freedom of expression.

♪ ♪

But then it was clear that

this labor drain was too much

and that it was young people and skilled people.

It was a problem for the state.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

♪ ♪

The Wall goes up overnight.

♪ ♪

That morning, the people who are looking out their windows,

trying to see, are waving at people

on the other side of the street.

It went up very suddenly, very dramatically,

and very definitively.

It cut the city apart.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

Merkel: I lived near the Berlin Wall.

I walked towards it every day.

Behind it laid West Berlin, freedom.

And every day when I was very close to the wall,

every day I had to turn away from freedom at the last minute.

I don't know how often I thought

that I just couldn't take it anymore.

Kornelius: Angela Merkel basically had

two lives she lived in,

one was physically being in East Germany,

being a citizen of that repressive state,

on the other side, being a free mind.

She could listen to West German radio,

listened to debates of West German parliament.

She sucked in everything she could get from

basically the Western system, democracy.

♪ (joyful music) ♪

♪ ♪

Merkel: There was one thing that this wall could not do

during all those years...

♪ ♪

It couldn't impose limits

on my inner thoughts.

♪ ♪

My personality, my imagination,

my dreams and desires.

Prohibitions or coercion couldn't limit any of that.

Kornelius: Angela Merkel was an extremely good student.

She was the best of her entire age group

in East Germany in several subjects.

Mostly mathematics and Russian.

Marton: She was brilliant,

she could have chosen

any number of fields,

but she chose physics.

♪ (energetic music) ♪

♪ ♪

Jenkins: Angela Merkel goes to university in Leipzig

and also meets her first husband there.

Heusgen: Angela Merkel's husband, professor,

and was able to participate in

scientific conferences

in the West.

Packer: She traveled around West Germany

on the trains a bit,

and saw how

efficient and new

and modern and rich

West Germany had become.

♪ (hopeful music) ♪

♪ ♪

Ronald Reagan: Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

(crowd cheering)

(crowd chanting) Free Choice!

Journalist: The demands for reform are pouring out.

Free elections, multi-political party freedom,

and more democracy.

(crowd chanting) Germany!

H. Clinton: I'm not sure many people

thought that they would see

such a total

collapse of the Soviet Union,

and the freeing of East Germany

and all the rest of the countries

behind the Iron Curtain.

Journalist: Protests for democracy

have not been seen on this scale

in Prague for more than 20 years.

(crowd shouting)

George Bush Sr.: Gorbachev talks about a common home.

Our objective

is a Europe, whole and free.

♪

Jenkins: It's really interesting that

she's not in that crowd.

Things were really very chaotic,

it wasn't clear what was

going to happen next.

Maybe the Stasi was going to be there,

And there was a lot of uncertainty.

(crowd cheering)

Packer: On the Thursday night when

the crowds began to cross, go over the Wall,

she went back home to get a good night's sleep

before waking up and resuming her job

at the East German Academy of Sciences.

These are the actions of a woman

who is not going to be

overwhelmed by emotion

and led to do things

that she might later think were unwise.

♪ (suspenseful music) ♪

♪ ♪

H. Clinton: When the wall fell,

her world abruptly changed.

♪

And Angela realized that

she wanted to help build a new Germany.

Marton: She became ferociously ambitious.

♪

Kornelius: Politics was a newly emerging field

and she was drawn to it because she liked free speech

and she liked the honesty of debate.

♪

H. Clinton: She is solid, steady,

responsible, and empathetic.

♪

Marton: She took off her lab coat,

and started exploring

the new political parties that were coming up like mushrooms

after rain in East Germany.

♪

Kornelius: When the Wall came down,

there was a choice of about five, six newly developed

and emerging parties, and in the end she chose

probably the most promising one

which was the Democratic Awakening.

(fireworks exploding) (church bells sounding)

Jenkins: It's affiliated with the Christian Democratic Party

which is the party of Helmut Kohl.

♪

Kornelius: After Germany was unified,

after the treaties were signed,

after both governments had agreed

on the path to unification,

Helmut Kohl formed a government of unity.

That cabinet had members from the East and the West,

and Angela Merkel, as a young female conservative

from the north east of Germany,

was chosen as one of the cabinet members.

Helmut Kohl always called Angela Merkel

"das Mädchen--the girl,"

♪

That's belittling, it's a macho word,

and Angela Merkel played along.

♪

Marton: She was a woman and therefore

not deemed to be a threat,

and was given a token portfolio

in Kohl's cabinet

as Minister for Women and Children.

But you know, she was willing to bide her time

and shield her ambition.

Jenkins: She's constantly underestimated,

which in a way becomes like her superpower.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

She's like a master chess player.

She's shrewd and strategic.

She gives this impression of being very quiet,

but there's kind of a roaring engine in there.

Marton: She was slowly, slowly climbing up

the German political ladder.

Deceiving, fooling...

all the big shots in her party.

♪

Packer: As one observer said to me,

there's a whole series of alpha males,

who underestimated her

and all of them are now in other walks of life.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

♪ ♪

Jenkins: By 1998, she becomes

the General Secretary of the

Christian Democratic Union,

so she has a very important position inside of the party.

Then the CDU enters a period of

real crisis and real scandal.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

This was a scandal over illegal donations,

over slush funds, over covert bank accounts,

that Chancellor Helmut Kohl had been involved with.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

Marton: Angela Merkel wrote an opinion piece

in Germany's most read newspaper, saying,

'it's the end of the Kohl era,

we have to restart our party.'

Kornelius: So she basically

prepared a declaration of separation.

She divorced herself from Helmut Kohl publicly,

which was unheard of.

And she put the party on a different path.

Marton: She, in effect, committed patricide,

when she turned on her mentor, Helmut Kohl.

And, she positioned herself

as the heir to the CDU.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

Merkel: The decision for Germany is obvious...

We continue like it is with Green or Red/Green parties,

or Germany goes for a new beginning with the CDU.

(crowd chanting) Angie! Angie! Angie!

Announcer: Angela Merkel!

(crowd cheering)

Supporter: She is very strong,

and she will be a wonderful Chancellor.

Woman Chancellor!

♪

(clock ticking)

Packer: There are really three things about Angela Merkel

that make her

extraordinary as a German politician.

One is that she's a woman.

There have been no women at the top of German politics

throughout German history.

Two, that she was a quantum chemist,

theoretical chemistry, a very abstract,

difficult branch of science.

And three, that she

was an East German,

the first East German

to become a leading politician

in reunified Germany.

♪ (upbeat music) ♪

And I think all three of those things together,

equipped her perfectly,

to be the politician

Germans wanted and needed at the time

she assumed power as Chancellor.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

Marton: She broke the greatest

glass ceiling in the world,

to be Chancellor of this

very male dominant political culture

that never had a queen.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

Cem Özdemir: I tell you, she's very, very good with

negotiating through the night without getting tired,

she's famous for that, at finding a compromise at 4:30,

at 5 o'clock in the morning,

and then at 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock,

explaining that in front of the cameras,

that she just had

one and-a-half hours in between to sleep,

so that's really amazing.

Marton: There were days when the only way she could tell

whether it was morning or night

was whether they were serving

bread and jam or roast.

And she overwhelms the man--

it's always a man-- across the table.

She does not leave, until she has a deal.

Packer: She was doing everything in a kind of

even-handed cool, calm way

that let Germans feel as if

their business was being taken care of

by someone else, so that they didn't have to

exert themselves too much.

So she was able to,

in a sense, be a colorless,

quiet, analytical,

calm politician,

and keep everything on an even keel.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

♪ (soft music) ♪

♪ ♪

Kornelius: She wants to foster alliances.

She wants to strengthen the European Union,

the Transatlantic Alliance, NATO,

the bonds with the United States.

That's the core of her foreign policy belief.

Heusgen: For her, the relationship

with the United States was always key.

G.W. Bush: I think Angela really appreciated the fact

that America supported

a Germany that was whole and free.

Hillary Clinton There was a connection going back

to the Cold War era and

who was really standing up for

the people under Soviet Communist oppression.

JFK: All free men,

wherever they may live,

are citizens of Berlin.

And therefore,

as a free man,

I take pride in the words,

'Ich bin ein Berliner!'

(crowd cheering)

Jenkins: The relationship with the United States

has been central to Germany.

And so with every U.S. President that comes,

she has to build that relationship.

♪ ♪

G.W. Bush: My dad was a part of this to help integrate

Germany as a whole.

And I think she appreciated it a lot.

Plus she's a person who believes in the values inherent

in a democratic society, free speech, free religion,

protests in the public square, free press.

And so, as a result, she became a good partner

because, the best alliances are based upon shared values.

♪

♪ (soft music) ♪

♪

(helicopter blades whirring)

G.W. Bush: Laura and I are thrilled to

welcome the Chancellor and Professor Sauer

here to our place.

In Texas, when you invite somebody to your home,

it...it's an expression of warmth and respect.

And, that's how I feel about Chancellor Merkel.

♪ ♪

It was a symbol of friendship.

It just meant a lot to Laura and me

to be able to share it with friends.

In Angela's case, just informal dinners, nothing fancy.

She didn't particularly care about fancy,

which is what I appreciated.

The chance for two friends,

who had a lot of pressure on 'em

to be able to relax and discuss

matters of import and matters that weren't so important.

Merkel: Okay, thank you.

H. Clinton: She did have a good relationship with George W.

He sort of fit her understanding

of what an American President was like.

She didn't quite know what to make of Barack Obama.

She was incredibly impressed by his political

and oratorical skills,

but she wasn't quite sure

how she should relate to him.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

We were together in Europe

when she asked to see me,

we went for a walk

on the outskirts of the big convention center

where this NATO meeting was being held,

because she wanted some hints about

what I could tell her

that would help her better understand

and relate to President Obama.

It was typical of Angela.

She wanted to learn,

she wanted to be prepared,

she wanted to know what kind of person he was,

what he was interested in,

how best to approach him and talk with him.

Interviewer: What was your advice on how to connect?

H. Clinton: Oh, I can't... I can't tell you that!

(laughter)

♪ ♪

Marton: Obama actually loved her.

I mean, that was the word that Ben Rhodes used

to describe the relationship

between Obama and Merkel,

that it came close to love.

♪

♪ (upbeat music) ♪

Heusgen: When you live in the daily life

of a communist country,

like the chancellor did,

you become very careful.

So a certain dose of skepticism is there.

She'll continue to have this during her professional life.

When you look at her advisors,

they all stayed for years and years and years.

♪

Marton: I've spent a lot of time

getting to know her really very small inner circle.

♪

You know, three or four people.

Her team is that loyal, that protective of her.

There has not been a single leak

nor a single tell-all

memoir or biography, nothing.

♪

Packer: There's a kind of emphasis on privacy in Germany

that's pretty powerful and you can imagine

why it would matter to Angela Merkel,

growing up in a system

where everyone you knew might be an informer.

♪

Privacy might be something,

that you cherish.

♪

Kornelius: Angela Merkel herself

never invited people to her home.

Nobody knows how she lives.

She never lets anybody in her private life.

What kind of furniture she has, whether she has friends,

whether she has pets. No, nobody knows.

Packer: I know almost nothing about her marriages.

She doesn't say anything about them.

Her first husband was another scientist named Ulrich Merkel.

They separated in the early 80's.

And by then she had already met Joachim Sauer,

another scientist with whom she shared a passion for...

classical music.

They married in '88

and he is almost entirely unknown.

If she's colorless, he's invisible.

Kornelius: Angela Merkel's husband never ever gave

an interview in his entire life, he's shielded off.

♪

Borg: In Germany, the First Lady or First Gentlemen

does not organize parades,

or rose garden things or tell everyone to 'be best'

or have a food pyramid.

This is, this man does not understand these things.

He's busy being a quantum chemist.

Marton: One of Angela Merkel's great challenges

was appearance.

Plays a big role in politics.

♪ (low dramatic music) ♪

♪

She had to put up with

terrible articles about how awful she looked.

She would grouse that,

'Gee, it's okay for a man to wear

the same boring blue suit

for 400 days in a row, nobody complains,

but if they see me twice in a row in the same outfit,

I get terrible letters from people.'

Merkel is often compared to

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,

who was the other historic

woman leader of contemporary times.

It's very sexist because,

really what do they have in common,

other than that they're both women?

I studied the profiles of the two

and the differences are glaring

because Thatcher was ultra-feminine,

and had this helmet of shiny, well-coiffed hair

and always with the jewelry and the little handbag.

And by the way, her bodyguards,

in addition to their sidearms,

carried her stiletto heels in their pockets.

You will never see Merkel's bodyguards

with her stiletto heels,

simply because she doesn't wear stiletto heels.

H. Clinton: I was standing with Angela

at her office in Berlin

and a German newspaper cut our heads off,

and they just showed the bodies

of two women wearing pantsuits.

♪

And basically said,

'Can you tell which one's Hillary

and which one's Angela?'

♪

And so when she came for the state visit,

she brought a framed copy

of that newspaper page,

and she presented it to me as her gift to me,

and it just caused us both to break up.

Because, you know, she usually wears a pantsuit,

and I usually wear a pantsuit.

I think that the German newspaper was kind of

tweaking both of us, but we got a huge laugh out of it.

Angela Merkel (translator): --which is very fitting gift,

because it's a gift that is only made possible by the fact

that women now have also their say in politics.

(audience applause)

It's actually revealed at the back

so that Hillary is not unduly confused.

(audience laughter/applause)

Kornelius: Most people probably don't know

that she's extremely funny.

Packer: In private, she's quite different

from the public face.

She makes fun of

world leaders who she meets.

She imitates Nicolas Sarkozy,

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia,

Al Gore.

And she's just savagely good at it.

Marton: She also has this killer dry wit.

(thump) Reporter: Oh!

Thank you very much!

♪

On a visit to German troops in Afghanistan...

...suddenly the plane starts shaking like crazy

and the lights go off

and the reporters and the diplomats on the plane are all,

you know, saying their last goodbyes.

Cool as a cucumber, when the all-clear is sounded,

Merkel turns to the general, who's commanding the mission

and says, 'So, uh, got any other entertainment for me?'

So that shows you two things.

She's got a great wit and she's very chill.

♪

♪ (tense dramatic music) ♪

Kornelius: Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin

led parallel lives.

They're almost the same age.

Angela Merkel speaks Russian fluently.

Vladimir Putin speaks German fluently.

He spent time as a KGB agent in East Germany.

Actually, when the Wall came down.

When he experienced the worst moment in his political life,

the loss of the Soviet empire, she rose in politics.

She decided to go into a democratic path

and this is where their paths diverted

and in the end, brought them together as opponents.

♪

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

When they first met, both in power,

he as a President, she as a Chancellor,

one of the first trips led her to Sochi,

where his summer residence is.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

♪ ♪

Heusgen: Before the visit, I talked to my colleague in the Kremlin,

told him, 'well, it would be good

if there would not be a dog.'

A few years before, she had an accident,

she was bitten by a dog.

(camera shutters clicking)

So, what did Putin do?

♪ ♪

H. Clinton: Vladimir Putin delights in

trying to, you know, gain the upper hand with anyone.

He's always looking for some kind of advantage

to throw the other person off balance.

And he knew very well

that bringing a big dog

to a meeting with Angela Merkel

was a sign of just

naked aggression.

♪ ♪

Vladimir Putin is a

misogynistic bully, among other things.

(Merkel talking with reporter)

Heusgen: The Chancellor just was there, very firm,

not that she expected it,

but she was ready for this kind of situation,

and she handled it marvelously.

H. Clinton: This man is a really

dangerous character

and Angela understands that,

he's an old...

...communist KGB official, she knows that,

and she knows she can't flinch,

and she knows she can't back down.

G.W. Bush: He's an interesting character.

And the fact that he would, you know, expose Angela to his dog

really speaks to,

you know, how he uses power.

I introduced Putin to Barney, our Scottish Terrier,

and, uh, he kinda dissed Barney.

His body language basically said 'you call that thing a dog?'

And y'know I love Barney, and anyway a year later,

we go visit Putin and he,

he said you wanna meet my dog?

And I said, 'yeah I'd like to meet your dog.'

I forgot about the Barney diss.

And out bounds this huge Russian hound and he looks at me

and says bigger and stronger and faster than Barney.

And uh, y'know, I didn't say anything,

as a matter of fact, it was unbelievably insightful.

Um--

To me it said, y'know,

he had a little bit of a chip on his shoulder,

to say 'my dog's bigger than your dog.'

She had a different relationship with Russia

than we did, of course.

It's important for the U.S. President to understand that.

Packer: Afterward, privately,

Merkel told the traveling press with her,

'I understand why he did that.

He has to show me he's a man.

Because he's so insecure,

and he's insecure because his country

has no economy,

their politics is just him.

He knows that they don't measure up,

and this is how he's going to

make himself feel like my equal.'

She was immediately showing

not quite empathy, but just understanding.

And that's how she has

not just survived, but thrived

in the hard world of power politics.

♪

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

Reporter: For Germany's Angela Merkel,

the G20 summit is proving to be a lonely place.

Despite pressure from around the globe,

she is insisting on doing things her way.

♪ ♪

Jenkins: Greece had a debt issue,

so did Spain and Italy.

♪ ♪

Packer: Germany had the strongest economy

in Europe by far.

And so at that point,

it became clear that the leader of Europe

was the chancellor of Germany.

It was really going to be her decisions about what to do

with German taxpayer money

in terms of bailing out Greece

and other indebted European countries.

She was caught between her attachment to Europe,

which was real and strong,

she knew that Germany needed Europe,

and her desire not to be at odds

with German public opinion,

which was 'why should our tax dollars go to the Greeks?'

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

♪ ♪

Merkel: The crisis of the Euro

means more Europe, not less Europe.

Politician: The Euro is here to stay,

and that we all mean it.

H. Clinton: One can agree or not with the stance that

Germany under her leadership took,

but she was the leader.

She was making the tough calls.

Her decision-making in the face of crisis,

has elevated her stature

beyond just being

the Chancellor of Germany.

She carried Europe on her shoulders,

in the face of the Great Recession.

Packer: Throughout that period,

her approval ratings were like 75%,

just unheard of for any Western politician.

(crowd shouting)

Jenkins: The migrant crisis, really the,

the background for that is

the Syrian civil war.

So, they are coming mainly from Syria,

but not only from Syria, also from Iraq,

from Afghanistan, from Libya,

taking what's called the 'Balkan route' from Turkey,

then crossing over into Greece

and then coming up through the Balkans.

They wanted to get to Germany.

Kornelius: Those thousands, flocking the highways,

sitting in trains and buses,

people in deep, deep troubles,

Germany was the country with the best conditions for them

to apply for asylum and

to be taken care of

physically and economically.

Jenkins: In September of 2015,

countries on the Balkan route

were starting to close their doors.

And Hungary was literally putting up barbed wire.

Kornelius: They were basically stopped in Hungary

and couldn't make it further.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

Refugee: We are human, just like you.

♪

Just like everybody, in Hungary and all over,

America and everywhere. We are human.

Heusgen: For the Chancellor,

it was clear, 'I don't want

these kind of images of Europe

go around the world.'

This is not the Europe that I want to build.

Merkel: I am convinced that in particular, Germany,

the strongest economy in Europe,

has to accept a special responsibility in these times.

Özdemir: She had to make a decision

in a very short period of time.

♪ ♪

In an ideal world, she would have

assembled European leaders,

and take a joint decision.

♪ ♪

Angela Merkel, who always was extremely careful

not to show emotions,

here took a quick decision,

showed emotions.

Merkel: Germany is a strong country.

The motivation behind our

approach to these things must be:

we have achieved so much-- we can do this!

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

♪ ♪

H. Clinton: When other leaders were

throwing up their hands and

closing their borders and playing the,

you know, immigrant scapegoat card,

she was standing up for, you know,

the 'better angels' of our, our nature.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

Özdemir: She reminded that the name of her party

is Christian Democrats.

Christian values are not

the values of, you know,

watching people dying at your borders,

or starving at your borders,

but helping.

Merkel: We want to show that

Germany is an open country,

with a constitution that we are proud of,

and which has a good reputation in the world.

H. Clinton: Angela Merkel carried Europe on her shoulders.

She was the leader.

Özdemir: Which was cheered and applauded

by many people outside Germany.

Kornelius: The Germans were first overwhelmed

with sharing the desire to help,

but the mood changed very quickly.

(crowd shouting)

People were basically

afraid that their lifestyle,

their habits, their traditions were endangered.

Marton: Henry Kissinger said to her very bluntly,

'To give one person shelter

is a humanitarian act.

To give 1 million people shelter,

it risks German civilization.'

She didn't pay sufficient attention

to the sense of grievance

of many East Germans

who have now, many of them, joined the first

extreme right wing party in Germany since 1945,

the Alternative for Deutschland.

And that is a direct result of

this sense of 'what about us?'

Crowd (chanting): Resistance!

♪ (soft dramatic music) ♪

Özdemir: The price was that we now have the

extreme right-wing populist racist party,

both in state parliaments, as well as in

the national parliament, in the Bundestag--

The rise of right-wing

xenophobia and racism.

So she became the symbol of everything

that these people hate.

Jenkins: She got a lot of criticism for

her handling of the migrant crisis.

But she also has incredible tenacity

and incredible endurance

to just keep moving forward,

and to do so in this very powerful way.

Angela Merkel said that because of Germany's history,

it is really vital

that Germany show a different face to the world,

to be welcoming, and to welcome people

who are fleeing persecution,

who are seeking asylum.

We must be a country of welcome, because of our history.

♪ (soft music) ♪

In the space of a year,

around a million

migrants came to Germany.

Kornelius: Angela Merkel saw in those people

their desire to escape harm and hardship,

to get into freedom,

to find a new life.

♪ ♪

Germany's historic guilt is

one of the leading themes

in Merkel's political life.

♪

She thinks that Germany

can never escape from that.

♪ (soft dramatic music) ♪

She has developed extremely good ties with the Jewish community,

is shown regularly at Jewish events,

trying to publicly make clear,

that Jewish life is an integral part of German life.

♪ (soft music) ♪

♪ ♪

She's going to synagogues,

she's participating in Torah events.

Visiting former concentration camps.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Merkel: I am filled with deep shame

in the face of the barbaric crimes

that were committed here by Germans.

♪

Crimes that cross the boundaries of everything tangible.

Filled with the horror and shock when

confronted with the crimes and horrors

inflicted upon women, men, and children in this very place,

one actually has to fall silent.

For words could not justify the grief

for all the many people

who were degraded, tormented,

and murdered here.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

♪ ♪

Charlotte Knobloch: She could have forgotten

about all of it but she didn't.

♪

That is her way.

We should give her tremendous credit for that.

Marton: So Merkel has really

transformed her country,

the birthplace

of the Third Reich,

into the world's number one

refugee destination.

♪ (dramatic music) ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Barack Obama: Michelle and I are honored

to welcome you as we host Chancellor Merkel,

the first East German

to lead a United Germany,

the first woman Chancellor in German history,

and an eloquent voice for human rights

and dignity around the world.

Kornelius: I remember sitting at Blair House,

the official guest house opposite the White House,

the morning of the ceremony.

(audience clapping)

I never saw Angela Merkel being so personally moved,

because she thought, well, this is an award.

This is something which is extremely meant seriously,

and which is honorable.

And she thought she's now rewarded as a democratic person,

as Western person.

She's basically part of that Western

and part of the American world.

Merkel: Neither the chains of dictatorship,

nor the fetters of oppression,

can keep down the forces

of freedom for long.

This is my firm conviction

that shall continue to guide me.

In this, the Presidential Medal of Freedom,

shall serve to spur me on

and to encourage me.

(applause)

♪ ♪

Heusgen: I still remember November, 2016,

President Trump was elected and Susan Rice called me

and asked that, well, don't be surprised,

but the president was thinking, my last trip,

actually I want to visit

the one head of government

I had the best relationship with,

and so President Obama

in November of 2016,

visited the Chancellor for his farewell visit.

And it was a wonderful relationship

that had developed over the years

between the Chancellor and President Obama.

♪

Kornelius: Democrats or Republicans,

she always found common ground

dealing with these Presidents

on the basis of shared values

of democratic beliefs,

of Western beliefs.

♪

♪ (soft dramatic music) ♪

♪

Nobody really knows what Angela Merkel wants to do next.

She never talks about it.

She just told sort of funnily,

well, I just go to sleep.

And when I wake up, I'll think about it.

H. Clinton: She's smart enough to decide to retire

rather than being retired.

Being at the highest levels of politics

is incredibly demanding.

It's exhausting.

I think she's ready to

step out of the arena,

and more power to her!

G.W. Bush: Angela realizes that power and fame

are not what's important in life.

She is not so egotistically bound

that the absence of power will ruin her life.

It won't, it'll enhance her life.

Kornelius: There's a lot of rumors.

She might go into science,

she might run her own foundation,

she might do public appearances, give talks.

She definitely will not seek for another political job.

♪ (soft music) ♪

Herlinde Koelbl: Every year, I photograph Angela Merkel.

In the beginning, she was shy,

a shy person and a bit awkward.

But, even so,

she was already strong-minded

and determined.

The big difference,

how she looks here, and how she looks here,

and all of the body language

is totally different.

Very straight forward.

Very confident.

When I asked her,

is it difficult to be a woman in politics?

She says, 'No, it's neither an advantage

or a disadvantage to be a woman.

It's how you assert yourself.

When you see the pictures,

you see her as a human being.

You see her in a different way.

Özdemir: My children are now

15 and 11 years old.

For them, it's hard to imagine

that somebody else than Angela Merkel

is representing Germany.

They grew up with Angela Merkel.

For them, it will be a new experience

that a man can become Chancellor in this country.

(loud applause)

Merkel: During these months thirty years ago,

I experienced first hand that nothing

has to stay the way it is.

♪ (soft dramatic music) ♪

Protestors: Down with the wall!

Merkel: Anything that seems to be

set in stone, or inalterable,

can indeed be changed.

(crowd shouting/cheering)

If we break down the walls that hem us in,

if we step out into the open and have

the courage to embrace new beginnings,

♪

everything is possible.

♪ (uplifting music) ♪

Don't forget that freedom

is never something

that can be taken for granted.

(audience applause)

(audience applause)

(loud applause)

♪ (uplifting music) ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Announcer: To order In Their Own Words,

Season 2 on DVD,

visit shop PBS,

or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.

This program is also available

on Amazon Prime video.

♪ ♪