Merkel calls for a female federal president and criticises CDU economic course

A woman for the presidency

Angela Merkel, 72, told Johannes B. Kerner in the talk show "Bestbesetzung" that the successor to Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier should be a woman. Asked whether she could picture one in the office, she said she would wish for it. Merkel called the current debate strange and complained of a bad undertone, and she said people already born are women who could do the job, though she named none.

“There are 77 years of Federal Republic of Germany history, and there has never been a woman as federal president.”

The Bundesversammlung decides on the succession on 30 January. Spiegel Online reports that the coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD holds a majority of about 50 votes in the body. Markus Söder has backed Bavarian Landtag president Ilse Aigner for months, while Bundestag president Julia Klöckner, education minister Karin Prien, former party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and Hesse's minister-president Boris Rhein are also named within the CDU.

Criticism of her party's course

Merkel criticised the current direction of her own party, saying that pure CDU policy has always meant building bridges across society and that this must return to the foreground. She added that pure CDU is not economic policy.

“Pure CDU was always building bridges in all directions across society, and that must be brought back to the forefront.”

Merkel backed the CDU's resolutions barring cooperation with the AfD and the Left, but she drew a distinction between them. On the Left she pointed to a large antisemitism problem in the Berlin state association and said the party's basic positions often had little in common with the CDU. She described the Left's refusal to engage with NATO as completely unacceptable in today's times.

“That it wants nothing to do with NATO, I find completely unacceptable in today's times.”

Her objection to the AfD went further. Merkel said the party tries to divide society and to question the dignity of some people, which made non-cooperation a more fundamental question for her. She also argued that the CDU does not state its core clearly enough, because the debate keeps circling around the AfD, and she said the SPD faces the same problem.

The trembling of 2019

Merkel shook visibly during military honours in 2019, including the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. At the time she said she was fit to work and had simply drunk too little water, but after the third such episode people no longer fully believed her. She now links the tremors to inner tension, probably her mother's death and her knowledge that she would leave office. Kerner asked whether she had taken too little time to mourn her mother, and she answered that this was probably so, adding that the body had sent a signal to stop. She then decided to attend military events only while seated, which felt strange the first time, she said, but everyone grew used to it.

Life after office

Five years after leaving office, Merkel described her life as partly that of a pensioner, while noting that it is not an entirely normal one because she keeps an office and obligations. She said she can largely decide for herself what she does and when. Two things shaped her departure from power: Vladimir Putin's attack on Ukraine in February 2022, which she said still moves her deeply, and writing her memoirs with her longtime confidante Beate Baumann. That work took her back to her childhood and her time in the GDR for the first time since 1990. Merkel said passers-by still recognise her, and that the reactions are almost always friendly.

The interview was recorded at Berlin's Bode-Museum, where her official chancellor portrait hangs. The episode "Angela Merkel - Das Interview" is available on MagentaTV from 18:00 on Friday, 30 October, and without a subscription on magenta.tv and in the MagentaTV app.