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In it she told the party it had to emancipate itself from Helmut Kohl, her own political patron. The move cut her loose from the man who had made her and positioned her, the only senior figure untainted by the scandal, to become party leader in 2000 despite having no regional power base or faction.
Merkel defends her 2008 Bucharest refusal to grant Ukraine and Georgia a NATO Membership Action Plan. Her argument is that a membership promise without Article 5 protection creates the most dangerous interval possible. It signals to Russia that the country is being pulled into the alliance while leaving it undefended, which invites Moscow to strike before accession can happen.
Merkel reframes the September 2015 decision to admit refugees stranded in Hungary as a refusal to seal Germany's border rather than an invitation. She argues that stopping thousands of people walking toward the frontier would have required force against civilians. She says a Europe-wide humanitarian emergency left no humane alternative, and she maintains she would decide the same way again.
As an East German, a Protestant, a woman and a scientist with no faction in a West German Catholic male party, Merkel was dismissed by rivals as a placeholder, "Kohl's girl." Because the party's power brokers did not count her as a contender, they did not organize against her until she already held the positions that mattered. Being discounted became a strategic advantage for her rather than only a barrier.