Leading questions The former German chancellor slights her enemies by barely mentioning them-and is frustratingly opaque on her own big calls

Towards the end of her 16-year tenure, former German chancellor Angela Merkel was garlanded with superlative titles: the "queen of Europe", the "most powerful woman in the world".

- Philip Oltermann

In reality, her role was always more that of a mediator than a sovereign. Born and brought up for 35 years in an anti-church, Moscow-allied socialist command economy but politically active for 31 years in a Christian, staunchly pro-Nato and pro-market conservative party, Merkel's unique political calling card was her ability to see eye-to-eye with politicians from opposing camps, because she understood their ideological hinterland.

And so Freedom, released three years after she left office, was never going to be a score-settling kind of autobiography. Meetings with politicians as different as George W Bush and former leftwing Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras are recalled with equal respect and affection - even though Merkel concludes that the former's war in Iraq was "a mistake, waged on a basis of mistaken beliefs", and the latter provides her with "the most astonishing moment of any phone call in my entire political career", when he tells her he will recommend that the Greek people vote against a bailout deal he himself negotiated with her.