The allegations in the book relate to a period when the German chancellor studied for her doctorate and worked as a researcher at the Academy of Sciences in east Berlin.
The book, ‘The First Life of Angela M.’, written by two German journalists, claims that in 1981 – when she was in her late twenties – she became “agitprop” secretary of the academy. This would have made her responsible for promoting Communist ideology.
Mrs Merkel said at an event late on Sunday that she had never hidden anything about her life in East Germany, though acknowledged some things may emerge “because no one has ever asked me about them.”
“What is important to me is that I have never hidden anything,” she said after attending the screening of an old East German film in Berlin. “I can only rely on my memory. If other things emerge, she added, “one can live with that too.”
“Perhaps I have not talked about other things because no one has ever asked me about them,” she said. She cited her membership of East Germany’s union organisation as an example.
