GERMANY/FILE: Germany's Ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is back already with a highly critical memoir

Less than a year after leaving German politics a defeated man, Gerhard Schroeder is back with a new memoir brimming with the same swagger and controversy that characterised his seven years in office. In "Decisions - My Life in Politics", the former German chancellor takes jibes at U.S. President George W. Bush and blames Germany's trade unions and members of his own party for forcing the early election which led to his defeat. He chuckles at the election failures of his conservative rivals, painting last year's loss to Angela Merkel as a victory-in-disguise for his centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), who are now junior partners in Berlin's "grand coalition". Among the few who escape Schroeder's wrath in the 544-page tome is Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is praised for everything from his political vision and intelligence to his German language skills and superb fitness. Written in a highly personal tone with a close-up picture of a thoughtful-looking chin-in-hand Schroeder on the cover, the book contains no major revelations. But it looks sure to thrust its author, who kicks off a four-week book tour on Thursday, back into the spotlight at a time when his successor is under fire for lacking the macho leadership skills Schroeder evidently saw as his strength and is keen to play up in his book. Written in collaboration with his former spokesman Uwe-Karsten Heye, "Decisions" focuses on Schroeder's seven years as Chancellor -- a rich period which saw Germany send troops abroad for the first time since World War Two and break from its long-time ally the United States over the Iraq war. Schroeder is said to have resisted pressure from friends to wait longer to write about his career. Suggestions from his publisher to do a broader book spanning his entire life were also brushed off. As a result, "Decisions" has a freshness to it that is missing from some political memoirs. But it is also lacks the perspective that only the course of time can offer. Schroeder refuses to admit, for example, that his curious call for an early election last year may have been a mistake, arguing that leftists in the SPD, backed by Germany's powerful unions, would have jettisoned him had he not acted. Had he not moved up the vote, Schroeder could have claimed credit for an economic recovery in 2006 and rode the euphoria of Germany's flag-waving World Cup run into an election against a divided conservative camp. Schroeder also displays few regrets about a foreign policy which some critics say unnecessarily alienated Washington and provided cover for repressive regimes in Beijing and Moscow. He describes crying as he watched on television as people jumped from the flaming World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11. But after backing the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, Schroeder tells of his uneasiness with Bush as the Iraq war approached and the U.S. president appeared to link policies to his religious beliefs. Schroeder defends his much-criticised decision to take a job as board chairman of a controversial German-Russian gas pipeline consortium less than a month after leaving office. He describes Putin, pilloried in the West for muzzling the press and suppressing political opponents, as an impressive leader whose bid to establish Russia as an equal to the United States deserves full German backing. Meanwhile, Schroeder seeks to justify his own lack of discipline on election night, when he mocked Merkel on public television and vowed his party would never accept her leadership -- a promise he was forced to take back two months later. Schroeder takes care not to openly criticise his successor in the book, keeping with an unwritten rule of German politics. But he could not resist taking a dig at her "lack of leadership" in a weekend interview with Der Spiegel magazine, where the first excerpts of his memoir were published, eliciting a sharp reaction from Merkel's conservative allies. PROFILES

ITN Source | October 24, 2006

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