"Something completely different": Merkel surprises with a new job as a crime expert

Created: 12/19/2022, 5:10 am

A good-humoured and laughing former Chancellor Angela Merkel with a camera view at the opening event of the Helmut Kohl Foundation Berlin Berlin Germany in September 2022. (Archive) © IMAGO / Political-Moments

After her departure as Chancellor, Angela Merkel now appears in a completely different role.

The 68-year-old now has a guest job on a crime podcast.

Bayreuth/Stuttgart - After her departure as Chancellor, Angela Merkel wanted to take a break and fulfill her personal dreams and wishes.

A trip to Italy followed.

Now the ex-Chancellor is appearing in a completely new role.

Angela Merkel is a guest in a crime podcast.

In the SWR format "Let's talk about murder?!" she doesn't talk about real atrocities, but about the criminal cases in Richard Wagner's four-part opera "Der Ring des Nibelungen".

The true crime podcast's three-part Christmas special, starring former federal judge Thomas Fischer and host Holger Schmidt, was scheduled for release Sunday afternoon.

Angela Merkel surprises with a new job - the ex-chancellor gives the crime expert

"I'm also happy that we're doing something completely different here," Merkel said when asked why she decided to take part in the format.

It is part of their "newly won freedom" to "go in a completely different direction".

Merkel is a big Wagner fan and regularly attends the Bayreuth Festival.

The opening premiere was always one of the few dates of the year when she appeared on the red carpet together with her husband Joachim Sauer, with whom she shares a passion for Wagner.

Sauer was therefore also called the "Phantom of the Opera".

Merkel as Chancellor in "retirement" - but she appears again in public

While most celebrities and politicians said goodbye to the Green Hill after the opening, Merkel and Sauer usually stayed longer in Bayreuth to watch other performances.

The festival traditionally heralds the summer vacation of the couple Merkel/Sauer.

The 68-year-old Merkel did not run for the federal elections last year after 16 years as chancellor.

She now appears as a speaker from time to time - for example in September at the city anniversary in Goslar or for the 77th anniversary of the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" in Munich.

She wants to publish her memoirs in autumn 2024, as her publisher recently announced.

The podcast with the ex-CDU boss about the murders, intrigues, human and divine abysses in Wagner's mammoth work should be available from 4 p.m. in the ARD audio library, among other places.