Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Der Spiegel in an interview which series she watches on Netflix, but the film she highly praised has sparked new criticism.

In the same interview, published Thursday by a German magazine, Merkel said that last year she wanted to organize discussions at the European Union level with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the situation in Ukraine, but felt that because it was known that she would leave the post in the fall , no longer has the political power to influence the Kremlin leader.

“In terms of power politics, you’re done. For Putin, only power is important,” she said.

However, Germany’s longest-serving chancellor said he did not regret the decision to step down and end his political career, saying it was time for a “new approach” due to his cabinet’s lack of progress on Ukraine and tensions and conflicts in Moldova, Georgia, Syria and Libya.

In 2018, Merkel already announced that she would no longer run for a new term as chancellor and would stop her political activities.

The Netflix series that Angela Merkel watches

However, in an interview with Der Spiegel magazine, the German chancellor also spoke about his concerns outside of politics, revealing that he watches films and TV series in his spare time, being a fan of two productions that stream on Netflix: Crownthe controversial series about the British royal family, which premiered its fifth season this month, and Babylon Berlina German neo-noir series about Germany in the turbulent late 1920s.

Babylon Berlin reached its fourth season since its launch in 2017, becoming one of the most popular Netflix series in Germany and the winner of several special awards both at home and abroad.

But Merkel’s comments about the film she watched on Netflix sparked further controversy as she revealed she had taken the time to watch Munich – On the brink of war (Munich before the war), a spy thriller about the conclusion of the Munich Agreement, an agreement signed by the major European powers of the time with Nazi Germany, which allowed Hitler to annex the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.

Signed on September 30, 1938 between France, Great Britain, Italy and Germany after Hitler promised it would be his last territorial claim in Europe, it was signed without consulting the Czechoslovak government over territorial abduction.

The then British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, is known to have announced in a speech after landing in the UK that the agreement would bring “peace for our time”. Only six months later, Nazi troops invaded and occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia.

A famous moment reproduced in the film (PHOTO: SplashNews.com / Splash / Profimedia)

What the former German chancellor says about the Netflix film

Well-known British actor Jeremy Irons played the role of Neville Chamberlain in the feature film, and Merkel told German reporters that she liked that the former British prime minister was presented in a different light than most World War II films.

“Not as Hitler’s tearful riding ladder, but as a strategist who gave his country time to prepare for a German attack. “Munich is very reminiscent of Bucharest 2008,” writes Der Spiegel with reference to the NATO summit held in our country, during which Merkel and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy opposed Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO.

In fact, in one of her first public statements since leaving office, Angela Merkel said in a brief press release in April that it was then that she made the decision to block Ukraine from joining NATO. Her comments came shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi invited her to Buchi to see the atrocities being committed by the Russian military there.

“She believes that in the subsequent Minsk negotiations, she had time that Ukraine could use to better resist Russia’s attack. Now it is a stronger, more stable country. She (Merkel) is convinced that then Ukraine would have been killed by Putin’s troops,” der Spiegel also notes.

“You couldn’t have invented something like that,” quips journalist Peter Jackson on his Twitter page, a contributor to the BBC, Euronews, The Times and the Financial Times, specializing in topics related to Germany and Central Europe, to name just one of them. those who commented in a negative light on the statements of the former Chancellor of Germany.

Merkel considers herself a hero, as does Neville Chamberlain