Joachim Sauer - Harbour Front Literaturfestival

Harbor Front Special: Thalia x F.A.Z. Shaping the Future

For decades, Joachim Sauer has kept the public role that came with his marriage to Angela Merkel remarkably low-key. Now, for the first time, he shares a detailed account of his own life. “My Real Life” traces his journey from his childhood in the GDR through his academic work in Berlin-Adlershof to the years following the fall of the Wall and into the Berlin Republic.

When the Wall fell, Sauer was forty years old. He had spent nearly half his life under the SED dictatorship. In his autobiography, he recalls his upbringing and education, the start of his research career as a quantum chemist, the pressure to conform, pragmatic compromises, and his efforts to maintain personal distance. He writes about loyalty to the party line, but also about room for maneuver; about everyday life in an academic world that thought internationally in terms of its discipline yet remained politically controlled; and about the transition that began in 1989–90.

The book derives its tension from an unusual perspective. Sauer tells his story both as a scientist who has dedicated his life to research and as someone who witnessed his wife’s political rise up close.

In Hamburg, Joachim Sauer will discuss the key stages of his autobiography, formative experiences and turning points, and humor as a means of maintaining distance.

Joachim Sauer (b. 1949) is a chemist and quantum researcher. He earned his doctorate in chemistry in 1974 and worked from 1977 to 1991 at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in Berlin-Adlershof. From 1993 to 2017, he was a professor of physical and theoretical chemistry at Humboldt University in Berlin; since his retirement, he has served there as a senior researcher. In 2026, he was elected as an international member of the National Academy of Sciences. He has been married to Angela Merkel since 1998.