Angela Merkel asked the Pope for advice on dealing with Donald Trump when he was first elected US president, hoping to find ways to persuade a man she saw as having the win-or-lose mentality of a builder of properties not to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreements.

In her memoir, excerpts of which were published in German weekly Die Zeit on Wednesday evening, the former German chancellor recounted her struggles with Trump.

“He looked at everything from the perspective of the property developer he was before he entered politics. Each plot of land could only be sold once, and if no one else took it. This is how he saw the world," writes Merkel.

Pope Francis, when Merkel asked him, in general terms, for advice on dealing with people "with fundamentally different views", immediately understood that she was referring to Trump and his desire to abandon climate agreements, wrote she.

"Bend, bend, bend, but make sure it doesn't break," he told Merkel, according to her account.

When Trump first took office in 2017, Merkel was one of the world's longest-serving elected leaders and the most influential in the EU after shaping Germany and the continent's response to the eurozone debt crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic and the occupation of Crimea in 2014.

While much of the world worried about a Trump presidency, Merkel's unruffled demeanor and her frequent invocations of values ​​such as freedom and human rights led some to call her the "true leader of the free world" - a designation traditionally reserved for US presidents.

Written before Trump's re-election, the book expressed the "heartfelt hope" that Vice President Kamala Harris would defeat her rival.

Her memoir, titled Freedom: Memories 1954-2021, will be published in more than 30 countries on November 26. She will launch the book in the US a week later at an event in Washington with former President Barack Obama, with whom she forged a close political relationship.

In the published parts of her memoirs, she discusses her many meetings with Putin.

"I experienced him as someone who did not want to be disrespected, ready to attack at any time. You may find it childish and contemptible, you may shake your head at that. But that meant Russia never disappeared from the map."