Facing an autumn election, the very private Merkel opens up - a little

After eight years in power and five grappling with the financial and euro crisis, Angela Merkel has managed to remain an international woman of mystery.

The German leader guards her privacy but, with a general election looming in September, she agreed on Thursday evening to offer up a few crumbs on her childhood in East Germany and what makes her tick.

With succinct answers and a dash of dry, north German humour, however, Dr Merkel deflected deftly all attempts by the editors of women's magazine Brigitte to get under her skin.

Only one question almost threw her off balance: what makes a man attractive?

“Nice eyes,” replied Dr Merkel, her own blue eyes wide.

Sensing the audience in Berlin’s Maxim Gorki Theatre expected more, she added: “That was already a lot.”

Her political maxim: the prayer for serenity. “One should occupy oneself with the things that one can change,” she said.

Dr Merkel defended her habit – infamous in the euro crisis – of taking her time to make up her mind – as crucial to run through all options.

“If I take some time to come to my opinion then I don’t have to wrangle with myself afterwards,” she said. A crucial part of making any decision, she said, was knowing when to talk and when to listen. “One needs silence to be able to speak wisely,” she said. “Much of my strength is based in the fact that as a child I was quiet.”

Taking her time and listening a lot was how she tackled the thorny issue of Greece’s future in the euro zone. “I ran through in my mind’s eye what would happen if this or that decision was taken,” she said. “And I came to the conclusion that everything has to be undertaken to keep Greece in the euro area. But it occupied me greatly.”

How does she get through the all-night crisis summits in Brussels? An ability to do without sleep like a camel does without water, she said. “I have a certain storage ability but, on average, I need more than four or five hours sleep,” she said.

Does she sometimes forget that she is chancellor? “Of course: when I’m stirring a pot I don’t say, ‘the Chancellor is stirring the pot.’”

What about her famously private husband, the physicist Joachim Sauer: does she sometimes talk about politics with him? “Of course,” she answered. “Sometimes he even says something on his own initiative and the fact that he does suggests that there is a problem to deal with.”

Finally, the most pressing question for many German voters: why, in public, does she always fold her hands before her in a heart shape?

“Perhaps it shows a certain love for symmetry,” she replies.