Meet Angela Dorothea Merkel Née Kasner

Angela Merkel was the first woman to hold the office and the second-longest-serving chancellor in German history. Born in Hamburg, Federal Republic of Germany, on 17 July 1954, she was elected chancellor, the leader of Germany in September 2005, and she is credited with steering Germany through the 2008 financial crisis and the European refugee crisis of 2015.

Early life

Angela Merkel is the elder daughter of Horst Kasner, a Lutheran pastor, and Herlind Kasner, a teacher of English and Latin. In 1954 the family relocated to the German Democratic Republic (GDR), settling first in the Brandenburg town of Quitzow and from 1957, in the parish house at Templin. She excelled at the local Polytechnic Secondary School, winning the German Democratic Republic (GDR)’s national Russian language competition (1970) and completing the extended secondary curriculum with distinction in 1973. Between 1973 and 1978 Merkel studied physics at Karl Marx University, Leipzig, specialising in theoretical elementary particle physics. Awarded the Diplom Physiker degree, she entered the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry, Academy of Sciences, Berlin Adlershof, as a research associate. In 1986 she defended her doctoral thesis, “Calculations of rate constants in hydrocarbon decomposition by quantum chemical methods,” receiving a Dr. rer. nat. with the mark magna cum laude. Angela Merkel married quantum chemist Joachim Sauer in 1998; the couple reside in central Berlin and maintain a weekend cottage in the Uckermark. She is an avid hiker, an admirer of Richard Wagner, and fluent in German, English and Russian.

Entry into Politics

The peaceful revolution of autumn 1989 drew Merkel into civic activism. She joined the newly founded movement Demokratischer Aufbruch (DA) in December 1989, becoming its press spokeswoman. Following DA’s merger with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in February 1990, she entered the party and was elected to the Volkskammer in the first free elections of the GDR (March 1990). Appointed deputy spokesperson of the CDU federal leadership in October 1990, Merkel quickly attracted the patronage of Chancellor Helmut Kohl. In January 1991 she was sworn in as Federal Minister for Women and Youth, becoming at 36 the youngest member of the Federal Cabinet and the first from the former German Democratic Republic (GDR).

Party Leadership and Chancellorship

After the CDU donations scandal of 1999, Merkel published an open letter distancing the party from Kohl, thereby positioning herself as a reformer. She was elected Christian Democratic Union (CDU) federal chair in April 2000. Following the 2005 federal elections, Merkel led the CDU/CSU into a grand coalition with the Social Democrats. On 22 November 2005 she was elected Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, the first woman and the first East German to hold the office. She would serve four consecutive terms, leaving the post on 8 December 2021 after 5,860 days in officelonger than any other democratically elected leader in the post war era.

Honours and Awards

• Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2023)
• Presidential Medal of Freedom, United States (2011)
• UNESCO Félix Houphouët Boigny Peace Prize (2022)
• United Nations Nansen Refugee Award (2022): prize funds donated to local integration projects
• J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding (2018)
• Carlos V European Award (2021)
• Time Person of the Year (2015)