Angela Merkel is a German politician born in 1954 and served as the Chancellor of Germany. She has been the leader of the Christian Democratic Union since April 10, 2000, and became Germany’s first female chancellor on November 22, 2005.

Angela Merkel, whose full name is Angela Dorothea Merkel, was born on June 17, 1954, in Hamburg. Her father, Horst Kasner, was a Lutheran pastor originally from Berlin, and her mother, Herlind Kasner, was a teacher. She grew up in the communist East Germany, in the town of Templin, located about 80 kilometers from Berlin. During her student years, she was a member of the communist youth organization known as the Free German Youth (FDJ). Showing remarkable talent in mathematics, science, and languages, she completed her early education in Templin and later studied physics at the Leipzig University between 1973 and 1978. From 1978 to 1990, she continued her academic work at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences, graduating with a doctorate in physics and beginning work in the field of chemistry.

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the rise of democratic movements, Angela Merkel entered politics by joining the Demokratischer Aufbruch Party. In 1990, she served as spokesperson for the transitional government led by Lothar de Maizière, the last government of the German Democratic Republic. That same year, two months before German reunification, she joined the Christian Democratic Union (CDU – Christian Democratic Union) and was elected to the Federal Parliament of Germany in the first all-German general elections. Within three months, she entered the cabinet of then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl as Minister for Women and Youth. Advancing rapidly in her political career, she served as both deputy party leader and cabinet minister twice between 1991 and 1998, and in 1998 she was elected Secretary General of the CDU.

In 2000, during corruption scandals that shook her party, Angela Merkel initially supported Helmut Kohl and other party leaders, even dismissing allegations that Kohl had accepted bribes from Saudi Arabia in exchange for tank sales as “completely absurd.” However, as the crisis deepened and Kohl’s role became clearer, she became the first senior CDU official to publicly criticize her former mentor. This bold move drew attention and led to her election as party leader in April 2000. Despite pursuing a strongly pro-American Iraq policy, she was considered insufficiently popular to run as chancellor candidate in the 2002 elections. Instead, the candidate was Edmund Stoiber, leader of the CDU’s sister party, the Christian Social Union. Stoiber’s controversial remarks during the 2005 campaign, in which he referred to East German voters as “stupid,” provoked strong reactions from Merkel and contributed to tensions between them that dated back to the 2002 elections.

After the Union parties lost the 2002 elections with Stoiber as candidate, Angela Merkel became the chancellor candidate for the early elections of 2005. Many observers were skeptical, as she was an East German Protestant woman in a party traditionally dominated by Catholic West German men. Following her candidacy, she underwent a significant image transformation, changing her hairstyle, adopting more colorful clothing, and frequently playing the song “Angie” by the legendary rock band The Rolling Stones during her campaign events.

In the German national elections held on September 18, 2005, Merkel competed closely with Gerhard Schröder. Merkel received 35.2 percent of the vote, while Schröder secured 34.2 percent. Subsequent negotiations between the Social Democratic Party and the Christian Democratic Union resulted in an agreement granting Merkel the chancellorship, while the Social Democrats received eight cabinet positions. After parliamentary approval, Angela Merkel assumed office on November 22, 2005, at the age of 51, becoming Germany’s youngest chancellor, the first from East Germany, and the first woman to hold the position.

Often compared in the international press to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher—a comparison sometimes referred to as the “Maggie-Angie” analogy—Angela Merkel is known for holding centrist views on social issues such as abortion and LGBTQ rights. She frequently emphasizes that her upbringing in East Germany has given her a deep understanding of the value of freedom.

Her political priorities included improving the German economy, reducing rising unemployment, repairing strained relations with the United States, and redefining Germany’s role within the European Union by reducing the traditional emphasis on the France-Germany alliance. Regarding Turkey’s potential membership in the European Union, Angela Merkel stated that she would only support it under a special status arrangement.

Angela Merkel married physicist Ulrich Merkel in 1977 and divorced in 1982. She later married chemistry professor Joachim Sauer in 1998. She has no children.

In 2009, Angela Merkel was re-elected as chancellor and successfully formed a coalition government with the Free Democratic Party (FDP). She was re-elected again in 2013. Following the elections held on September 24, 2017, her party, the Christian Democratic Union, won once more, and she became chancellor for the fourth time.

On October 29, 2018, Angela Merkel announced in a speech that she would step down as leader of the Christian Democratic Union in December 2018 and would retire from politics in 2021. At the CDU party congress held in Hamburg on December 7, 2018, she did not seek re-election, and the party’s general secretary, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, was elected as the new leader. Kramp-Karrenbauer resigned from the CDU leadership on February 10, 2020, and at the party congress held on January 16, 2021, Armin Laschet was elected as the federal chairman of the Christian Democratic Union.

Source: Biyografiler.com