Place of Birth. Education. Angela Dorothea Merkel (née Kasner) was born in Hamburg to a Protestant priest and teacher. In 1954, the family moved to the town of Kwitzow in the GDR, where Angela spent her childhood and youth.
Angela Merkel graduated from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Leipzig in 1978 and until 1990 worked as a researcher at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, where in 1986 she defended her doctoral dissertation in physics.
He speaks good Russian. In 1968 she won the school Olympiad in Russian in the GDR and was awarded a trip to the USSR.
Career. Angela Merkel entered politics after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The events that took place in Germany in the late 1980s and early 1990s captured her. In 1989, she joined the Democratic Awakening, a year later she became its press secretary, and a few months later she took the same position in the first and last non-communist government of the GDR.
For the sake of the ruling Christian Democratic Union party in Germany, she left the Democratic Awakening and, after the reunification of Germany, became a member of the Bundestag from the CDU. Helmut Kohl became the first German political leader to take Angela Merkel seriously. "You will lead the women", - the chancellor told her, inviting her to the government for the post of minister for women and youth. He called her "girl" and made her deputy head of the CDU. Soon she was already the secretary of the CDU. Journalists called Angela Merkel - "Kolya's girl".
In 1994, she was appointed Minister for the Environment. But in 1998, Kohl lost the election, giving way to Gerhard Schroeder.
Here came a corruption scandal related to the activities of ex-Chancellor Helmut Kohl (he was accused of accepting money for party needs from the oligarchs). Almost the entire top of the German conservatives went into the shadows, and Dr. Merkel led the movement to overthrow Kohl from the party post. In 2000, the ex-chancellor resigned from the post of leader of the CDU and left the Bundestag.
In 1998, Merkel became the general secretary of the CDU, and in 2000 she was elected chairman of the party.
In 2002, she put forward her candidacy for the post of Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, but refused to fight in favor of the Prime Minister of Bavaria, the leader of the Christian Socialist Union (CSU), Edmund Stoiber. In September 2002, she was elected to the German Bundestag.
The elections to the Bundestag on 22 September 2002 were narrowly won by the coalition of the SPD and the Greens led by Gerhard Schroeder and Joschka Fischer. Merkel was tolerant of Stoiber's defeat.
In the early elections to the Bundestag, held on September 18, 2005, the CDU / CSU bloc led by A. Merkel received 35.2% of the vote. On November 12, after negotiations that lasted five weeks, the CDU/CSU and the SPD concluded a coalition agreement. On November 22, Merkel was elected to the post of Federal Chancellor of Germany, having received 397 of the 611 votes of the deputies of the Bundestag of the 16th convocation.
Angela Merkel became the first female federal chancellor and at the same time, at 51, the youngest chancellor in the history of Germany. She is also the first representative of the new federal states in this post and the first federal chancellor with a science education.
On November 27, 2006, at the federal congress of the CDU, 93% of the votes of Angela Merkel was re-elected to the post of chairman of her party.
On September 23, 2007, Angela Merkel received the 14th Dalai Lama in her Berlin office, which became an international sensation.
In December 2013, she was elected Federal Chancellor of Germany for the third time in a row.
March 14, 2018 German Bundestag elected Angela Merkel for the fourth term in a row as Federal Chancellor of Germany.
On September 26, 2024, elections to the Bundestag were held in Germany, Merkel did not put forward her candidacy. After the election, Merkel continued to serve as Chancellor in an acting capacity.
Views and assessments. Angela Merkel in the CDU takes a centrist position, advocates the transformation of the CDU into a "people's party" based on broad sections of the voters.
Included in the party's action program "humanity, fair treatment of all generations, love for the nation and homeland, the fight against bureaucracy." The new Europe, she said, must face everyone, including minor social and ethnic groups.
In foreign policy, Merkel is known for supporting the American course, advocating rapprochement with the United States. In addition, he advocates "special relations" and a new alliance with France. She has also repeatedly made it clear that she opposes Turkey's accession to the EU.
Merkel supported the imposition of sanctions against Russia against the backdrop of events in the East of Ukraine. January 8, 2015 during a meeting with Arseniy Yatsenyuk Merkel said that part of the sanctions against Russia, not related to Crimea, can be lifted only after Russia fulfills Minsk agreements. On February 2, Merkel announced that Germany would not supply weapons to Ukraine and stressed the need for a peaceful solution to the conflict in Donbass.. In June 2015, Merkel said that the conflict in Donbass had become a test in relations between Germany and Russia.
Regalia. Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, Grand Cross of the Order of the Sun of Peru, winner of the Prize. Leo Baeck of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlemagne Prize for 2008 for services to the development of the European Union.
Angela Merkel is an honorary member of the Rotary International charity in Stralsund, an honorary member of the Energie Cottbus football team.
The Hebrew University awarded Merkel an honorary Ph.D. The University of Leipzig awarded an honorary doctorate. Honorary Doctor of Science from the Polytechnic University of Wroclaw. Tel Aviv University awarded an honorary Ph.D.
Family bonds. Angela Merkel is married. Her current husband Joachim Sauer is a professor of chemistry. Even under the socialist regime, she divorced her first husband, Ulrich Merkel, but left a rather sonorous surname, echoing the German word "merklich" ("noticeable"). Angela Merkel has no children. "I did not rule out such a possibility, but it did not work out. And when I entered politics, I was 35 years old, and I no longer asked myself this question", she said.
Hobby. He loves gardening and cooking. She bakes pies with pleasure and claims that guests have never left her hungry.
12/08/2021