Angela Merkel
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Angela Dorothea Merkel (born Angela Dorothea Kasner, July 17, 1954 in Hamburg) is a German politician and the opposition's candidate to become Chancellor of Germany in the upcoming German federal election, 2005.
Merkel is chair of the Christian Democratic Union since 2000. She is a Member of the German Parliament, representing a constituency which includes the districts of Nordvorpommern and Rügen, as well as the city of Stralsund, in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
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Background
Merkel grew up in the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the countryside north of Berlin. Her father was a Lutheran clergyman. She was educated in Templin and at the University of Leipzig, where she studied physics (1973-1978). Merkel worked and studied at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences (1978-1990). After graduating with a doctorate in physics she worked in quantum chemistry.
In 1989 she became involved in the growing democracy movement after the fall of the Berlin Wall. At the end of 1989 she joined the new party "Demokratischer Aufbruch". Following the first democratic election in the GDR, she got a job as deputy government spokesperson in the new government under Lothar de Maizière. Following the first German elections after reunification in December 1990, she became minister for women and youth in Helmut Kohl's cabinet. In 1994 she was made minister for the environment and reactor safety. Angela Merkel's political career was supported by the former Chancellor of Germany, Helmut Kohl, who once referred to her as das Mädchen (the girl).
Her background from the former GDR has stood her in good stead. For the first 36 years of her life, she honed her skills at covering up or suppressing her feelings -- essential in a society where practically every room contained a Stasi informer, especially if you were a pastor's daughter. Speaking near perfect English and remarking on her background as an Ossi she says, "Anyone who really has something to say doesn't need make-up".
Opposition leader
When the Kohl government was voted out in 1998, Merkel was named as Secretary General of the CDU. As a result of a party financing scandal, which compromised many leading figures of the CDU, most notably Kohl himself and the then chairman, Wolfgang Schäuble, Merkel spoke up against her former mentor Kohl and replaced Schäuble and became the first female leader of her party. The election of Merkel was in many ways surprising; the CDU being a party with deep Catholic roots, west-oriented, conservative and male dominated.
Merkel has been compared by many to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Both being strong female politicans, as well as former scientists) and referred to (mainly outside of Germany) as "Iron Lady", or sometimes "Iron Girl". Sometimes she is also nicknamed "Angie" by the press.
In addition to be CDU chairwoman, she is heading the conservative opposition in the German Federal Parliament, the Bundestag, since 2002.
In spring 2003, against heavy public opposition, Merkel came out in favour of the Iraq war, describing it as "unavoidable". Schröder substantially owed his success in the 2002 federal elections to his strong opposition to American hegemony and "military adventures".
On 30 May 2005 she won the nomination of CDU and CSU as official challenger to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of the SPD in the 2005 national elections. Currently, her party is significantly ahead in national opinion polls. If she is elected, she will be Germany's first woman chancellor, and the first woman to lead Germany since Empress Theophania (956-991).
Views
Merkel fears that the EU has failed to define its common interests "for the (commercial) battles of the future" now Europe's cold war priorities of keeping "peace and freedom" have been achieved. "This is where I think Europe needs to learn a lot, not to concentrate too much on whether bicycle paths are built the same way in Portugal and north-west Germany."
Domestically, Merkel recognises the need for change in the country's consensual model. "In Germany, we are always facing the danger that we are a little bit too slow. We have to speed up our changes."
Biography
- 1954 Birth in Hamburg, West Germany, daughter of Lutheran pastor Horst Kasner and Herlind Kasner. The family moved to Quitzow in Brandenburg near Perleberg when Angela was a few months old. Three years later they move to Templin.
- 1971-1990 Member of the Free German Youth in the German Democratic Republic
- 1973-1978 Studies physics at the University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
- 1977-1982 Married to physicist Ulrich Merkel
- 1986 Receives Dr. rer. nat. (doctor of science) in physics, University of Leipzig
- 1989 Member of Demokratischer Aufbruch
- 1990 Assistant press representative of the government of Lothar de Maizière, the last and only democratic government of the German Democratic Republic
- August 1990 CDU membership (Christian Democratic Union of Germany)
- 1990-today Member of the German Parliament, elected from the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
- 1991-1994 Federal Minister for Women and Youth
- 1994-1998 Federal Minister for Environment, Conservation and Nuclear Safety
- 1991-1998 CDU Vice Chair
- 1993-2000 CDU Chairman in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
- 1998 Marries chemistry professor Joachim Sauer
- 2000-today CDU Chair
- 30 May 2005 CDU and CSU elect Angela Merkel as their candidate to become Chancellor of Germany in the upcoming German federal election, 2005.
External links
- Angela Merkel Homepage (http://www.angela-merkel.de)
- Ruth Elkins, The Independent, 19 June 2005, "Angela Merkel: Iron Mädchen" (http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/story.jsp?story=647953)da:Angela Merkel
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