Merkel, Angela

Merkel, Angela (än`gĕlä mär`kəl), 1954–, German politician, b. Hamburg as Angela Dorothea Kasner. The daughter of a Lutheran pastor, she grew up in what was then East Germany. She trained as a physicist (Ph.D., Univ. of Leipzig, 1978) and worked (1978–90) as a quantum chemistry researcher at East Berlin's Academy of Sciences. Involved in the 1989 democracy movement, she joined the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and was elected to parliament in 1990. A protégé of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, she served under him as minister for youth and women (1991–94) and the environment (1994–98). After Kohl's defeat in 1998, Merkel became CDU secretary-general and, having distanced herself from her former mentor, she was named party leader in 2000. In the 2005 elections she led the CDU coalition to a narrow victory over the Social Democrats. No party, however, secured a workable plurality of seats, forcing the CDU into coalition with the Social Democrats. Merkel became chancellor, the first woman and the first E German after unification to do so.

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Merkel, Angela

 orig. Angela Dorothea Kasner

(born July 17, 1954, Hamburg, W.Ger.) Chancellor of Germany (2005– ). Merkel, who grew up in East Germany, earned a doctorate in physics at the University of Leipzig (1978) and later settled in East Berlin, where she worked as a quantum chemist. In 1990, shortly before Germany's reunification, she joined the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Elected as a Bundestag deputy later that year, she became the protégé of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who appointed her to several ministerial positions. In 1999 a finance scandal hit the CDU, and Merkel drew attention for her criticism of Kohl. The following year she was elected CDU leader. In 2005 the CDU and its sister party, the Christian Social Union, won the general election but failed to capture a majority. A deal was reached that gave Merkel the chancellorship in a coalition government. She was sworn in on Nov. 22, 2005, becoming the first woman to hold the office.