Angela Merkel

Background

Angela Merkel’s parents met in Hamburg, where her mother was a teacher of English and Latin and her father was a theology student. After her father completed his education, he accepted a pastoral position in Quitzow, Brandenburg and the family had to relocate to East Germany a few weeks after Merkel was born. In 1957, the family moved again to Templin where Merkel graduated from high school in 1973. Later the same year she went to Leipzig to pursue her studies in physics at Karl Marx University. It was at this university that she met her husband Ulrich Merkel who was also a physics student. After graduating with her diploma in 1978, she worked at the academic faculty of the Central Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences in East Berlin. Merkel and her husband divorced in 1982 but she decided to keep his last name.

Merkel was a member of the Young Practitioners and the Free German Youth from 1962 and 1968 respectively. Her association with the Free German Youth led to a controversy as her former colleagues at the institute claimed that she actively caused agitation and propaganda at the institute though Merkel responded that she was only responsible for cultural affairs. Merkel joined the Democratic Awakening in February 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall. She became the press spokesperson for the party in 1990. During that month a coalition was formed between the German Social Union (D.S.U.) and the Christian Democratic Union (C.D.U.).

A finance scandal hit the C.D.U. in late 1999 and Kohl was accused of the acceptance and use of illegal campaign proceeds. In a letter that was published on December 22, 1999, Merkel requested the party to make a fresh start in the absence of its honorary chairman, and this increased her popularity in the German Republic. Merkel wanted to stand as a candidate for chancellor in the 2002 elections however, a majority of the C.D.U. party preferred Edmund Stoiber of the Christian Social Union. And so, Merkel Became the leader of the opposition.