Angela Merkel

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Angela Merkel (2019)
Merkel's signature

Angela Dorothea Merkel (born Kasner ; born July 17, 1954 in Hamburg ) is a German politician ( CDU ). She has been Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany since November 22, 2005 . From April 10, 2000 to December 7, 2018 she was CDU federal chairwoman.

Merkel grew up in the GDR and worked there as a physicist at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry . In the Bundestag election on December 2, 1990 , she won a Bundestag mandate for the first time . She was directly elected in her constituency in Western Pomerania in the following seven general elections. From 1991 to 1994 Merkel was Federal Minister for Women and Youth in the Kohl IV cabinet and from 1994 to 1998 Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in the Kohl V cabinet . In 1998, until she was elected national chairman of the party, she was Secretary General of the CDU.

After the close victory of the Union parties in the early federal elections in 2005 , Merkel replaced Gerhard Schröder as Federal Chancellor and initially led a grand coalition with the SPD until 2009 ( Merkel I cabinet ). After the federal election in 2009 , she entered into a black-yellow coalition with the FDP ( Merkel II cabinet ), which was followed by another grand coalition in 2013 , which will continue after the 2017 federal election ( Merkel III and IV cabinet ). On October 29, 2018, she announced that she would no longer run for the 2021 federal election.

Life

Parents and early childhood (1954–1960)

Angela Merkel was born in the Elim Hospital in the Hamburg district of Eimsbüttel as the first child of the Protestant theologian Horst Kasner (born August 26, 1926 in Berlin ; † September 2, 2011 there) and his wife Herlind Kasner, née. Jentzsch (born July 8, 1928 in Danzig ; † April 6, 2019 in Berlin). From 1948 Horst Kasner had studied theology at the Universities of Heidelberg and Hamburg and at the Bethel Church University in Bielefeld . His wife Herlind was a teacher of Latin and English.

In 1954, a few weeks after the daughter was born, the family moved from Hamburg to the GDR . For the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg Horst Kasner came in the village Quitzow (now a district of Perleberg ) a pastorate at. Angela Merkel is also an Evangelical Lutheran.

In 1957 Kasner moved permanently to Templin in the Uckermark in order to take part in the establishment of a further training center within the church. Angela Merkel grew up there. Her mother was not wanted because her father was a pastor in the GDR school service. Angela's brother Marcus was born on July 7, 1957, and her sister Irene on August 19, 1964.

The discovery of her Polish roots in Poland attracted attention in 2013 : Her grandfather, the police officer Ludwig Kasner (1896–1959), as Ludwig Kazmierczak, had lived in Poznan as a member of the Polish population in the German Empire , first for the Germans during the First World War and then for the Polish Haller Army fought on the Western Front and from 1919 to 1921 on the Eastern Front for Poland against Ukraine and Russia in the Polish-Ukrainian War and Polish-Soviet War . He later moved to Berlin.

School time and studies (1961–1978)

In 1961 Angela Kasner started school at the Polytechnische Oberschule (POS) in Templin. Her above-average academic achievements were noticeable; Kasner was always best in class in the school subjects Russian and mathematics. She won Russian Olympics up to the GDR level and was considered a reluctant student during her school days. She was a member of the Free German Youth (FDJ) . In 1973, she put on the Extended Secondary School (EOS) in Templin, the High School with an average grade of 1.0 from.

Kasner had already during their school time for the study of physics at the Karl Marx University : in (today "University of Leipzig") Leipzig decided that she had received the 1,973th She did not belong to the opposing forces within the GDR, which would have prevented her academic career, but reports that during these years she met the author Reiner Kunze , whom she describes as her favorite writer. In 1977 she married the physics student Ulrich Merkel; the marriage was divorced in 1982.

Angela Merkel's diploma thesis from June 1978 with the title The influence of spatial correlation on the reaction rate in bimolecular elementary reactions in dense media was rated "very good". The work was also a contribution to the research topic statistical and chemical physics of systems of isotope and radiation research in the field of statistical and physical chemistry at the Central Institute for Isotope and Radiation Research of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR (AdW).

Academy of Sciences in East Berlin (1978–1989)

After an application at the Technical University of Ilmenau failed in 1978 , Merkel went to East Berlin with her husband . Here she took a position at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry (ZIPC) of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in Berlin-Adlershof . In 1986 she was able to travel to Germany for several days. She took part in a Russian language course lasting several weeks in Donetsk .

Around 650 people worked at the central institute, including around 350 scientists. Merkel worked in the theoretical chemistry department .

While working on her dissertation took Merkel the opportunity to see some of the calculations in the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Prague to perform since this a powerful IBM - Mainframes had the time it was not in the GDR. On January 8, 1986, she submitted her dissertation on the study of the mechanism of disintegration reactions with simple bond breaking and calculation of their rate constants on the basis of quantum chemical and statistical methods . The work was rated “very good” ( magna cum laude ) . According to the doctoral regulations, the application for a doctorate had to be accompanied by proof that the knowledge of Marxism-Leninism ("ML") acquired during the course had been significantly deepened and expanded. Merkel produced a written work entitled What is a socialist way of life? which was rated “sufficient” (rite) . PhD supervisor was the head of the theoretical chemistry department at ZIPC Lutz Zülicke . After gaining a doctorate in natural sciences (Dr. rer. Nat.) , Merkel switched to the analytical chemistry division within the institute , where Klaus Ulbricht became her department head.

Merkel was neither a member of the SED nor one of the bloc parties . She was not active in the civil or ecclesiastical opposition. During her work for the Academy of Sciences, she was involved in her FDJ group. According to her own statements, Merkel worked there as a cultural advisor. Contemporary witnesses interviewed by Merkel biographer Gerd Langguth said that she was responsible for “ agitation and propaganda ”.

family

During her physics studies in Leipzig in 1974, Angela Kasner met her first husband, the physics student Ulrich Merkel from Cossengrün , during a youth exchange with physics students in Moscow and Leningrad . On September 3, 1977, the two were married in church in Templin . In 1981 the couple separated and the childless marriage was divorced in 1982 in East Berlin.

In 1984 Merkel met the quantum chemist Joachim Sauer at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in Berlin-Adlershof , whom she married on December 30, 1998. The marriage did not result in any children together; Sauer brought two sons from his first marriage into the partnership. The couple moved from Luisenstrasse , within sight of the Reichstag building , to an apartment on Am Kupfergraben near Humboldt University, where they continue to live.

leisure

Angela Merkel and Joachim Sauer have owned a weekend house in Hohenwalde, a district of Milmersdorf in the Uckermark, since 1985 .

She and her husband have been spending their holidays in the same places for years: at Easter on the island of Ischia in the Gulf of Naples , in summer for hiking in Sulden in Vinschgau / South Tyrol and in winter for cross-country skiing in Pontresina in the Swiss Engadine .

Angela Merkel and her husband are opera lovers and regularly attend premieres at the Bayreuth Wagner Festival .

Political career

Democratic awakening (1989–1990)

During the fall of 1989 in the GDR , it became apparent that new, democratic party structures would emerge in eastern Germany. Before that, she had intended to join the SPD , but since she first had to apply for membership in a local association, but Angela Merkel did not agree, she began to work for the newly founded Democratic Awakening (DA) in December 1989 , initially in December / January still free of charge as a provisional system administrator , from February 1, 1990 then full-time as a clerk in the personal work environment of chairman Wolfgang Schnur in the East Berlin office. Her statement is also guaranteed from this time that she did not want to have anything to do with the CDU. This was followed by the drafting of leaflets, the appointment as press spokeswoman by her discoverer Schnur and the membership in the board of the DA. The Democratic Awakening initially fluctuated strongly in terms of political perspectives and, like the other associations of the citizens' movement ( New Forum , Democracy Now ), was basically left-wing politically. Soon, however, an attitude broke out that fundamentally rejected socialism . This intensified when, at the beginning of 1990, conservative West German politicians worked towards the first democratic Volkskammer election on March 18, 1990 and Volker Rühe, as Secretary General of the West German CDU , founded the Alliance for Germany on February 5, 1990 . As a newly founded citizens' movement, the DA assumed a key position in this: Helmut Kohl , the Federal Chancellor and CDU chairman, did not want to rely solely on the Eastern CDU (which was biased as a bloc party ) or the German Social Union (DSU), which is closely related to the CSU . The reputation of the DA was seriously damaged when a few days before the Volkskammer election it became known that Schnur had worked for the Ministry for State Security (MfS) from 1965 to 1989 . Merkel chaired the press conference at which the DA board expressed its concern about it.

Alliance for Germany (1990)

The first free election of the People's Chamber on March 18, 1990 ended with a 0.9 percent disaster for Merkel's Democratic Awakening (DA). Thanks to the unexpected 41 percent for the alliance partner Eastern CDU, however, the joint alliance for Germany became the de facto election winner. Under the CDU top candidate Lothar de Maizière , a coalition was formed within the following weeks, consisting of the Alliance, the Social Democrats and the Liberals. On April 12, the People's Chamber members of this coalition partner elected Lothar de Maizière as the new Prime Minister of the GDR. In the de Maizières government , Rainer Eppelmann was given a ministerial position for the DA with responsibility for disarmament and defense. In accordance with the coalition arithmetic, which had to be observed when allocating further posts, Merkel became deputy government spokeswoman in the first and at the same time last freely elected government of the GDR .

In the weeks after the Volkskammer election, the question of German reunification moved into the political center of attention surprisingly quickly . Merkel accompanied many preparatory discussions, e.g. B. those on the State Treaty on the Creation of a Monetary, Economic and Social Union, which was signed on May 18, 1990 in Bonn. The main negotiator on the part of the GDR was the parliamentary state secretary to the Prime Minister of the GDR, Günther Krause , who became an important sponsor of Merkel over the next few months. On August 31, 1990 , the Unification Treaty was finally signed by Krause and the Federal Minister of the Interior, Wolfgang Schäuble , in Bonn . Merkel accompanied delegations led by Lothar de Maizière on trips abroad and was present at the conclusion of the two-plus-four contract on September 12, 1990 in Moscow.

Joined the CDU (1990)

Merkel with the last Prime Minister of the GDR, Lothar de Maizière (August 1990)

The poor performance of the Democratic Awakening in the People's Chamber election and the development over the next few months made it necessary for the DA to align with the CDU, which Merkel supported. On August 4, 1990, at a special party congress of the DA, a majority voted to join the West German CDU after a previous merger with the East CDU. Merkel was one of three delegates that the DA sent to the CDU's unification convention in Hamburg on October 1 and 2, 1990. In a speech, she introduced herself there as a former “press spokeswoman for the democratic awakening” and as an employee of de Maizières. On the eve of this 38th CDU federal party conference , Merkel had the first personal conversation with Kohl.

Merkel's accession to the CDU took place passively in the course of the merger of the DA to the CDU, as her membership in the DA was automatically converted into a CDU party book.

After reunification on October 3, 1990, Merkel was given the post of ministerial advisor ( A 16 ) in the Federal Press and Information Office (BPA). A return to the institute at which she had worked for twelve years was not opportune, since the winding up of the Academy of Sciences had been laid down in the unification treaty. Her research institute and all others were fundamentally restructured, re-integrated or partially dissolved. Merkel therefore applied for a Bundestag mandate with the secured professional position in the BPA behind her. Through the mediation of Günther Krause , who was CDU state chairman in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , she ran as a direct candidate in the Bundestag constituency of Stralsund - Rügen - Grimmen . Your nomination took place in the Prora barracks on Rügen. At the same time, she was placed at number 6 on the state list as a list candidate .

Federal Minister for Women and Youth (1991–1994)

In April 1991 (left, with Hannelore Rönsch ) at the state ceremony for Detlev Rohwedder

In the first all-German federal election on December 2, 1990 , Merkel won her new constituency with 48.5 percent of the first votes cast . With the constituent session on December 20, 1990, she became a member of the German Bundestag .

The election winner Kohl, who had invited her again for an interview at the Chancellery in Bonn in November 1990, surprisingly nominated her for a ministerial office in his cabinet . The old Federal Ministry for Youth, Family, Women and Health was divided into three parts: the Federal Ministry for Health ( Gerda Hasselfeldt ), the Federal Ministry for Family and Senior Citizens ( Hannelore Rönsch ) and the Federal Ministry for Women and Youth (Angela Merkel). Merkel received a small residual ministry with little authority. She was sworn in as Minister on January 18, 1991. She elected Peter Hintze as parliamentary state secretary . Willi Hausmann later followed as permanent state secretary .

Due to her past as a citizen of the GDR, Merkel was not very familiar with the customs in the Union . Her quick lateral entry was based exclusively on the favor of the Federal Chancellor ("Kohl's girl"), while her later competitors were united in career networks such as the Andean Pact , against which she was initially unable to assert her own domestic power . Therefore, in November 1991 she tried to get the CDU state chairmanship in Brandenburg, but had to accept a vote defeat against Ulf Fink . In December 1991 she was elected deputy federal chairman at the CDU federal party conference in Dresden and thus into the office that Lothar de Maizière had held before her. From 1992 to 1993 she also chaired the Evangelical Working Group (EAK) of the Union parties. After de Maizière's political withdrawal and after Günther Krause, as Federal Transport Minister , had come into the media through the controversial issue of licenses for motorway service stations , she owned one of the few unencumbered Eastern biographies within the CDU. In June 1993 she took the chance to expand her power in the party by succeeding Krause as CDU state chairwoman of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after his political retirement.

Federal Environment Minister (1994–1998)

Environment Minister Angela Merkel in June 1995 on Stresemannufer in Bonn

Merkel received 48.6 percent of the first votes in her constituency in the federal elections on October 16, 1994 and surprisingly became Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in the Kohl cabinet .

Her predecessor in office was Klaus Töpfer , who is also recognized outside the Union . Its environmental policy positions and demands, however, met with increasing resistance within the economic wing of the CDU and in particular among its coalition partner FDP . Merkel's swearing-in on November 17, 1994 and Potter's change to the head of the Federal Ministry for Spatial Planning, Building and Urban Development can be seen as a disempowerment from a party-political perspective. Three months after taking office, Merkel dismissed Clemens Stroetmann, State Secretary of many years, and replaced him with Erhard Jauck .

CDU General Secretary (1998-2000)

The federal election on September 27, 1998 ended in a debacle for the Union and its candidate for Chancellor Kohl. With 35.2 percent, the CDU and CSU achieved the worst result since 1949 - an incumbent federal government was voted out of office for the first time. Merkel's share of first votes fell by 11 percentage points to 37.3 percent.

Wolfgang Schäuble , who was considered Kohl's possible successor, had criticized before the election of the candidate that Kohl ran again, but could not prevail against Kohl. At the CDU federal party congress in Bonn on November 7, 1998, Schäuble was elected as the new federal chairman and, at his suggestion, Merkel was elected Secretary General of the CDU. She received one of the few positions with creative power that had remained in the opposition of the longstanding ruling CDU party. Kohl became honorary chairman of the CDU with a seat in the presidium and federal executive committee.

In the following months the CDU achieved some good results in state elections and in June 1999 in the European elections together with the CSU an outstanding 48.7 percent (1994: 38.8 percent). While in the Kohl era there was already a tendency for German voters to strengthen opposition parties at federal level in other elections, the new opposition party, the CDU, was now supported.

In November 1999 the CDU donation affair became public. The CDU honorary chairman Helmut Kohl announced in a ZDF interview on December 16, 1999 that he had received millions during his time as Federal Chancellor in breach of the party donation law. Kohl refused to name the sponsor or donors, since he had given them his word of honor. Merkel published a guest article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on December 22, 1999 , in which she criticized Kohl's attitude and called on the party to cut the cord:

“So the party has to learn to walk, has to trust itself to take on the fight with the political opponent in the future even without its old warhorse, as Helmut Kohl liked to call himself. Like someone in puberty, she has to break away from home and go her own way. "

This open criticism of Kohl, which had not been heard by the party leadership until then, was not discussed with party chairman Schäuble, who then “actually wanted to dismiss” Merkel; among functionaries she was referred to as a "patricide" and "nest smearer", but also received a lot of encouragement for her risky step, including from Christian Wulff . Since Schäuble agreed with her in the matter and Merkel, alleged to be unencumbered, could credibly represent a new beginning, he left her in office.

CDU Chair (2000 to 2018)

Angela Merkel as party leader at the 28th party convention of the CDU in Germany on December 14, 2015 in Karlsruhe

On February 16, 2000, Schäuble announced his resignation as party and parliamentary group chairman before the CDU / CSU parliamentary group. In the following weeks the party was leaderless, Angela Merkel was in a key position as general secretary. During this time nine so-called "regional conferences" took place. They were originally scheduled to discuss and work through the CDU donation affair with the party base. At these local party meetings, support for Merkel as Schäuble's successor formed. Her later lateral entry now benefited her: In public and at grassroots level she was considered unencumbered in the party donation matter. The Lower Saxony opposition leader Christian Wulff spoke out in favor of Merkel at an early stage . Volker Rühe , Friedrich Merz and Edmund Stoiber, on the other hand, are said to have been critical of their candidacy.

On April 10, 2000, Angela Merkel was elected new CDU federal chairman at the CDU federal party conference in Essen with 897 out of 935 valid votes. At Merkel's suggestion, Ruprecht Polenz became the new CDU General Secretary . Friedrich Merz took over the chairmanship of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group. The new leadership trio experienced their first political defeat on July 14th: Although the red-green federal government did not have the necessary majority in the Bundesrat , it managed to get some federal states with CDU government participation on their side in the vote on the planned tax reform pull. Angela Merkel separated from Ruprecht Polenz in November 2000. As his successor, she chose Laurenz Meyer , who, like Polenz, was a member of the Bundestag from North Rhine-Westphalia.

The years 2000 and 2001 did not bring the CDU under Merkel - also as a result of the donation affair - no major state elections. The red-green federal government, however, seemed to have taken a step. The positioning for the federal election in September 2002 began: Friedrich Merz had already brought himself up for discussion in February 2001 as a candidate for the office of Federal Chancellor. This started the discussion about the candidate question - often referred to as the " K question " in the media . Angela Merkel's willingness to run for office was known. However, she had little support from the top of the party, as many CDU prime ministers and state chairmen favored the Bavarian prime minister and CSU chairman Edmund Stoiber . In December 2001, a decision was avoided at the federal party conference in Dresden; this was to be made on January 11, 2002 at a meeting of the CDU presidium and the federal executive committee in Magdeburg. Merkel avoided the direct confrontation with Stoiber: in the run-up, she had visited him at home for the “ Wolfratshauser Breakfast ”, during which she informed him that she was giving up in his favor. Angela Merkel's withdrawal served to maintain her own power, a clear defeat in the vote against Stoiber could have been interpreted as a vote of no confidence in her person and could have sparked a discussion about the party leadership.

Opposition leader (2002-2005)

2002

The federal election on September 22, 2002 ended with a narrow re-election of the red-green government coalition under Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer . Angela Merkel had loyally supported the unsuccessful Stoiber candidacy. Schröder's quick reaction to the flood of the century had also contributed to Schröder's election victory, but his negative stance on the Iraq war is considered even more important . The “no” of the incumbent federal government was offset by Merkel's commitment to George W. Bush's course of confrontation - which she called a “threatening backdrop” at the time. She and Stoiber adhered to the unconditional commitment to the USA dictated by their party programs and accused the government of irritating the Americans and of endangering the historic alliance with the “liberators” from National Socialism .

Immediately after the Bundestag election was lost, Angela Merkel claimed the chairmanship of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, the previous office of Friedrich Merz; she had planned this regardless of the outcome of the election. As a minister, she did not want to belong to a government by Stoiber. In the constellation, she would face the Schröder government in parliament as the opposition leader . Merz was initially not ready to give up his position and, in turn, expressed criticism of Merkel. At the decisive CDU presidium meeting, Stoiber's vote in favor of Merkel was the decisive factor. The relationship between Merkel and Merz was already considered a conflict-ridden competitive constellation.

In the first re-election as party leader at the federal party conference in Hanover on November 11, 2002, Merkel was re-elected with 93.6 percent of the vote.

2003

The year 2003 brought the CDU and its chairman successes in the state elections in Hesse and Lower Saxony . The growing presence of the CDU in the Federal Council finally made it possible for Angela Merkel to co-govern from the opposition. The CDU supported Agenda 2010 of the red-green federal government and, after having pushed through further demands in the mediation committee , approved the changes in the law in the Bundestag and Bundesrat. She was involved in the formulation of the health reform that came into effect on January 1, 2004 and the fourth law for modern services on the labor market (Hartz IV). In the case of the Bundestag member Martin Hohmann , whose theses on the "Jewish perpetrators" were sharply criticized, Merkel was not very decisive: The first parliamentary party exclusion of a Union member in the history of the German Bundestag, in November 2003, took place after a long period of reflection and under public pressure .

2004

On February 6, 2004, the politically ailing Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder resigned as SPD chairman, and was succeeded by Franz Müntefering . In the same month, the CDU achieved a clear victory in the election for Hamburg citizenship . Angela Merkel toured Turkey for three days in February . There she advocated the “ privileged partnership ” model , as an alternative to the full membership of the European Union sought by the federal government .

In a speech on November 20, 2004, Angela Merkel commented on the domestic political situation in Germany with the words “The multicultural society has failed” with regard to the integration problems of the Muslim (predominantly Turkish) population. Angela Merkel once again brought the concept of the German leading culture into the discussion and above all criticized the Muslims' lack of willingness to integrate, from their point of view.

The end of the term of office of Federal President Johannes Rau meant the replacement of the formal highest political office in the Federal Republic of Germany. Wolfgang Schäuble got involved early on as a candidate and could hope for support from the CDU and CSU. Internal party opponents Angela Merkel such as Roland Koch and Friedrich Merz favored Schäuble, as did Edmund Stoiber (CSU). Horst Köhler was considered Merkel's candidate, and his wafer-thin electoral success with a majority of one vote in the Federal Assembly on May 23, 2004 was generally seen as a further expansion of her position of power.

Early federal election 2005

The state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia on May 22, 2005 brought the SPD a severe defeat, which continued a series of state elections in 2003 and 2004. Half an hour after the closing of the polling stations, first SPD party leader Franz Müntefering and shortly afterwards Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder announced that they would seek an early election of the Bundestag for autumn 2005 as a political and media liberation.

On May 30, the party presidencies of the CDU and CSU elected Angela Merkel as candidate for chancellor of the Union parties in a joint meeting . Their role was undisputed, the internal party opponents marginalized. Merkel's shadow cabinet was presented as a competence team in view of the desired coalition with the FDP . Paul Kirchhof in particular and his “ Kirchhof model ” (for taxing income) as well as the CDU's ideas about health insurance (“ flat rate per capita ”) were later seen as “difficult to convey” and jointly responsible for an unsatisfactory election result.

In the federal elections on September 18, 2005 , the CDU / CSU and top candidate Angela Merkel achieved 35.2 percent (2002: 38.5) ahead of the SPD with 34.2 percent. Angela Merkel won her own constituency 15 ( Stralsund , Northern Pomerania and Rügen District ) with 41.3 percent of the first votes. The Union thus fell significantly short of its forecasts and was unable to achieve its electoral goal of a government majority for the CDU / CSU and FDP. On the contrary, it threatened to lose its comfortable lead, analogous to 2002, to the experienced campaigner Schröder; the hope that Merkel could improve the often praised result of Bayern Stoiber, which in parts of Germany was rather irritating in 2002, had not been fulfilled. Historically, the CDU result was the worst since 1949, and the overall Union result was the second worst. Merkel was nevertheless able to rely on a narrow lead of four seats and thus one of the narrowest election results in German history, as the Social Democrats also had to accept a significant drop in votes and, unlike in the polls, it was a head-to-head race , in the course of which the previous government coalition of the SPD and the Greens had lost its parliamentary majority.

Federal Chancellor (since 2005)

Grand Coalition 2005 to 2009

Coalition negotiations
Angela Merkel speaking at the opening of the ESMT campus (2006)
Angela Merkel in Aachen (2008)

In a television discussion on election evening, the so-called " elephant round ", Gerhard Schröder surprisingly claimed the formation of a government for himself despite the lost majority of red-green - in a form that sparked heated discussions and which he himself later described as "suboptimal". The next few days were determined in the political Berlin from the question whether the SPD, the largest in the Bundestag single fraction of a party, or CDU / CSU, as the largest parliamentary group , the Office of the Federal Chancellor - in whatever form coalition government - fees.

On September 20, Angela Merkel was re-elected as parliamentary group leader in a secret ballot with 219 of 222 votes by the Union Bundestag faction, which met for the first time after the election. After the disappointing federal election results, this was an important vote of confidence and support for upcoming coalition talks. In the 14 days up to a necessary by-election in constituency 160 (Dresden I), the public experienced talks between Angela Merkel and Edmund Stoiber with Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen in order to explore a possible black-yellow-green “ Jamaica coalition ” together with the FDP. Only after the decision in Dresden did talks with the SPD begin to form a grand coalition . On October 10, the SPD, CDU and CSU published a joint agreement that included the planned election of Angela Merkel as Chancellor by the 16th German Bundestag . On November 12th, after five weeks of negotiations between the CDU / CSU and the SPD, she presented the coalition agreement .

On November 22, 2005 Angela Merkel was elected Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany with 397 of the 611 valid votes (votes against: 202; abstentions: 12) of the members of the 16th German Bundestag. This was 51 votes fewer when the coalition parties had mandates. After seven male predecessors, Angela Merkel was the first female Chancellor. At the same time, at the age of 51, she was the youngest incumbent, the first person from the new federal states and the first natural scientist to hold this office.

Government formation

Even before the beginning of the legislative period , Merkel's longstanding competitor Edmund Stoiber surprisingly renounced the post of Minister of Economics that had been earmarked for him, according to his own admission because of Franz Müntefering's withdrawal from the SPD party leadership.

Angela Merkel appointed Thomas de Maizière , cousin of the last GDR Prime Minister Lothar de Maizière, to the position of trust and key position as head of the Federal Chancellery .

First half of the term of office

At the beginning of the term of office, Merkel and her cabinet were not particularly visible in foreign or domestic politics. Only Merkel's ministers made some headlines, but these related more to questions of competence or the long-term orientation of government work than to specific issues.

At the end of March 2006, Merkel presented an eight-point program for the second “stage” of the legislative period. It outlined planned efforts in the areas of federalism reform , bureaucracy reduction, research and innovation, energy policy, budget and financial policy, family policy, labor market policy and especially health reform .

Merkel and other heads of government at the G8 summit 2007 in the Mecklenburg seaside resort of Heiligendamm

Regardless of the lack of necessary far-reaching reforms , Merkel's rather objective style of government initially met with approval from the general public, from business leaders and abroad.

On November 27, 2006, she was re-elected federal chairman of the party with 93 percent of the vote at the federal party convention of the CDU.

Merkel caused a minor foreign policy scandal when she received the Dalai Lama Tendzin Gyatsho on September 23, 2007 in the Berlin Federal Chancellery . The meeting with the spiritual leader of the Tibetans was described by her as a "private exchange of ideas" with a religious leader and should not be understood as a political statement on Tibet's aspirations for autonomy . Nevertheless, the People's Republic of China was upset and canceled several official appointments at the ministerial level with reference to “technical problems”. Merkel's foreign policy advisor Christoph Heusgen was able to smooth things over again by assuring the Chinese Ambassador Ma Canrong that Germany would not change its China policy and that China's territorial integrity was beyond question.

EU Council Presidency 2007
Angela Merkel at the Congress of the European People's Party in Warsaw (2009)

Represented by Angela Merkel and the Federal Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier , the Federal Republic of Germany held the presidency of the Council of the European Union from January 1 to June 30, 2007 . The chairmanship was held as part of the tripartite presidency with Portugal and Slovenia .

Merkel named the European Constitutional Treaty , the “climate and energy policy”, the “deepening of the transatlantic economic partnership” and a “neighborhood policy for the Black Sea region and Central Asia” as essential components of the political agenda .

Merkel urged that the reference to God and the Christian faith be anchored in the EU constitution. Ultimately, this demand, which was also made by Poland, Ireland and Italy, among others, could not be accepted - the Treaty of Lisbon only refers to the “cultural, religious and humanistic heritage of Europe”.

Financial crisis and reactions

In autumn 2008, the historical extent of the financial crisis that began in 2007 became clear - among other things through the bankruptcy of numerous large financial institutions . The IKB , some German Landesbanken and also private institutes had to make considerable write-downs. The German Bundestag reacted in August with the Risk Limitation Act , while BaFin prohibited certain short sales.

On October 8, 2008, the Merkel government issued a guarantee for savings deposits in Germany. This guarantee was valid for every institution and every saver of an institution that is part of the German deposit insurance . Merkel had previously sharply criticized the Irish government for its own state guarantee, which, however, only related to domestic banks. Merkel's approach was criticized by other European finance ministers as going it alone on a national level, but was classified by the EU Commission as not distorting competition and therefore unproblematic. Angela Merkel supported the stimulus packages adopted on November 5, 2008 and January 12, 2009 as Chancellor. She saw this as an opportunity to emerge stronger from the financial and economic crisis. As Federal Chancellor, she also worked with the SPD to introduce the environmental bonus on January 14, 2009, despite strong criticism from the opposition. This means that buyers of a new car who at the same time scrapped their at least 9-year-old car were granted a state premium of 2500 euros. This should support the automotive industry, which has come under pressure from the global economic crisis. At the end of March 2009, Merkel promised the ailing car manufacturer Opel that she would support the search for an investor and promised state guarantees, but refused to nationalize parts of Opel. At the planned sale of Opel in the summer of 2009, Merkel pleaded for the automotive supplier Magna as the future owner.

In April 2008, Angela Merkel, in her role as Chancellor , invited the banker Josef Ackermann , then CEO of Deutsche Bank , and 20 to 30 other people to his 60th birthday dinner and then had to leave - after a ruling by the Higher Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandenburg (OVG) in 2012 - publish the list of invited guests. Among other things, it was criticized that Merkel mixed politics and lobby interests.

Other policy areas

After Barack Obama's election as President of the United States of America, Merkel congratulated him on his “historic victory”. At their first meeting, both emphasized their common line, for example on questions of global warming or Iran's nuclear policy. One of the few inconsistencies concerned the admission of prisoners from the American prison camp at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base . Obama urged Merkel to make a quick decision. During the deliberations on the accession of other countries, such as the Balkans, to the EU, Merkel's conservative course met with criticism at the Foreign Ministers' Conference in Frauenberg in March 2009. The government partner SPD accused her that her program contradicted the European election program of the CDU. After the rampage in Winnenden on March 11, 2009, the Chancellor spoke out in favor of stricter controls on gun owners. In addition, attempts must be made to keep weapons inaccessible to children and young people.

Election campaign 2009

During the election campaign conducted in the run-up to the federal election in September 2009, Merkel was often accused in public and by parts of the CDU / CSU of showing too little party profile. For example, it was criticized for not clearly formulating its approach to combating the global economic crisis . Merkel herself denied these allegations. The opposition parties also criticized Angela Merkel's behavior when it came to a televised duel between the top candidates from all parties. After the top duel between the SPD and CDU chancellor candidates, both Merkel and Steinmeier canceled their appearance in such a group. During the election campaign, Merkel called for the entry tax rate for income tax to be reduced in two steps and for the spouse to be fully retained . The Chancellor continued to reject a nationwide minimum wage and advocated extending the service life of nuclear power plants in Germany.

Angela Merkel at the opening of CeBIT on March 6, 2012

Black-yellow coalition from 2009 to 2013

Bundestag election 2009 and formation of a government

On September 27, 2009 the election for the 17th German Bundestag took place. The Union parties and the FDP together achieved the necessary majority for the formation of a black-yellow coalition, which both sides wanted . However, both Union parties lost votes and each had to accept their worst result after the first federal election in 1949 . Merkel herself won in constituency 15 (Stralsund - North Western Pomerania - Rügen) with 49.3 percent of the first votes and thus achieved an increase of 8 percentage points compared to the previous federal election.

Angela Merkel with Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (2010)

After the coalition parties had signed a coalition agreement, Angela Merkel was re-elected Chancellor on October 28, 2009 with 323 of 612 votes cast; these were nine votes fewer than the coalition of CDU / CSU and FDP held. On November 10, 2009, Merkel submitted her government statement for the new legislative period, in which she focused on overcoming the consequences of the economic crisis.

Overcoming the economic crisis

The coalition could not gain a foothold at first, so that the public impression of the government work increasingly suffered. The coalition, which had started to simplify the tax system, limited itself with the “ Growth Acceleration Act ” initially to slight tax relief in various areas and the introduction of a “ hotel tax ” (the value added tax for hotel stays was reduced from 19 to 7 percent). In the first year in particular, the coalition did not come together to act harmoniously, which culminated in mutual insults in the press. It was only towards the end of 2010 that the government's cooperation was well received.

The consequences of the economic and banking crisis as well as the increasing problems in the euro zone took up a large part of the coalition's actions. In May 2010 the heads of government of the 17 euro countries decided in great haste at an EU Council meeting on the first euro rescue package : Greece (a country with around 10 million inhabitants) received an unsecured loan of 80 billion euros to cover an imminent Avoiding state bankruptcy. The Bundestag approved the German part in the Monetary Union Financial Stability Act . Several massive increases in German liability for debts of other euro countries - a violation of the no-bailout clause - followed (see euro crisis , Greek financial crisis ).

The number of unemployed fell below 3 million in autumn 2010.

In connection with the euro crisis , the Bundestag passed a law on June 13, 2013 to establish a uniform banking supervisory mechanism , which also allows a recapitalization of financially troubled banks with funds from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) , which until then only allowed aid payments to states .

Bundeswehr reform and plagiarism affair in Guttenberg

Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (CSU) initiated a debate in the spring of 2010 on a Bundeswehr reform that stipulated a maximum troop strength of 185,000 soldiers. Despite great concerns, the CDU and CSU gave broad approval at party congresses in autumn 2010. On March 24, 2011, the German Bundestag resolved, with the votes of the Union, FDP, SPD and the Greens, to suspend compulsory military service , which had existed for 55 years , so that the Bundeswehr became a professional army from July 1, 2011 (also known as the 'volunteer army') .

In the course of a plagiarism affair surrounding his doctoral thesis , zu Guttenberg, hitherto the most popular minister in her cabinet, declared his resignation from all federal political offices under public and political pressure on March 1, 2011. Merkel's statement that she had appointed Guttenberg “not as a scientific assistant” and that his work as a minister was “excellent” increased dissatisfaction at universities and academics about how the affair was being dealt with, who accepted this statement as a disregard or relativization of scientific standards.

Turnaround in energy policy

In October 2010, the federal government extended the running times of all 17 active German nuclear power plants ("Ausstieg aus dem Ausstieg") and thus canceled the so-called atomic consensus (2000/2002) of the red-green Schröder government . The seven German nuclear power plants that went into operation before 1980 received electricity for an additional eight years of operation; the remaining ten received electricity for an additional 14 years of operation.

Angela Merkel at the Congress of the European People's Party (2012)

A few days after the start of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan , however, Merkel announced in March 2011 that she was completely turning away from her previous nuclear and energy policy . First, the federal government announced a three-month nuclear moratorium for the seven oldest German nuclear power plants and for the Krümmel nuclear power plant ; shortly afterwards, it set up two expert commissions to justify or legitimize its accelerated nuclear phase-out.

On June 6, 2011, the Merkel II cabinet decided to end eight nuclear power plants and Germany's gradual nuclear phase-out by 2022.

This turnaround brought Merkel a lot of inner-party criticism, especially from the conservative wing of the Union. Environmental protection organizations and the opposition Greens criticized the nuclear phase-out as inadequate, but Angela Merkel took the federal government and the parties that support it out of direct criticism and was able to count on broad approval from the population.

In May 2012 it caused a sensation when Merkel surprisingly brought about the dismissal of Federal Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen . She announced her decision three days after Röttgen's state election defeat as the top candidate of the NRW CDU against the incumbent NRW Prime Minister Hannelore Kraft . Even before the election, Merkel repeatedly praised Norbert Röttgen.

Relationship with the United States

In May 2011, Merkel publicly congratulated US President Obama on the killing of Osama bin Laden by an American special unit and expressed her joy at the success of " Operation Neptune Spear ". She came under criticism from within the party, from church representatives and in the press.

After information had become known in the course of the surveillance and espionage affair in 2013 that the Chancellor's CDU mobile phone could have been tapped for years by the US secret service NSA , Merkel requested in a personal phone call to US President Obama a comprehensive clarification of the allegations and an answer to a request made months ago by the German government. A spokeswoman for the National Security Council of the United States stated that the President had assured the Chancellor "that the United States will not and will not monitor your communications." The spokeswoman did not answer, despite specific inquiries, whether this would also apply to them Past applies.

The Chancellor's telephone number (blacked out) on an extract from a secret NSA file

According to the journalist Sidney Blumenthal , who acted as an advisor to US President Bill Clinton and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton , the United States repeatedly monitored talks between Angela Merkel and Treasury Secretary Wolfgang Schäuble and Merkel and Schäuble with Gerhard Schindler and Major General Norbert Stier , President and Vice President of the Federal Intelligence Service . On May 6, 2012, a “safe” telephone conference with Merkel on the election of François Hollande as French President and the result of the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein was listened to, which was scheduled by Schäuble . In the conversation, Schäuble suggested, among other things, that early federal elections should be considered in order to prevent a possible left-wing trend and thus an impending loss of the government majority. Schäuble reported on information from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution on the rise of right-wing extremist parties in France and Greece and right-wing extremist paramilitary groups in Sweden, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, while Merkel expressed concern about the CSU's relations with right-wing extremists in Germany and Austria. Talks in July, August and September 2012 dealt with the euro crisis and the upcoming elections in the Netherlands and Italy.

Shortly before the start of the EU summit in Brussels from October 24 to 25, 2013, at which the condensed indications of spying by the United States against friendly European countries were discussed in detail, although this topic was not announced on the agenda, Merkel said: " Spying on friends is not possible. We are allies, but such an alliance can only be built on trust. ”On the same day the New York Times reported that an order to wiretap Merkel's telephone goes back to the reign of US President George W. Bush and that the US -Security Advisor Susan E. Rice asserted that the current US President Obama knew nothing about this matter. Der Spiegel reported on October 26, 2013 that Merkel's cell phone had apparently been monitored for more than ten years and that NSA and CIA employees in the United States Embassy in Berlin were illegally tapping communications in the government district using modern high-performance antennas. Not only the connection data of the interlocutors, but also the content of individual conversations were recorded.

On October 27, 2013, it was reported, citing a senior NSA employee, that NSA boss Keith B. Alexander had personally informed the US President in 2010 about the wiretapping against Merkel and that not only her CDU cell phone was overheard, but also a supposedly bug-proof cell phone belonging to the Chancellor. Obama not only allowed the measures to continue at the time, but also urged the chancellor's new cell phone to be cracked. On October 30, 2013, the New York Times reported , citing a former intelligence agent, that the NSA in Germany "sucked up" every available phone number; High-ranking officials and the heads of the opposition parties are also targets of espionage. The State Department, the Treasury Department, other US intelligence agencies and the National Security Council were interested in the reports from the NSA. Obama's security advisers could hardly have overlooked the fact that international politicians like Merkel were being spied on, according to the reports that were regularly submitted to them.

The wiretapping of the United States against Germany started in 2002 and was directed primarily against Chancellor Gerhard Schröder because his rejection of the Iraq war and his “proximity” to Russian President Putin raised the question of whether he still trusted the United States could be. However, the NSA immediately denied that NSA boss Alexander had ever spoken to Obama about an operation involving Merkel. Based on US government circles, the Wall Street Journal published the version on October 27, 2013 that the NSA wiretapping program against Merkel and the top politicians of other nations had been stopped when a review by the US government submitted to the US president in the summer of 2013 Revealed existence of these intelligence operations. With a view to the spies that the United States apparently directed against other nations as well as against the United Nations , the European Union , the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank , Dilma Rousseff , President of Brazil , and Chancellor Merkel passed a resolution by the United States Prepare nations to complement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and call on all states to scrutinize legislation and practice in surveillance operations abroad. The draft resolution, which was submitted to the UN Human Rights Committee on November 1, 2013 and did not specifically name the USA, was weakened after several weeks of deliberation at the insistence of the USA and other states and was unanimously adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on November 26, 2013.

Grand Coalition (since 2013)

Bundestag election 2013 and formation of a government
Angela Merkel at the conclusion of the Thuringian state election campaign in 2014

On September 22, 2013, the election for the 18th German Bundestag took place. While the Union parties received the best second vote result since 1990 with 41.5 percent, the previous coalition partner, the FDP , failed to get back into the Bundestag with 4.8 percent for the first time since 1949. Merkel herself won in constituency 15 (Stralsund - Northern Pomerania - Rügen) with 56.2 percent of the first votes and thus achieved an increase of 6.9 percentage points compared to the previous federal election.

Angela Merkel in the German Bundestag (2014)

After the coalition parties had signed a coalition agreement, Angela Merkel was re-elected Chancellor on December 17 with 462 out of a total of 621 votes cast; this is 42 votes fewer than the coalition of CDU / CSU and SPD held.

Angela Merkel is the first person to head the German government to be born in the Federal Republic (1954). Merkel has been the longest-serving head of government in the European Union since March 26, 2014, when Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip resigned .

2017 Bundestag election and formation of a government

On November 20, 2016, Merkel announced that she would run for a fourth term as Federal Chancellor in the 2017 federal election. On December 6, 2016, she was re-elected as party leader at the CDU federal party conference in Essen with 89.5 percent of the almost 1,000 delegate votes. The CDU / CSU suffered heavy losses and achieved its worst result since the 1949 federal election . Merkel herself won the direct mandate in constituency 15 (Vorpommern-Rügen - Vorpommern-Greifswald I) with 44.0 percent of the first votes and thus recorded a loss of 12.3 percent compared to the previous federal election, but still defended the constituency with just under 25 percent advantage.

After the 2017 federal election, the SPD announced that it was not available for a grand coalition, making the so-called Jamaica coalition of CDU / CSU, FDP and Greens the only realistic alliance with a majority. For more than four weeks, there were exploratory talks between the parties, which on the night of November 19, the FDP chairman Christian Lindner declared a failure.

Angela Merkel with the coalition agreement (2018)

Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier then held intensive talks with the party leaders and emphatically reminded the elected members of the Bundestag of their obligation to the common good and to form a government. The procedure for the election of the Federal Chancellor (and, if necessary, subsequent new elections) can only be started with a proposal by the Federal President according to Article 63.1 of the Basic Law.

A black-red-green coalition (Kenya coalition) has meanwhile been brought up for discussion, Angela Merkel and the top leadership of the SPD have been preferring a grand coalition (GroKo) with a renewed coalition agreement as in the previous legislative period as an alternative , but not Jusos as well as large parts of the social democratic base.

On January 12, the CDU, CSU and SPD concluded their exploratory talks and presented a 28-page paper. At a special party congress of the SPD in Bonn on January 21, 56.4 percent of the delegates voted to start coalition negotiations with the Union parties. These ended on February 7, 2018 with the Union and SPD agreeing on a coalition agreement .

On February 26, 2018, a CDU party congress voted for a new edition of the grand coalition, and on March 4, 2018 it was announced that 66% of the participating SPD members voted for the coalition agreement in a member vote.

Angela Merkel was re-elected Chancellor in the first ballot on March 14, 2018 with 364 yes votes (at least 355 were required) and then sworn in by the Federal President. It received 35 votes fewer than the CDU / CSU and SPD have seats in the Bundestag.

After major losses by the Union parties in the state elections in Bavaria and Hesse in 2018, Merkel announced in a presidium meeting on October 29, 2018 that she would no longer run for the office of CDU chairperson and after the end of the legislative period in 2021 she would not hold the office of Chancellor again to strive for.

On December 7, 2018, she handed over the post of federal chairmanship of the CDU to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer after her election in the second ballot.

EU Council Presidency 2020

During the German EU Council Presidency from July 1 to December 31, 2020 , Merkel negotiated the billion-euro development program during the Corona crisis and the budget of the EU countries.

Political positions

Foreign policy

Merkel is a member of the Atlantik-Brücke , which promotes intensive relations between Germany and the United States . In retrospect, Barack Obama called Angela Merkel his most important partner in foreign policy towards the end of his presidency.

Angela Merkel with US President Barack Obama , Michelle Obama and Joachim Sauer at the state reception in Baden-Baden (April 3, 2009)

Future of the European Union

During an EU summit in Brussels on November 7, 2012, Chancellor Angela Merkel campaigned for the United States of Europe: "I am in favor of the Commission one day being something like a European government". In 2005 Merkel said - during a visit to Istanbul, among others - that she favored a “ privileged partnership ” for Turkey instead of full membership in the EU.

Military conflict resolution

In the run-up to the Iraq war , Angela Merkel expressed her sympathy for the US policy on Iraq and the “ coalition of the willing ”. As a German opposition leader, she criticized the foreign policy of the federal government from the soil of the USA, which brought her sharp opposition from Berlin. The SPD parliamentary group leader, Franz Müntefering, judged Merkel's statement as a “kicker towards the US administration”.

In a speech in the German Bundestag on March 19, 2003, Merkel declared the Union's support for the ultimatum to Saddam Hussein as the “last chance for peace” and called on the German government to do the same to “really prevent the war in Iraq ".

She describes Angela Merkel's basic attitude towards military conflict resolution in publications from this period. Merkel, for example, accepted NATO's involvement in the Kosovo war (1999) as an “ ultima ratio ” and makes historical comparisons with German history:

“A look back into our own history warns us to keep peace as a valuable good and to do everything possible to avoid armed conflicts. […] A look at the same story also warns that a misunderstood, radical pacifism can lead to doom and the use of violence - despite the associated suffering - can ultimately be inevitable in order to prevent even greater evil. Recent European history also shows that war can become the 'ultima ratio' when dealing with dictators. [...] During the Kosovo war, a 'coalition of the willing' prevented even greater suffering [...] through the use of force. "

Regarding the withdrawal of nuclear weapons in Germany , Merkel insists that the negotiations on the withdrawal of the missiles should be carried out jointly with the other NATO countries and by no means single-handedly.

Integration policy

After the Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan warned the Turks in Germany against assimilation during a visit to Germany in February 2008 , she criticized his “understanding of integration”.

In 2010, at the Junge Union's Germany Day , she declared the “approach for multiculturalism ” to have failed. One must not only encourage migrants , but also challenge them.

In 2013 she spoke out against dual citizenship and against the separation of Muslim boys and girls in physical education. The latter is the “completely wrong signal of integration policy” and the opposite of integration. In 2017, Merkel defended dual citizenship against the party conference decision of the CDU.

In her party conference speech on December 6, 2016, Merkel advocated a statutory full veil ban .

Muslims in Germany

During a visit by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu to the Berlin Chancellery in January 2015, she said: “Former Federal President Christian Wulff said: Islam belongs to Germany. And that's how it is. I agree with that. "

On the occasion of the Islamic month of fasting Ramadan in 2015, Angela Merkel called for mutual respect for religions . At a reception in Berlin, she also affirmed: "It is obvious that Islam now undoubtedly belongs to Germany."

In front of representatives of different faiths she referred to the worldwide acts of violence in the name of one religion - "too often unfortunately in the name of Islam". But any exclusion of Muslims in Germany, any general suspicion is prohibited, said Merkel. The vast majority of Muslims are righteous and constitutional citizens.

Islamist terrorism

When asked how she wanted to protect Germany from Islamist terror, Merkel replied in an interview on September 18, 2015 that some of the Islamist terror abroad was being exported from Germany, as many of the terrorists operating abroad grew up in Germany ; Also, given their own historical past, Europeans would have little reason to show arrogance in this context.

Right-wing terrorism

During Angela Merkel's tenure as Federal Chancellor, there were various right-wing extremist attacks and murders, including two murders of immigrant entrepreneurs in 2006 by the National Socialist Underground (NSU) and the group's exposure in November 2011. Merkel issued a warning at a commemoration in February 2012 before “indifference and inattention to intolerance and racism”. In addition, there was the murder of Walter Lübcke in 2019 , the first right-wing extremist motivated murder of a politician in the history of the Federal Republic and the attack in Halle with two dead and in 2020 the attack in Hanau with nine deaths. After the act in Hanau, Merkel said in a speech that “the federal government and all state institutions stand for the rights and dignity of every person in our country”. "We oppose those who are trying to divide in Germany with all our strength and determination," said Merkel.

Middle East Policy

Merkel has so far spoken cautiously about German participation in a United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon to pacify the Israel-Lebanon conflict . Israeli Prime Minister Olmert called for German soldiers to participate. "I told Chancellor Angela Merkel that we have absolutely no problem with German soldiers in southern Lebanon," he told the Süddeutsche Zeitung . At the moment there is no nation that is more friendly towards Israel than Germany.

On March 18, 2008, Merkel gave a speech to the Knesset in Israel , which she began in Hebrew . She emphasized Germany's historical responsibility for Israel; the security of the Jewish state is part of the German raison d'etre and is never negotiable. Merkel was the first foreign head of government invited by the Knesset to give a speech.

In a telephone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2011, Merkel said that she lacked “any understanding” for the Israeli government's approval of a settlement development in East Jerusalem .

On the civil war in Syria , Merkel demanded a ruling by the UN Security Council against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2011 and sided with the opposition. In the TV duel, however, she said that Germany would not take part in a military strike against Syria . Merkel wants to find a common position with the European Union .

Belarus

At a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in 2011, Merkel said that she and Berlusconi were in agreement that, given the situation in Belarus, it was unfortunately necessary to talk again about reviving sanctions that they had actually already abandoned. She sees developments in Belarus with great concern, especially the way in which the opposition is dealt with.

Ukraine

Angela Merkel, the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and the Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 6, 2014 in Normandy (at the invitation of the French President François Hollande ) at the commemoration of the "D-day"

Within the framework of the so-called Normandy format "Merkel-Hollande-Poroshenko-Putin", Merkel spent hours and hours resolving the conflict between the pro-Russian and counter-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, especially when two ceasefire agreements were reached in the Belarusian capital Minsk , ( see also Minsk II ).

Military intervention in Libya

Angela Merkel at the summit in the Elysee Palace in Paris on March 19, 2011

In the run-up to the military intervention in Libya in the spring of 2011, Merkel was surprised at "the speed with which certain questions are being addressed" and criticized the fact that there had been a "series of French activities" that "only became known at very short notice" be. Gaddafi is undoubtedly waging war against his own people. But you have to be "very careful that we do not start anything that we cannot finish." She was surprised that France had recognized the National Transitional Council as the Libyan government. It is not a matter of recognition in the sense of international law.

Economic and social policy

At the end of 2000, Merkel tried to make a name for herself with the formulation of a “new social market economy”. The title takes up the established concept of the social market economy . Among the vague theses, the concrete implementation of which remains vague, there are also positions that appeared in the Schröder-Blair paper from 1999. A CDU Presidium Commission under Merkel's chairmanship worked out a discussion paper by August 27, 2001, which was passed in December 2001 at the CDU's federal party conference in Dresden and thus became part of the CDU's program.

Merkel and Barroso in Meise (Belgium) on September 15, 2010

Euro crisis

In the course of the financial crisis from 2007 onwards , the euro crisis arose , which Merkel tried to solve with her policy. She repeatedly affirmed that the euro was a strong currency and sought the support of French President Hollande . This was particularly controversial among the French socialists. France's Minister of Industry, Arnaud Montebourg, sharply attacked Merkel and compared her to Bismarck .

Merkel advocates a strict austerity policy, which some critics such as the International Monetary Fund see as inhibiting growth and exacerbating the crisis. In February 2010, Merkel expressly excluded financial aid for Greece, but just two months later gave her approval for the first German aid package for Greece amounting to 17 billion euros. At the end of 2012, she said she could envision another haircut for Greece in 2014. It voted for both the provisional EFSF in 2010 and the ESM in 2012 with the aim of stabilizing the euro. Merkel says she is rejecting EU bonds that could be used for joint borrowing in the EU or the euro currency area.

Social spending

At the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2013, Chancellor Merkel began a series of widely acclaimed international statements, all of which had as their content that Europe only accounts for 7% of the world's population and only generates 25% of the world's gross national product , but for almost 50% of global social benefits comes up.

Since that statement in Davos, this argument has become a recurring part of her most important speeches.

The Economist said, just as Merkel's vision must be described as pragmatic from the outset, the same applies to her plan for implementation: The vision can be summarized in three statistics, a few maps and facts on a A4 page. The numbers are 7%, 25% and 50%. If Europe wanted to remain competitive, it simply couldn't afford to be so generous. The Economist then compared Merkel's use of these numbers with the behavior of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher , who in due course pulled passages from Friedrich Hayek's path to bondage out of her handbag.

The Financial Times commented in a similar way , emphasizing that Merkel made a clear connection between social benefits and a lack of competitiveness.

Family policy

As Federal Minister for Women and Youth, Angela Merkel was confronted with a dramatic fall in the female employment rate in the new federal states and, as a result, with a collapse in the birth rate. In addition, there was the different legal situation regarding abortion in East and West, which according to the Unification Treaty should be replaced by a later joint regulation. A political focus during her term of office was therefore the new regulation of Section 218 and the introduction of a de facto time limit solution with an obligation to advise throughout Germany. The Equal Rights Act (1993/94) was intended to improve the professional situation of women . In retrospect, Merkel assesses the change to the Child and Youth Welfare Act as the greatest success of her term in office . This amendment brought the formal legal right to a kindergarten place for children aged three and over.

On the discussion about circumcision for religious reasons and the protection of the integrity of children, Merkel took a position in July 2012: “I do not want Germany to be the only country in the world where Jews cannot practice their rites. Otherwise we make ourselves a comedy nation. "

Merkel spoke out against tax equality for homosexual couples and declared that she wanted to keep marriage privileged.

In this context, Merkel expressly opposed the common adoption right of same-sex couples. She justified this attitude with a "bad gut feeling". In June 2017 she was open to a discussion about opening marriage for the first time, spoke of a “decision of conscience” and finally on June 27, 2017 cleared the way for a vote in the Bundestag without being forced to join a parliamentary group. She herself voted against the opening of marriage.

Energy and environmental policy

In April 1995, Merkel, as the German Environment Minister, hosted the first UN Climate Change Conference (COP-1) in Berlin. With the Berlin mandate, a deal was reached that was intended to provide an introduction to the international reduction of greenhouse gases. In 1997, during the subsequent negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol , Merkel advocated comparatively high reduction targets. An initiative to contain the summer smog in Germany failed in May 1995 within the cabinet and was later only implemented in a very weak form. Until 2010, Angela Merkel was a proponent of the civil use of nuclear energy , i.e. electricity generation in nuclear power plants. In her office she was responsible for handling nuclear waste transports. In May 1998 it became known that the limit values ​​were exceeded in Castor transports to France . Merkel's resignation was demanded from the opposition because of the breach of ministerial supervision. Merkel pointed out that important competencies and responsibilities also lay with the federal states and the nuclear industry. During Merkel's term of office, the Recycling Management Act to avoid and recycle waste falls . In 1997 she publicly advocated an annual increase in the tax on energy sources such as oil, gas and electricity ( eco tax ).

In 2006/07 Merkel gained the reputation of being a “ climate chancellor ”: she was committed to climate goals at European and international level. Later, the importance of climate policy declined again. For example, she no longer took part in the UN climate summit in New York in September 2014 and instead attended a conference of the Federation of German Industries . In 2015, she said that climate policy initiatives had not yet been specifically planned. The climate researcher Mojib Latif said that Merkel was "never really a climate chancellor" due to the scarce climate protection in Germany and multiple interventions for the auto industry.

Critics have accused Merkel, commitments to the by electricity consumers costs to be borne by it significant influence energy policy have not been respected. Contrary to their statement in a government declaration in 2011, according to which the EEG surcharge to be borne by all energy consumers should not rise above the order of 3.5 ct / kWh, this surcharge has increased further and is currently (2019) 6.405 ct / kWh.

Asylum policy

During the refugee crisis in 2015 , Merkel's decision on September 4, 2015, in consultation with the heads of government of Austria and Hungary, would allow refugees stuck on the Austro-Hungarian border and in Budapest , mainly from Syria and Afghanistan, to enter Germany without registration through Hungary , great response in the media and the public inside and outside Germany.

At the same time, Merkel underlined the importance of a uniform European refugee and asylum policy . The declared cornerstones of their asylum policy include a high priority for integration right from the start, faster asylum procedures with accelerated deportation of people coming out of economic hardship, clear rules and no tolerance for parallel societies and consistent prosecution of xenophobic attacks. She said: “If Europe fails on the refugee question, then a decisive impulse for founding a united Europe would be lost. Namely, the close connection with the universal human rights that Europe has defined from the beginning and that must continue to apply. ”She also takes the position that the current influx of migrants would offer“ more opportunities than risks ”for Germany if integration succeeds . In an interview on September 11, 2015, she said, among other things: “The basic right to asylum for politically persecuted people has no upper limit; this also applies to the refugees who come to us from the hell of a civil war. ”Her sentence met with great media coverage:

"If we start now to apologize for showing a friendly face in emergency situations, then this is not my country."

In view of the large number of refugees, however, the approval of the German citizens for Merkel reached a low point in October 2015. According to ARD-Deutschlandtrend, only 54 percent of those surveyed were satisfied with the work of the Federal Chancellor, nine percent less than in the previous month, and it was the worst value since December 2011.

In a CDU / CSU parliamentary group meeting, in which Merkel was confronted with criticism from the parliamentary group for three hours, she said:

"I don't care if I am to blame for the influx of refugees, now they are there."

On December 13, 2015 in Karlsruhe, a party congress of the CDU formulated a compromise in a key motion in which Merkel's asylum policy, in particular the consistent rejection of upper limits, was supported by a large majority, and the goal was set to "increase the number of refugees noticeably." to reduce". This formulation found the approval of the main proponent of the "contingents", the CSU party chairman Horst Seehofer, in a guest speech the following day . Merkel once again confirmed her sentence of August 31, “ We can do it” and added “I can say that because it is part of our country's identity”.

On December 16, before the Bundestag in Berlin, in a government declaration on asylum policy, it supported the EU's intention to strengthen its external borders through EU organizations such as Frontex , even if the countries concerned disagree .

Merkel's stance aroused repeated criticism from her own parliamentary group, but especially from the CSU. The Bavarian Prime Minister Horst Seehofer described Merkel's non-activity at the borders as the “rule of injustice” and repeatedly called for an upper limit for refugees. The chairman of the Federal Constitutional Court, Andreas Vosskuhle , describes an upper limit as legally inadmissible.

Merkel's refugee policy was also criticized by various intellectuals such as the ancient historian Alexander Demandt , the philosopher Peter Sloterdijk and the writer Monika Maron . The historian Jörg Baberowski criticized Merkel's refugee policy as well as the attempts to banish critics to a “dark German” corner. The development economist Paul Collier , for example, sees a policy of open borders as fundamentally ethically reprehensible because it imposes a kind of Russian roulette on people: They come across the Mediterranean and have to hope that their boat does not sink before they are picked up by auxiliary ships. On the other hand, many intellectuals praised Merkel's refugee policy, for example in an open letter to WELT . The political scientist Herfried Münkler stated that Merkel had "saved Europe" by taking in refugees, as pressure had been relieved from smaller states.

In the New York Times , Ross Douthat warned of the demographic impact of a million-fold immigration of mostly young men, accused Merkel of “noble-minded madness” and called on her to resign. On the other hand, Time magazine chose Merkel as Person of the Year 2015 for her stance on the refugee crisis and her role in the Ukraine crisis .

In January 2016, at a CDU state representative assembly in Neubrandenburg, Merkel restricted that she expected most of the refugees to “when there is peace again in Syria, when IS is defeated in Iraq, they will use the knowledge they have acquired from us have to return to their homeland. ”Only a small proportion are entitled to classic asylum, most of the refugees only enjoy temporary protection under the Geneva Refugee Convention .

Internal security

In a given by the CSU report commissioned in January 2016, the lawyer and former presented federal judge Udo di Fabio on the theory that the federal government will depart by refusing to control the country's borders comprehensively the constitution . The state borders are "the supporting walls of democracies". The albeit difficult task of protecting them cannot be avoided by any government. This report for the CSU was criticized by other constitutional experts as "legally poor". It was also pointed out that the CSU itself might assess the report as inadequate and would therefore never use it for a lawsuit, which did not happen either. Active constitutional judges do not share di Fabio's assessment either. The European Court of Justice expressly confirmed the actions of the Chancellor. This judgment was ultimately also praised by the CSU.

At the end of July 2016, Merkel made the proposal to found a national guard made up of reservists with military or police training to support the police in internal security.

On August 19, 2016, Angela Merkel declared: “We are doing everything humanly possible to ensure safety. And wherever there are gaps, we have to readjust and come up with new security options. "

In her New Year's address in 2016/2017, Merkel said, referring to the attack on the Berlin Christmas market at the Memorial Church and other terrorist incidents: "It is particularly bitter and repugnant when terrorist attacks are committed by people who are allegedly seeking protection in our country."

At the closed-door conference of the CDU in Perl on January 14, 2017, Merkel declared: “Everyone has a right to security (...) A number shook us up. 37 percent of burglaries in Germany happen in North Rhine-Westphalia ”She announced security through a“ strong state ”.

Transport and Infrastructure Policy

Shortly before the 2013 federal election , there was a public dissent between Merkel and Horst Seehofer (CSU) on the question of “car tolls”. During the election campaign, Merkel emphasized her negative attitude towards the "car toll". In the chancellor's duel with Peer Steinbrück, she confirmed her “no” to a car toll with the words: “With me there will be no car toll”, although the CSU later prevailed in the coalition agreement. The car toll was finally declared incompatible with EU law by the ECJ in 2019.

reception

Televised address 2020

In her Chancellorship, which has been in office since 2005, Angela Merkel has so far addressed the people once outside of the New Year 's speeches in a televised address (“Speech to the Nation”). The reason for this speech on March 18, 2020 was the COVID-19 pandemic . The address was followed by around 25 to 30 million viewers and was described as "historic". Merkel's predecessors also rarely used televised speeches; Gerhard Schröder, for example, spoke to the people twice in seven years in office.

public relation

Since June 8, 2006, Merkel has been the first head of government worldwide to address the public via video podcast . She uses this medium weekly (Saturdays) to convey the politics of the respective government coalition to the citizens.

The podcast was initially produced by Merkel biographer Wolfgang Stock for around 6500 euros per episode . After criticism of the style of the video message, the production was put out to tender. Evisco AG from Munich was awarded the contract. Since Jürgen Hausmann, one of the board members of Evisco AG, is a son-in-law of the then Bavarian Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber , doubts were raised in the media about the orderly execution of the tendering process. The Federal Press Office that issued the announcement rejected the allegations.

tremor

In the summer of 2019, an orthostatic tremor , which is probably harmless to health, received worldwide attention in the summer of 2019 , which occurred at Merkel within a few weeks while standing motionless during two state receptions and a ministerial appointment. She performed the military ceremony of the following state receptions while sitting. When asked about this, Merkel replied that there was nothing to worry about and that the public could assume that she was always acting in accordance with the “responsibility” of her office and “taking care of her health”.

satire

Since Merkel took office as Chancellor, her person has been parodied for the purpose of satire on various occasions . In this context, Tracey Ullman achieved international fame with her sketches in Tracey Ullman's Show .

Pop Culture

Merkel diamond

Angela Merkel forms the so-called Merkel diamond

Merkel is known for a stereotypical gesture in which she holds her hands with the inner surfaces in front of her stomach so that the tips of the thumbs and forefingers touch each other. This creates the shape of a diamond , which was rumored in the press as the Merkel diamond . For the 2013 federal election , the CDU used the Chancellor's typical gesture of the Merkel diamond as part of a personalization strategy and depicted it on a giant poster in Berlin . Berlin's former SPD state chief Jan Stöß called this a personality cult .

Germany chain

A necklace that the German Chancellor Angela Merkel wore on September 1, 2013 in the television duel on the occasion of the 2013 federal election became known as the Germany chain.

Merkozy

Merkozy (also: Sarkel or Sarkokel) is a suitcase word created by the media from the surnames of Angela Merkel and the French President Nicolas Sarkozy . The concept was continued after Sarkozy's replacement, whereby Merkhollande (from 2012, also Merkollande) and Mercron (from 2017) were and are significantly less used.

Merkelphone

A bug- proof mobile phone approved by the Federal Office for Information Security is often used by the public as a Merkelphone .

Awards and honors

State medals

Merkel with US President Barack Obama at the presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2011)

Awards from private organizations

Barroso, Sarkozy and Merkel (2011)

Honorary doctorates

Merkel at the award of an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Physics and Geosciences at the University of Leipzig (June 3, 2008)

Others

  • In the rankings of the US business magazine Forbes , Merkel often achieved high positions during her chancellorship. From 2006 to 2009 and since 2011, she has been number one in the list of the 100 most powerful women in the world . On the list of the most powerful people in the world , she was ranked second behind Barack Obama in 2012. It is the highest position a woman has ever achieved on this list. In 2013 she was in 5th place behind Pope Francis and in 2015 behind Vladimir Putin and in front of Barack Obama in 2nd place. For the US news magazine Time , she was eight times (as of 2016) among the 100 people who shaped the world the most namely 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2016.
  • On 9 December 2015 this share has named Time for Person of the Year , the first Germans with that assessment since Willy Brandt in 1970. On the cover of the magazine was it called "Chancellor of the Free World" (Chancellor of the Free World).
  • On February 16, 2008, she was made an honorary member of Energie Cottbus .
  • On June 2, 2011, during her visit to Singapore, an orchid variety of the genus Dendrobium was named “Dendrobium Angela Merkel”.
  • In the first half of the 2010s, many people came to Germany as refugees. In several cases, parents named their newborn child after Angela Merkel out of gratitude for Angela Merkel's commitment to the refugee issue. Mentioned in the press is a Syrian child with the first name Angela Merkel ; another Syrian child named Serbia Merkel Al-Mustafa ; the child of a Cameroonian named as Christ Merkel and the daughter of a Ghanaian Angela Merkel Adé . According to the eponymous institute in Leipzig, this form of worship is common in many cultures.
  • Honorary Citizen of the City of Templin (since June 27, 2018)

Publications

Scientific publications by Angela Merkel

  • R. Der, A. Merkel, H.-J. Czerwon (1980): On the influence of spatial correlations on the rate of chemical reactions in dense gases. I. Quantum statistical theory. In: Chemical Physics 53, pp. 427-435.
  • R. Der, R. Haberlandt, A. Merkel (1980): On the influence of spatial correlations on the rate of chemical reactions in dense systems. II. Numerical results. In: Chemical Physics 53, pp. 437-442.
  • I. Böger, A. Merkel, J. Lachmann, H.-J. Spangenberg, T. Turanyi (1982): "An Extended Kinetic Model and its Reduction by Sensitivity Analysis for the Methanol // Oxygen Gas-Phase Thermolysis". In: Acta Chimica Hungarica 129, pp. 855-864.
  • A. Merkel, I. Böger, HJ Spangenberg, L. Zülicke (1982): Calculation of high pressure rate constants for decay and recombination reactions of simple hydrocarbon molecules and radicals. In: Zeitschrift für Physikalische Chemie 263, pp. 449-460.
  • A. Merkel, L. Zülicke (1985): Calculation of rate constants for the CH bond break in the methyl radical. In: Zeitschrift für Physikalische Chemie 266, pp. 353-361.
  • A. Merkel, L. Zülicke (1987): Nonempirical parameter estimate for the statistical adiabatic theory of unimolecular fragmentation carbon-hydrogen bond breaking in methyl. In: Molecular Physics 60, pp. 1379-1393.
  • A. Merkel, Z. Havlas, R. Zahradnik (1988): Evaluation of the rate constant for the SN2 reaction fluoromethane + hydride: methane + fluoride in the gas phase. In: Journal of American Chemical Society 110, pp. 8355-8359.
  • H. Mix, J. Sauer, K.-P. Schröder, A. Merkel (1988): Vibrational Properties of Surface Hydroxyls: Nonempirical Model Calculations Including Anharmonicities. In: Coll. Czechoslov. Chem. Commun. 53, pp. 2191-2202.
  • F. Schneider, A. Merkel (1989): The lowest bound states of triplet BH2 + In: Chemical Physics Letters 161, pp. 527-531.
  • A. Merkel, L. Zülicke (1990): Theoretical approach to reactions of polyatomic molecules. In: International Journal of Quantum Chemistry 36, pp. 191-208.

Movies

  • Kohl's girl, Kohl's heiress - Angela Merkel's path to power. Documentary, 30 min. A film by Wolfgang Landgraeber , Wilfried Prill. Production: ARD. Germany 2000.
  • Angela Merkel - The Unexpected . Documentary, 90 min. Directors: Torsten Körner and Matthias Schmidt. Production: Broadview TV, MDR, in collaboration with arte. Germany 2016.
  • Merkel! - contradictions of a chancellor. Documentary, 45 min. A film by Bernd Reufels. Production: Kelvinfilm on behalf of ZDF. Germany 2019.
  • Hours of decision - Angela Merkel and the refugees. Docudrama, 89 min. Director: Christian Twente . Production: AVE Publishing on behalf of ZDF. Germany 2019.
  • The driven ones . Feature film, 118 min. Director: Stephan Wagner . Script: Florian Oeller . Germany 2020.

literature

(in alphabetical order)

Web links

Commons : Angela Merkel  - Collection of Images
 Wikinews: Angela Merkel  - in the news

Individual evidence

  1. The pronunciation of the name Angela with an emphasis on the first syllable is much more common than with an emphasis on the second syllable (except in Austria, see Duden online ). Merkel prefers the stress on the second syllable, see Gerd Langguth : Angela Merkel. DTV, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-423-24485-2 , p. 50.
  2. Angela Merkel - In portrait. Retrieved May 1, 2020 .
  3. See the lists of members of the German Bundestag for the 19th electoral term (from 2017) (44.0%), 18th electoral term (from 2013) (56.2%), 17th electoral term (from 2009) (49.3%) , 16th electoral term (from 2005) (41.3%), 15th electoral term (from 2002) (41.6%), 14th electoral term (from 1998) (37.3%), 13th electoral term (from 1994) (48.6%), 12th electoral term (from 1990) (48.5%).
  4. a b Merkel announces step-by-step withdrawal from politics. In: welt.de. October 29, 2018, accessed October 29, 2018 .
  5. Angela Merkel mourns her mother. Retrieved April 12, 2019 .
  6. Margaret Heckel: What is exemplary about Angela Merkel's mother. In: welt.de . September 26, 2008, accessed April 23, 2016 .
  7. Grandfather's War. , FAZ
  8. ^ A b Polish excitement about Angela Merkel's origins. In: Die Welt , March 16, 2013.
  9. Grandfather's War. , In: FAZ , March 22, 2013
  10. Merkel's teacher - "Angela was gifted". In: cicero.de. March 7, 2013, accessed October 14, 2016 .
  11. Alexander Osang: The Sleeper . In: Der Spiegel . No. 46 , 2009, p. 57-69 ( Online - Nov. 9, 2009 ).
  12. https://www.promiflash.de/news/2012/03/09/angela-merkel-trieb-ihre-lehrer-in-den-wahnsinn.html
  13. Verena Köttker: “One day she moved out”. focus.de, July 5, 2004, accessed on March 17, 2017 .
  14. ^ Gunnar Hinck: Mr. Merkel from Dresden. taz.de, December 7, 2016, accessed on March 17, 2017 .
  15. Caroline Elz: Anyone who studies here becomes Federal Chancellor - famous Leipzig students. University of Leipzig, December 8, 2011, archived from the original on February 20, 2012 ; Retrieved May 18, 2012 .
  16. a b Federal Chancellor | Biography. Press and Information Office of the Federal Government, accessed on May 18, 2012 .
  17. Joachim Sauer , in Nachrichten aus der Chemie 59 (2011): The Torn East and the Successful Reunification ( Memento from November 23, 2019 in the Internet Archive ), quote: “As supportive as the State Security was in some cases, it was in other. Angela Merkel reports how she wanted to start as a young physicist in 1978 as an assistant at the University of Ilmenau. After a very uncomfortable interview, she was taken to a room where Stasi people were waiting. From her parents she had learned to say when trying to recruit that she couldn't shut up and had to keep telling everything. This quickly ended the recruitment attempt: 'I didn't get the job in Ilmenau.' ”(Joachim Sauer has been Angela Merkel's husband since 1998.)
  18. How Angela Merkel almost became Thuringian Thuringian General on July 17, 2014.
  19. Investigation of the mechanism of disintegration reactions with simple bond breaking and calculation of their rate constants on the basis of quantum chemical and statistical methods . Dissertation to obtain the academic degree of Doctor in a branch of science (Dr. rer. Nat.); Graduate physicist Angela Merkel born on July 17, 1954; submitted to the Academy of Sciences of the GDR Chemistry Research Area, Central Institute for Physical Chemistry; Berlin, January 8, 1986.
  20. ^ Reference in the catalog of the German National Library
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  24. ^ Gerd Langguth: Angela Merkel. Rise to power. Biography. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2nd edition, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-423-34414-2 , p. 116; My way. Angela Merkel in conversation with Hugo Müller-Vogg. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-455-09538-0 , p. 62.
  25. § 10 para. 2 and 3 GDR doctoral regulations A. documentarchiv.de, accessed on May 18, 2012 : "(2) The evaluation of the sub-areas (work, evidence of Marxist-Leninist knowledge, defense) are to be summarized in a rating, which is to be shown in the doctoral certificate. (3) If the candidate achieves the assessment 'very good' in all sub-areas, the predicate 'excellent' (summa cum laude) can be awarded, taking into account his personality . "
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  30. Angela Merkel (née Kasner) on Konrad Adenauer Foundation, accessed on November 1, 2015.
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  32. Chancellor on vacation: How Merkel made her favorite waiter happy. In: WELT.de. Retrieved July 30, 2017 .
  33. Lisa Erdmann, dpa: Summer break: Merkel is on vacation in South Tyrol. In: SPIEGEL ONLINE. Retrieved July 30, 2017 .
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  40. Stefan Wolter: The monster by the sea is being renovated on Rügen In: Der Tagesspiegel , August 10, 2014.
  41. See on Kohl's political calculation here Hans-Peter Schwarz : Helmut Kohl: A political biography. 2nd Edition. DVA, Munich 2012, pp. 382, ​​760.
  42. Angela Merkel: The incidents admitted by Helmut Kohl have damaged the party. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , December 22, 1999, quoted in: German history in documents and images. Retrieved July 22, 2015.
  43. ^ Hans Peter Schütz: Wolfgang Schäuble. Two lives. Droemer, Munich 2012, pp. 98-101 .
  44. Rühe was CDU General Secretary from 1989–1992 and Federal Minister of Defense from 1992–1998. Merz had been deputy chairman of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group since October 1998. Stoiber had been Bavarian Prime Minister and CSU Chairman since 1993.
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  47. FAZ.net : Beijing gives Merkel the cold shoulder ( memento from May 2, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ). September 24, 2007.
  48. ^ Spiegel Online: Foreign Minister Conversation: Beijing relocates Steinmeier . September 24, 2007.
  49. ^ Federal Press Office: Speech by Chancellor Angela Merkel in the European Parliament . January 17, 2007.
  50. ^ Spiegel Online: EU Constitution: Chancellor calls for reference to God . May 25, 2006.
  51. Government guarantees savings. manager-magazin, accessed on January 6, 2013 .
  52. ^ German guarantee for savings in the criticism ( memento of October 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) in the Netzeitung , October 6, 2008.
  53. p2news.com: Cabinet approves scrapping bonus . January 27, 2009.
  54. welt.de: Merkel favors takeover of Opel by Magna . August 28, 2009.
  55. Merkel has to publish the Ackermann guest list , DIE ZEIT online March 20, 2012
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  57. Merkel visits Obama. Zeit.de, June 15, 2009, archived from the original on September 19, 2012 ; accessed on September 3, 2017 .
  58. google.com/hostednews: Merkel's expansion course met with criticism at home and abroad ( memento of April 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ).
  59. Merkel wants more gun controls . on: faz.de, March 15, 2009, accessed October 31, 2015.
  60. ^ Union and FDP want to form a government quickly ( Memento from October 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) on stern.de
  61. Federal Returning Officer: Results of the Bundestag elections 1949 to 2005 ( Memento from August 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  62. Merkel defends constituency and wins votes Offenbach Post, September 27, 2009, accessed on October 31, 2015.
  63. Merkel wins in her own constituency ( Memento from October 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
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  65. ^ Spiegel Online : Damper in the election of Chancellor: Black and Yellow refused Merkel full number of votes . October 28, 2009.
  66. Growth Acceleration Act: Hotel VAT causes trouble. Zeit Online, November 21, 2009, accessed May 18, 2012 .
  67. Ralf Neukirch, Merlind Theile: Four weeks of peace . In: Der Spiegel . No. 29 , 2010, p. 22-23 ( online - 19 July 2010 ).
  68. Labor market: unemployment in 2011 mostly below three million. Focus Online, October 27, 2010, accessed May 18, 2012 .
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  73. ^ German Bundestag : Extension of the service life of nuclear power plants approved. Press release with links to changes in the law and measures.
  74. Legislative package for the energy transition - cabinet decides to phase out nuclear power by 2022. In: sueddeutsche.de . June 6, 2011, accessed November 5, 2015 .
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  125. "The background to the acts was in the dark - far too long" , on sueddeutsche.de
  126. "Racism is a poison" , on bundeskanzlerin.de
  127. Süddeutsche Zeitung : Israel's Premier - “Nobody can stop us” . August 3, 2006.
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