Merkel, Angela (1954–)

Angela Dorothea Merkel is a German politician. She is chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) since April 10, 2000, and chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany since November 22, 2005. Merkel is the first woman and the first former citizen of the German Democratic Republic ever been elected as chancellor in Germany.

Shortly after her birth (born Angela Dorothea Kastner in Hamburg, Germany), her family moved to Templin in the German Democratic Republic, where she grew up. She studied physics in Leipzig and became a member of the academic staff at the Central Institute of Physical Chemistry at the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, where she was awarded a doctoral degree in 1986. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, she ...