Angela Merkel Biography, Husband, Family Life and Political Career

Being the most powerful woman in the world, German Chancellor Angela Merkel proved that being a woman confers power, and even more so being a woman able to put aside her softer side and to lead with strength and power. She thinks gender doesn’t stop her appetite for success and she couldn’t have been fairer. In a world where the feminist debate pushes women to ever more extremes, it’s refreshing to see a woman who has accomplished more by her actions than just her words.

Biography of Angela Merkel

Clergyman Angelina Dorothy MerkelOn July 17, 1954, at home in Hamburg, West Germany, young Angela and her family moved to East Germany when her father was called to serve as pastor in Perleberg. She was nicknamed ‘Kasi’ while she was a pet derived from her family name and she also goes by the nickname ‘Muti’. His father, Horst Kasner, was a Lutheran clergyman and pastor, originally from Berlin, while his mother, Herlind, taught English and Latin. Horst Kasner died in 2011.

Angela was not single, she has two younger siblings; Marcus Kasner, physicist, and Irene Kasner, occupational therapist. Merkel is of Polish ethnicity. However, there were controversies about it until it was liquidated in 2013.

Many have wondered if the politically savvy Merkel was born to her paternal father, Ludwik Kazmierczak, a policeman and one of the few who fought for independence from Germany in the early 20th century. Ludwik was known as Kazmierczak, but later changed the name to Kasner. Ironically, Merkel’s maternal grandparents, Willi Jentzsch and Gertrud Alma were also politicians.

Merkel’s family was originally Catholic, however, they converted to the practice of Lutheranism. She grew up in Templin, in the countryside north of East Berlin, and studied at Karl Marx University in Leipzig where she studied physics for five years. She obtained a doctorate in quantum chemistry in 1986 and worked at the same time as a scientific researcher until 1989.

Angela Merkel is 5 feet 5 inches tall, weighs 60 kg with blue eyes and light brown hair. She loves watching football, cooking and cooking, but the most powerful woman in the world fears dogs. As a political icon many have wondered how much she earned and how much she was worth, here is your answer. Angela Merkel is worth 11.5 million euros and earns 0.24 million euros a year

Husband and family life

Angela Merkel has been married twice, she was first married at the age of 23 to physics student Ulrich Merkel in 1977, their union ended in divorce in 1982 with no children. She met her second husband, Joachim Sauer, a quantum chemist and professor in 1981. They married behind closed doors on December 30, 1998. Merkel has no biological children, but her husband, Sauer, has two sons from her initial union. It wasn’t his first attempt at marriage either.

The political career of Angela Merkel

Merkel is currently Chancellor of Germany and leader of the center-right Christian Democratic Union since 2000. She is a member of the European Union and one of its main voices. She is therefore considered the leader of the free world.

Merkel began her political career while at university when she joined a few students who initiated and created their own clubs or the reconstruction of Moritzbastei. After her many political forays at school, Merkel then joined the Free German Youth sponsored by Germany’s Socialist Unity Party.

Merkel’s journey into world politics began fully in 1989 after the Revolution, when she was chosen to serve as the spokesperson for East Germany’s first democratically elected government in 1990, led by Lothar de Maizière. Subsequently, after the unification of Germany in the same year, she was elected a member of the Bundestag for the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. She has remained in that position ever since, having been re-elected to remain.

Her portfolio expanded in 1991 when she was appointed Federal Minister for Women’s Affairs and Youth in the government of Helmut Josef Kohl. This was mainly because Kohl, being the chancellor, was confident in her abilities. She was one of the youngest cabinet ministers under Lothar’s tenure and has often been referred to as Lothar’s daughter. In 1994, after proving herself in government, Merkel was appointed Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. To date, her power and influence have grown, so that in 1998 her party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), voted in the federal election but lost and she was elected General Secretary of the left. A record funding scandal broke in 1999 and sparked controversy over CDU leadership, prompting Merkel to opt for the position of party leader. She eventually won to become the first woman to lead the party.

In the 2005 elections, Merkel was appointed Germany’s first female chancellor to lead a grand coalition where she challenged Chancellor Gerhard Schroder of the SPD and won. In 2009, she formed a coalition government between the CDU and the Free Democratic Party. and a second grand coalition with the Social Democratic Party. In 2007, the popular political icon became President of the European Council and was instrumental in negotiating the Lisbon Treaty and the Berlin Declaration. Just when she seemed to have had enough, Angela Merkel was re-elected to continue leading the CDU party on March 14, 2018.

Throughout this time, Merkel took a keen interest in economic growth and development and handled several financial crises involving both the European Union and also internationally. She is considered a good decision maker and an excellent financial adviser. Currently a top leader of the G7, she gained another advantage when she became the European Union’s longest-serving leader/head of government on March 26, 2014.

Among her many accomplishments, Angela Merkel proposed that Germany phase out nuclear power and created the relationship between Germans and Americans in favor of the American invasion of Iraq. She accused the Iranian Chancellor of anti-Americanism and lamented the support given to Turkey’s membership of the European Union, supporting instead a privileged partnership.

For all his great works, the political icon has received national honors, foreign honors, honorary degrees, awards and recognition.