1. Angela Merkel is the only woman to have held the office.
108 Facts About Angela Merkel
1. 2.
Angela Merkel's family moved to East Germany when she was an infant.
3.
Angela Merkel obtained a doctorate in quantum chemistry in 1986 and worked as a research scientist until 1989.
4.
Angela Merkel then entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989, briefly serving as deputy spokeswoman for the first democratically elected government of East Germany led by Lothar de Maiziere.
5.
Angela Merkel then became the party's first female leader, and the first female leader of the Opposition, two years later.
6.
Angela Merkel was the first woman to be elected chancellor, and the first chancellor of reunified Germany to have been raised in the former East Germany.
7.
In foreign policy, Angela Merkel emphasised international cooperation, both in the context of the EU and NATO, and initiating the Russian reset and strengthening of Eurasian and transatlantic economic relations.
8.
Angela Merkel negotiated the 2008 European Union stimulus plan, which focused on infrastructure spending and public investment to counteract the Great Recession.
9.
Angela Merkel stepped down as leader of the CDU in 2018 and did not seek a fifth term as chancellor in the 2021 federal election.
10.
Merkel was born Angela Dorothea Kasner in 1954, in Hamburg, West Germany, the daughter of Horst Kasner, a Lutheran pastor and a native of Berlin, and his wife Herlind, born in Danzig, a teacher of English and Latin.
11.
Angela Merkel has two younger siblings, Marcus Kasner, a physicist, and Irene Kasner, an occupational therapist.
12.
Angela Merkel's paternal grandfather, Ludwik Kasner, was a German policeman of Polish ethnicity.
13.
Angela Merkel married Merkel's grandmother Margarethe, a German from Berlin, and relocated to her hometown where he again worked in the police.
14.
Since the mid-1990s, Angela Merkel has publicly mentioned her Polish heritage on several occasions and described herself as a quarter Polish, but her Polish roots became better known as a result of a 2013 biography.
15.
In 1954, when Angela Merkel was just three months old, her father received a pastorate at the church in Quitzow, which was then in East Germany.
16.
Angela Merkel did not participate in the secular coming-of-age ceremony Jugendweihe which was common in East Germany.
17.
Angela Merkel completed her school education with the best possible average Abitur grade of 1.0.
18.
Angela Merkel continued her education at Karl Marx University, Leipzig, where she studied physics from 1973 to 1978.
19.
Angela Merkel declined, using the excuse that she could not keep secrets well enough to be an effective spy.
20.
Angela Merkel worked and studied at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin-Adlershof from 1978 to 1990.
21.
However, Angela Merkel has denied this claim and stated that she was secretary for culture, which involved activities like obtaining theatre tickets and organising talks by visiting Soviet authors.
22.
Angela Merkel participated in a multi-week language course in Donetsk, in the then-Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
23.
Angela Merkel was appointed deputy spokesperson of this last pre-unification government under Lothar de Maiziere.
24.
De Maiziere was impressed with the way Angela Merkel handled journalists investigating Schnur's role in the Stasi.
25.
Angela Merkel received the crucial backing of influential CDU minister and state party chairman Gunther Krause.
26.
Angela Merkel was re-elected from this constituency in every election until the CDU lost its direct mandate from the constituency in the 2021 federal election.
27.
Almost immediately following her entry into parliament, Angela Merkel was appointed by Chancellor Helmut Kohl to serve as Minister for Women and Youth in the federal cabinet.
28.
In June 1993, Angela Merkel was elected leader of the CDU in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, succeeding her former mentor Gunther Krause.
29.
Angela Merkel is often credited as having brought about its most notable result, the first international commitment to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
30.
On 10 April 2000, Angela Merkel was elected to replace Schauble as Chairperson of the CDU, becoming the first female leader of a German party.
31.
Angela Merkel's election surprised many observers, as her personality offered a contrast to the party she had been elected to lead; Merkel is a centrist Protestant originating from predominantly Protestant northern Germany, while the CDU is a male-dominated, socially conservative party with strongholds in western and southern Germany, and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, has deep Catholic roots.
32.
Angela Merkel supported a substantial reform agenda for Germany's economic and social system and was considered more pro-market than her own party.
33.
Angela Merkel advocated German labour law changes, specifically removing barriers to laying off employees and increasing the allowed number of work hours in a week.
34.
Angela Merkel argued that existing laws made the country less competitive, because companies could not easily control labour costs when business was slow.
35.
Angela Merkel argued that Germany should phase out nuclear power less quickly than the Schroder administration had planned.
36.
Angela Merkel criticised the government's support for the accession of Turkey to the European Union, instead arguing in favour of a "privileged partnership".
37.
Angela Merkel regained some momentum after she announced that she would appoint Paul Kirchhof, a former judge at the German Constitutional Court and leading fiscal policy expert, as Minister of Finance.
38.
The CDU's lead was down to 9 percentage points on the eve of the election, with Angela Merkel having a significant lead in popularity based on opinion polls.
39.
The result was so close that both Schroder and Angela Merkel initially claimed victory.
40.
However, after three weeks of negotiations, the two parties reached a deal for a grand coalition whereby Angela Merkel would become Chancellor and the SPD would hold 8 of the 16 seats in the cabinet.
41.
Angela Merkel was elected Chancellor by the majority of delegates in the newly assembled Bundestag on 22 November 2005, but 51 members of the governing coalition voted against her.
42.
On 4 October 2008, following the Irish Government's decision to guarantee all deposits in private savings accounts, a move she had strongly criticised, Angela Merkel said there were no plans for the German Government to do the same.
43.
Angela Merkel is often credited as having "saved the Euro", primarily due to her coordinating role in the development of debt relief policy.
44.
Angela Merkel's CDU was re-elected in 2009 with an increased number of seats and could form a governing coalition with the FDP.
45.
The third Cabinet of Angela Merkel was sworn in on 17 December 2013.
46.
In late August 2015, at the height of the crisis, Angela Merkel's government suspended the Dublin Regulation, which stipulated that asylum seekers must seek asylum in the first EU country they arrive.
47.
Angela Merkel announced that Germany would process asylum applications from Syrian refugees if they had come to Germany through other EU countries.
48.
Angela Merkel coined the phrase around this time.
49.
Angela Merkel insisted that Germany had the economic strength to cope with the influx of migrants and reiterated that there is no legal maximum limit on the number of migrants Germany can take.
50.
Angela Merkel argued for a punitive reduction in EU funding for member countries that rejected mandatory refugee quotas.
51.
Meanwhile, Yasmin Fahimi, secretary-general of the Social Democratic Party, the junior partner of the ruling coalition, praised Angela Merkel's policy allowing migrants in Hungary to enter Germany as "a strong signal of humanity to show that Europe's values are valid in difficult times".
52.
However, Angela Merkel has faced significant criticism, particularly with regards to her policymaking early in the crisis, which some critics describe as hypocritically unilateral.
53.
The Fourth Angela Merkel cabinet was sworn in on 14 March 2018.
54.
Angela Merkel feared that unilaterally sending migrants back to neighbouring countries without seeking a multilateral European agreement could endanger the stability of the European Union.
55.
In late February 2020, referring to this crisis team, Angela Merkel recommended an approach characterised by moderation and an avoidance of extreme or universal measures.
56.
On 18 March 2020, Angela Merkel gave a widely publicised speech on the COVID-19 pandemic, comparing its challenges to the Second World War:.
57.
Angela Merkel has won international plaudits for her handling of the pandemic in Germany.
58.
Later that month, Angela Merkel was praised for her accessible explanation of the basic reproduction number, which had been an important metric in the German government's pandemic response.
59.
Angela Merkel opposed mandatory vaccinations, instead stressing scientific literacy and education.
60.
On 29 October 2018, Angela Merkel announced that she would not seek reelection as leader of CDU at their party conference in December 2018, but intended to remain as chancellor until the 2021 German federal election was held.
61.
Angela Merkel stated that she did not plan to seek any political office after this.
62.
Angela Merkel decided not to suggest any person as her successor as leader of the CDU.
63.
However, political observers had long considered Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer as Angela Merkel's protege groomed for succession.
64.
Angela Merkel continued to serve as chancellor until 8 December 2021, when Scholz was sworn in.
65.
On 1 June 2022, Angela Merkel made her first semi-public comments about political affairs since leaving office, at a retirement party for Reiner Hoffmann, the president of the German Trade Union Confederation.
66.
On 7 June 2022, Angela Merkel made her first public comments.
67.
Angela Merkel said that by the end of her chancellorship in September 2021, it had been clear that Putin was moving in the direction of conflict and that he was finished with the Normandy Format talks.
68.
In January 2025, Angela Merkel criticised Friedrich Merz for introducing a non-binding resolution supporting restrictions on immigration that passed in the Bundestag with the help of the AfD.
69.
Angela Merkel is in favour of a "mandatory solidarity mechanism" for relocation of asylum-seekers from Italy and Greece to other EU member states as part of the long-term solution to Europe's migrant crisis.
70.
Angela Merkel has been widely described as the de facto leader of the European Union throughout her tenure as Chancellor.
71.
In 2015, with the absence of Stephen Harper, Angela Merkel became the only leader to have attended every G20 meeting since the first in 2008, having been present at a record fifteen summits as of 2021.
72.
Angela Merkel hosted the twelfth meeting at the 2017 G20 Hamburg summit.
73.
On 20 June 2018, which was World Refugee Day, Angela Merkel said that there had been "no moral or political justification" for the post-war expulsion of ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern European countries.
74.
Angela Merkel went on to say that Europe could only maintain its prosperity by being innovative and measuring itself against the best.
75.
Angela Merkel has been credited as a key part of 2007 G8 negotiations that led to a significantly more ambitious renewable energy transition commitment than had been anticipated.
76.
In preparation for the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference, Angela Merkel announced that Germany would significantly increase its contributions to international climate aid and financing by 2020.
77.
In 2017, Angela Merkel criticised the Trump administration's decision to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement and reaffirmed the commitment of the remaining G20 members to the treaty.
78.
In 2009, Angela Merkel announced plans to take on additional government debt in order to stimulate economic growth, arguing that this should take priority over other fiscal concerns.
79.
In 2010, Angela Merkel expressed support for a global financial transaction tax, but was ultimately unsuccessful in international negotiations on the matter.
80.
In 2019, Angela Merkel argued for the importance of a balanced government budget, rejecting calls for additional investment to stimulate growth.
81.
Angela Merkel has been criticised for being personally present and involved at the M100 Media Award handover to Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who had triggered the Muhammad cartoons controversy.
82.
The term alternativlos, which was frequently used by Angela Merkel to describe her measures addressing the European sovereign-debt crisis, was named the Un-word of the Year 2010 by a jury of linguistic scholars.
83.
Angela Merkel has faced criticism for failing to take a tough line on the People's Republic of China.
84.
Angela Merkel's government decided to phase out both nuclear power and coal plants and supported the European Commission's Green Deal plans.
85.
Angela Merkel's chancellorship has become tightly associated with the policy of Wandel durch Handel, which advocates pursuing close economic ties with authoritarian governments with the goal of inducing democratization.
86.
Angela Merkel was widely described as the de facto leader of the European Union throughout her tenure as Chancellor.
87.
Angela Merkel was named the world's second most powerful person by Forbes magazine in 2012 and 2015, following Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin respectively, the highest ranking ever achieved by a woman.
88.
On 26 March 2014, Angela Merkel became the longest-serving incumbent head of government in the European Union.
89.
In December 2015, Angela Merkel was named as Time magazine's Person of the Year, with the magazine's cover declaring her to be the "Chancellor of the Free World".
90.
In 2018, Angela Merkel was named the most powerful woman in the world for a record fourteenth time by Forbes.
91.
Some have commented that Germany's failure to meet financial commitments to NATO, Angela Merkel's blocking of the accession of Ukraine to NATO in 2008, and the abolishment of conscription have together weakened the positions of Germany and Europe following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
92.
In 2023, Angela Merkel received a doctorate honoris causa from the Paris Institute of Political Sciences in recognition of her political career.
93.
Later in her tenure, Angela Merkel acquired the nickname "Mutti".
94.
Angela Merkel has been called the "Iron Chancellor", in reference to Otto von Bismarck.
95.
In 1977, at the age of 23, Merkel, then Angela Kasner, married physics student Ulrich Merkel was born on 1953 and and took his surname.
96.
Angela Merkel has no children, but Sauer has two adult sons from a previous marriage.
97.
Angela Merkel was able to speak informally to Vladimir Putin in Russian but conducted diplomatic dialogue through an interpreter.
98.
Angela Merkel rarely spoke English in public but delivered a small section of an address to the British Parliament in English in 2014.
99.
Angela Merkel has stated that her favorite film is The Legend of Paul and Paula, an East German movie released in 1973.
100.
Angela Merkel has a fear of dogs, which developed after she was attacked by one in 1995.
101.
Since 2017, Angela Merkel has occasionally been seen shaking visibly on several public occasions, recovering shortly afterwards.
102.
In September 2021, after evading the question for most of her career, Angela Merkel said that she considered herself a feminist.
103.
Since her retirement, Angela Merkel has commented on the Russian invasion of Ukraine but has otherwise limited her involvement in political matters.
104.
Angela Merkel has instead focused on travelling, attending only "feel-good events" in a private capacity.
105.
Angela Merkel reportedly "detested" US President Donald Trump, according to Politico, citing a forthcoming book by Jonathan Karl.
106.
Since 1991, Angela Merkel has sat annually for sitting and standing portraits by, and interview with, Herlinde Koelbl.
107.
Angela Merkel was portrayed by Swiss actress Anna Katarina in the 2012 political satire film The Dictator.
108.
In 2024, a German TV show called 'Miss Angela Merkel' reimagined her as a detective.