Angela Merkel

July 17, 1954

Angela Dorothea Merkel (born 1954) is a German stateswoman and retired politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. She was the first woman to hold the office and the only former East German to do so, and she led the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 2000 to 2018. A former research scientist with a doctorate in quantum chemistry, she entered politics in the wake of the 1989 revolutions.

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Biography

Angela Merkel was born in Hamburg in 1954 and grew up in East Germany, where she earned a doctorate in quantum chemistry. She entered politics as the Berlin Wall fell, joined the Christian Democratic Union, and served as a minister under Helmut Kohl.

She became party leader in 2000 and the first female Chancellor of Germany in 2005, serving four terms until 2021. She led Germany through the 2008 financial crisis and the euro crisis, where she pressed for austerity in return for bailouts.

In 2015 she let in more than a million refugees, mainly from Syria. She also decided to phase out nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster and negotiated with Russia over the war in Ukraine. She did not stand again in 2021.