Angela Merkel Biography Quotes 38 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
Angela Dorothea Merkel (nee Kasner) was born on July 17, 1954, in Hamburg, West Germany. Shortly after her birth, her family moved to the German Democratic Republic, and she grew up in Templin in Brandenburg. Her father, Horst Kasner, was a Lutheran pastor, and her mother, Herlind Kasner (born Jentzsch), taught languages. The family setting combined intellectual discipline with a sense of public service, an environment that helped shape her pragmatic outlook. Merkel excelled in mathematics and sciences at school and developed a facility for Russian, reflecting the lingua franca of East German diplomacy and education.

Merkel studied physics at the University of Leipzig (then Karl Marx University), graduating in 1978. Drawn to rigorous, empirical thinking, she continued into research rather than party-political life, a notable choice in a state where political conformity was expected. She later earned a doctorate (Dr. rer. nat.) in 1986 in quantum chemistry. Her scientific training, and the culture of methodical problem-solving it demands, became a signature of her leadership style decades later.

Scientific Career in the GDR
From the late 1970s through the 1980s, Merkel worked as a research scientist at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry at the Academy of Sciences in East Berlin. She published academic work and collaborated in a team-based environment typical of the institution. Like most students in the GDR, she was involved in the Free German Youth (FDJ), where she participated in cultural and academic activities. During these years she married and later divorced Ulrich Merkel, whose surname she kept, and in 1998 she married Joachim Sauer, a fellow scientist known for his privacy and distinguished academic career.

From Peaceful Revolution to National Politics
The collapse of the East German regime in 1989 drew Merkel into civic activism and then into politics. She joined the reform movement Democratic Awakening and, after the first and only free East German elections in 1990, served as deputy government spokeswoman under Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere. When Democratic Awakening merged into the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she moved into all-German politics at the moment of reunification, winning election to the Bundestag for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in 1990.

Apprenticeship under Helmut Kohl
Chancellor Helmut Kohl recognized Merkel's discipline and steadiness, appointing her Federal Minister for Women and Youth in 1991. In 1994 she became Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, a role that put her at the center of global climate diplomacy. She chaired the first UN Climate Change Conference (COP1) in Berlin in 1995, helping to launch processes that would shape environmental policy for decades. Within the CDU, Kohl and other senior figures such as Wolfgang Schaeuble viewed her as a rising talent, even as she honed an understated, fact-based, and coalition-minded style.

Rebuilding the CDU and Becoming Party Leader
After Kohl lost to Gerhard Schroeder in 1998, Merkel became CDU Secretary-General. When a party financing scandal engulfed the CDU in 1999, she publicly called for a break with the past, distancing the party from Kohl's shadow. The episode reshaped party leadership. Schaeuble resigned as party chair in 2000, and Merkel succeeded him, the first woman and the first East German to lead a major German party. In 2002, she stepped aside to let the Bavarian leader Edmund Stoiber run as the conservative chancellor candidate against Schroeder; after Stoiber's narrow defeat, she became leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, consolidating her authority and edging aside rivals such as Friedrich Merz.

Chancellor, First Term (2005–2009)
An early election in 2005 opened a path to power. The CDU/CSU won a slim plurality, and Merkel negotiated a grand coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD). She became Germany's first female chancellor and the first from the former East. Key partners included SPD leaders Franz Muentefering and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who served as vice chancellor and foreign minister, respectively. Merkel emphasized consensus, fiscal prudence, and European integration. Internationally she worked closely with George W. Bush in the final years of his presidency, then with Nicolas Sarkozy and later Barack Obama on transatlantic and EU priorities, including economic coordination and climate policy.

Eurozone Crisis and European Leadership (2009–2013)
After the 2009 election, Merkel formed a center-right coalition with the Free Democratic Party. Guido Westerwelle became vice chancellor and foreign minister, and Wolfgang Schaeuble assumed the finance portfolio. The global financial crisis mutated into a Eurozone sovereign debt crisis, testing Merkel's capacity to balance domestic skepticism about bailouts with the imperative to preserve the euro. She worked with Sarkozy, the European Central Bank under Jean-Claude Trichet and Mario Draghi, and the International Monetary Fund led by Christine Lagarde to construct rescue mechanisms and reforms. In dealing with Greek leaders from George Papandreou to Alexis Tsipras, as well as finance ministers across Europe, she pursued a mix of solidarity and conditionality that kept the currency union intact while inviting debate about austerity, responsibility, and European governance.

Refugees, Coalition Management, and Global Tensions (2013–2017)
Following the 2013 election, Merkel returned to a grand coalition with the SPD. Sigmar Gabriel served as vice chancellor, and Steinmeier returned as foreign minister. In 2014, 2015, the Ukraine crisis escalated after Russia's actions in Crimea and the Donbas. Merkel, with Francois Hollande, negotiated the Minsk agreements with Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko, seeking to halt the fighting. In 2015, as war and instability drove refugees toward Europe, Merkel declared a humanitarian course, summarized in the phrase often associated with her: Wir schaffen das. She worked with EU partners and Turkey's leadership, including Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ahmet Davutoglu, to stabilize the situation. The policy polarized German politics, fueled the rise of the AfD, and strained relations within her conservative bloc, notably with CSU leader Horst Seehofer. Still, Merkel maintained governing coalitions and guided key reforms, including the energy transition and the decision to accelerate the nuclear phase-out after Fukushima.

Later Years: Fragmented Politics, Europe's Future, and the Pandemic (2017–2021)
The 2017 election produced a fragmented Bundestag. Coalition talks for a Jamaica alliance with the FDP under Christian Lindner and the Greens led by figures such as Cem Oezdemir and Katrin Goering-Eckardt collapsed, forcing another grand coalition with the SPD. Olaf Scholz became finance minister and vice chancellor. Internationally, relations with Donald Trump were marked by disputes over trade, NATO, and multilateralism, while ties with Emmanuel Macron focused on reforming the EU and, in 2020, on building a joint European response to the pandemic and economic shock. Ursula von der Leyen, a close Merkel ally, left Berlin to lead the European Commission.

At home, Merkel's steady, science-forward approach guided Germany through COVID-19's first phases. Her communication emphasized caution, data, and federal coordination. After internal party turbulence, she announced in 2018 that she would not seek another term as CDU chair; Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer succeeded her as party leader, followed by Armin Laschet, who became the CDU/CSU's 2021 chancellor candidate after a rivalry with Markus Soeder. Merkel did not run in 2021, and Olaf Scholz succeeded her as chancellor in December 2021.

Leadership Style and Legacy
Merkel's leadership is associated with analytical patience, coalition-building, and an instinct for the politically achievable. Often described as risk-averse, she nonetheless made consequential choices under pressure, from the euro crisis architecture to the post-Fukushima energy policy pivot and the 2015 refugee response. She cultivated durable working relationships across party lines and borders, collaborating closely at various times with figures such as Wolfgang Schaeuble, Ursula von der Leyen, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Nicolas Sarkozy, Francois Hollande, Emmanuel Macron, Barack Obama, and, in more contentious settings, with Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. She became a symbol of centrist stability in a turbulent era and was named Time's Person of the Year in 2015.

Personal Life
Merkel's personal life remained largely private. She has no children and is known for a reserved public persona, a dry wit, and longstanding interests in science and classical music. Her marriage to Joachim Sauer, a prominent chemist, remained a discreet backdrop to her public work. She maintained ties to Protestant traditions through her family origins and showed a lifelong preference for reasoned debate over spectacle.

After Office
After leaving office in 2021, Merkel stepped back from daily politics. She reflected on her years in government through occasional interviews and appearances, and she remained a reference point in debates about European unity, Germany's role in the world, and the balance between humanitarian commitments and pragmatic governance. Colleagues and successors across the spectrum, including Olaf Scholz and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, often invoked her tenure when assessing new crises, underscoring the imprint she left on German and European public life.

Our collection contains 38 quotes who is written by Angela, under the main topics: Learning - Sports - Faith - Equality - Peace.

Other people realated to Angela: George W. Bush (President), Vladimir Putin (President), Jens Stoltenberg (Politician), Georgios A. Papandreou (Politician), Jeremy Rifkin (Economist), Condoleezza Rice (Statesman), Horst Koehler (Statesman), Helmut Kohl (Politician), David Cameron (Politician), Gordon Brown (Politician)