Merkel, Angela

Merkel, Angela (än'gelä mär'kul) [key], 1954–, German politician, b. Hamburg as Angela Dorothea Kasner. The daughter of a Lutheran pastor, she grew up in what was then East Germany. She trained as a physicist (Ph.D., Univ. of Leipzig, 1978) and worked (1978–90) as a quantum chemistry researcher at East Berlin's Academy of Sciences. Involved in the 1989 democracy movement, she joined the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and was elected to parliament in 1990. A protégé of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, she served under him as minister for youth and women (1991–94) and the environment (1994–98). After Kohl's defeat in 1998, Merkel became CDU secretary-general and, having distanced herself from her former mentor, she was named party leader in 2000. In the 2005 elections she led the CDU coalition to a narrow victory over the Social Democrats. No party, however, secured a workable plurality of seats, forcing the CDU into coalition with the Social Democrats. Merkel became chancellor, the first woman and the first E German after unification to do so. Within the EU and internationally she has worked to win agreement on measures that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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