GiNN-BerlinKontor.— A new biography „Angela Merkel – die Kanzlerin und ihre Welt“ indicates that Merkel is “of Polish descent”. Her grandfather, born as Ludwig Kazmierczak, changed his name to Kasner after he moved to Berlin in 1930, served as pollice officer. So Merkel was born “Kasner”, and later kept the name of her first husband she devorced.
Merkel’s father, a vicar in Hamburg/West Germany, received a pastorate at the church in Brandenburg/East Germany). The family – with daughter Angela – moved to Templin, a small town in the GDR.
Merkel who later was asked by journalists why she did not tell “her full story” in the first place , replied: “Because I was never asked to do so”. Merkel never denied that she was a member of the communist-led youth Free German Youth (FDJ) in East Germany.
After her father had accepted the call at the Lutheran church in Quitzow in the coummunist part of Germany he was allowed to travel freely from East to West Germany during the following years. This led to the conclusion that Merkel’s father had a “sympathetic” relationship with the communist regime, since such freedom and perquisites for a Christian pastor and his family would have been otherwise impossible in East Germany.
Gerd Langhuth, a former senior member of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, who died in Bonn in May 2013, wrotes in his book that the family’s ability to travel freely from East to West Germany during the following years, as well as their possession of two automobiles, leads to the conclusion that Merkel’s father had a “sympathetic” relationship with the communist regime, since such freedom and perquisites for a Christian pastor and his family would have been otherwise impossible in East Germany.
Merkel was educated at the East German University of Leipzig, and at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences in East Berlin from 1978 to 1990. After being awarded a doctorate (Dr. rer. nat.) for her thesis on quantum chemistry, she worked as a researcher and published several papers.
Angela Merkel later told a journalist that she served as secretary of culture – “according to my memory”, but it was reported that she was on charge with the FDJ-section for “Agitprop” (agitation and propaganda). Since 1990 beeing a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany Merkel’s onetime FDJ district chairman contradicted her. Merkel learned to speak Russian fluently, and was awarded prizes for her proficiency in Russian and Mathematics.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall Angela Merkel got involved in the growing democracy, joining the new party Democratic Awakening (“Demokratischer Aufbruch”). After having lived in communist Gernany for 36 years Merkel entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989. In 1990, she was elected to the German Bundestag (Parliament). She was later appointed as the Federal Minister for Women and Youth in 1991 under Chancellor Helmut KOHL, being promoted to become Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in 1994. After the CDU/CSU coalition was defeated in 1998, she was elected Secretary-General of the CDU, before being elected the party’s first ever female Leader in 2000.
Following the 2005 federal election, she was appointed Germany’s first female Chancellor at the head of a grand coalition consisting of her own CDU party, its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In the 2009 federal election, the CDU obtained the largest share of the vote, and Merkel was able to form a coalition government with the support of the CSU and the Free Democratic Party (FDP). She became a German politician who has been the Chancellor of Germany since 2005, and the Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) since 2000. She is the first woman to hold either office. (“Angela Merkel – die Kanzlerin und ihre Welt“ – Hoffmann & Campe)