Angela Merkel Bio
Angela Merkel is a German political personality known for serving the nation by being its first female chancellor. She is also one of the architects of the European Union.
Early Life
Angela Merkel was born on 17th July 1954 in Hamburg, West Germany as Angela Dorothea Kasner to Horst Kasner and Herland.
Her father was a Lutheran pastor whereas the mother was a teacher by profession. She was raised in the countryside 90 km north of East Berlin with two younger siblings; Marcus and Irene.
In education, she completed her study in physics at the University of Leipzig and earned her doctorate in 1978.
Her first profession before making an entry into politics was as a chemist at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry, Academy of Science from 1978 to 1990.
Career
She started her career as a chemist from 1978 to 1990 at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry.
She then joined the Christian Democratic Union political party in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall and got appointed as minister for women and youth in Helmut Kohl’s cabinet further serving as head of an environment and nuclear safety department.
In 1998, she received the position of secretary-general of the CDU but lost the candidacy for the chancellor to Edmund Stoiber in 2002.
She participated in the election again in 2005 and defeated Chancellor Gerhard Schroder by three seats grabbing the position of the chancellor as a first female and also the first non-catholic to lead the party. She got re-elected for the position in 2009.
In 2013, she came to the spotlight by accusing the U.S. National Security Agency to tap her cell phone and also for being elected for the third term as a chancellor.
She also faced the 2015 European migrant crisis as one of the most difficult challenges for all the time at the chair of a chancellor. Recently, she was sworn in for her fourth term as a chancellor in September 2017.
Personal Life
She married Ulrich Merkel in 1977 but the two got divorced in 1982. She married again to Joachim Sauer in 1998. She is a step-mother of two sons from Sauer’s previous marriage.
Achievements
In 2017, she got awarded with Elie Wiesel Award from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and recently got listed by Forbes magazine in the list of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women category.
Net Worth
It is estimated to be around $14 million.
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Merkel
https://www.forbes.com/profile/angela-merkel/#641258a722dd