It is a special day for the former CDU leader and Chancellor to celebrate. Congratulations are likely to come from all over the world. But her policies during her 16 years in government remain controversial.
Former Chancellor Angela Merkel is celebrating her 70th birthday today – away from the public eye. “The former Chancellor Dr. Merkel will spend her birthday in private,” a spokeswoman for Merkel told the German Press Agency in Berlin. “Even during her active political time, the former Chancellor generally did not answer private inquiries,” the spokeswoman added. “Her attitude to inquiries of this kind has not changed since she left office.”
Many politicians have already congratulated Merkel and praised her life’s work. Congratulations also came from Gerhard Schröder, whom the CDU politician replaced in the chancellery after the 2005 federal election. “Of all political opponents, she is a special one. After all, she won,” the SPD politician told the magazine “Stern”. He likes Merkel’s “typical North German charm” as well as her ability to be ironic and self-deprecating.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier praised her as a “role model and a trademark of our democracy.” Merkel had decisively shaped the path of a united Germany as Chancellor.
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder told the dpa: “Congratulations on your 70th birthday – on a great life’s work to the most important living political personality in Germany.” The CSU and Merkel had a changeable relationship at the beginning – “that also applied to me,” Söder admitted. There were major differences, especially in migration policy. “But during the Corona pandemic, everything changed for me,” Söder said.
Evangelical pastor’s daughter, physicist, chancellor
Merkel was born on July 17, 1954 in Hamburg. Her father took up a pastorate in Brandenburg – Merkel grew up in what was then the GDR. After studying physics at the University of Leipzig, she worked as a research assistant at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry at the Academy of Sciences. She has been politically active since the time of political upheaval in the East. Before reunification on October 3, 1990, Merkel was deputy government spokesperson in the first freely elected GDR government under Prime Minister Lothar de Maizière.
In 1990, Merkel was elected to the Bundestag. She became Minister for Women’s Affairs and later Minister for the Environment. From 2000 to 2018, she led the CDU. Merkel’s 16 years as Chancellor were marked by crises: the financial and banking crisis, the euro crisis, the refugee crisis, the climate crisis and the Corona crisis, among others. In addition, there was a transatlantic crisis under then US President Donald Trump and an internal Union crisis with the then CSU leader and Federal Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer during the sharp increase in refugee numbers in 2015/16.
Merkel is not running in the 2021 federal election. In connection with the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, critics accuse her of naive dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Many see her as responsible for Germany’s long dependence on Russian natural gas.
CDU birthday reception for Merkel at the end of September
A birthday reception by the Christian Democrats in Merkel’s honor is planned for September 25. Then there will be a ceremony at the Berlin Academy of Sciences as part of the CDU series “Berlin Talks”. The art historian Horst Bredekamp is to give a lecture, as party leader Friedrich Merz has already announced.
The former Chancellor’s political memoirs, which are due to be published on November 26, are eagerly awaited. The memoirs, written together with her long-time office manager Beate Baumann, are entitled “Freedom. Memories 1954 – 2021”. According to the publisher Kiepenheuer & Witsch, they are to be published in over 30 countries worldwide. The book is expected to be around 700 pages long.
“More personally than ever before, she tells of her childhood, youth and studies in the GDR and the dramatic year of 1989, when the Wall fell and her political life began,” says the publisher’s announcement about the release.
Merkel and freedom
Merkel herself is quoted by the publisher as saying: “What is freedom for me? This question has occupied me my whole life. Politically, of course, because freedom needs democratic conditions; without democracy there is no freedom, no constitutional state, no protection of human rights.” But the question also concerns her on another level. “Freedom – for me, that means finding out where my own limits lie and pushing myself to my own limits.”
In 2002, Merkel ousted Friedrich Merz from the chairmanship of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag. Since then, the relationship between the current party and CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader and the former Chancellor has been considered to be severely strained. As in previous years, Merkel did not accept an invitation to the CDU party conference in May. Some in the CDU accused her of becoming increasingly distant from her party. Last December, Merkel withdrew from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which is close to the CDU.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
