Who is Angela Merkel, the silent physicist who changed Germany?

Even though she left eighteen years after the head of the CDU, she is one of the leaders with the longest term in Europe and, of course, one of the most powerful.

Can we understand through Angela Merkel's life how a physicist from Communist East Germany became such a senior figure in global politics?
When it comes to a country's most powerful leader, voters are curious to know whether their life before entering quiet or troubled politics has affected or not their views.

Can understanding personal trends help predict responses to future crises?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who runs for a fourth term and is known as an intensively reserved person, inclined to avoid any form of self-promovation, does not leave much space to answer these questions easily.

Born in 1954, the daughter of a Protestant pastor, Horst Kasner, and an English teacher, Herlind Kasner, Merkel moved from Hamburg to Germany's town of Quitzow, (then part of the German Democratic Republic GDR), when she was very young.

The eldest of three children, Merkel spent her childhood at the seminar, where her father worked.

During the school years, “Cassi”, a nickname set by her friends, was spotted as an excellent student drawn to Russian and Soviet culture.

After completing his doctorate in Berlin, Merkel worked as quantum chemist at the Academy of Sciences in East Germany.

Her former colleagues have described her as shameful, diligent and always inclined to ask for safe data.

In an authorized biographer published in 2013, Stephen Cornelius writes that Merkel chose to work as a scientist because she lacked the courage to express her rebellion against the Communist regime openly.

And many others believe that she chose wisely a field that was favored by the Communists.

Merkel was 35 when the Berlin Wall fell.

During an incident that is considered a stereotype for the retired politician, Merkel went as usual to her weekly treatment in a friend's South on November 9, 1989, before joining crowds crossing the border to West Berlin.

Suddenly, released from the control of the communist government and the Stasi secret police, Merkel joined the Berlin office, a new party in East Germany, called “Democratic Policy” (Democratic Awakenong) , whose sister's party was the Christian Democrat Union (CDU).

Although the CDU supported some of Merkel's conservative right values, politician biographers have speculated that the party's choice may have been a reflection of its power instinct rather than its ideology.

Immediately, she sought to hold a meeting with CDU leader Helmut Kohl, who later became her mentor.

Within a few months, Merkel became known as Kohli's “daughter, becoming part of his first cabinet after German reunification, as Minister of Youth and Woman.

Early in her career, Merkel was introduced by Kohl and many others as a youth in politics, a East German politician, inclined to succeed, and the only woman, at the CDU Men's Club.

Even when she might look strange and shameful, you could understand with the first of her powers”, said Herlinda Koelbl, a photographer who has photographed Merkel every year for a decade.

But Merkel did not hesitate to abandon her mentor in 1999 amid a CDU funding scandal.

Indeed, she replaced it by declaring herself the new party leader.

One of Merkel's statements, published in the centre-right liberal-conservative German newspaper “Frankfurter Legendine Zeitung”, founded in 1949, appeared to be a sort of divorce letter dedicated to Kohl, saying that the CDU should be separated from its leader in the same way that teenagers should be distanced from their parents in order to grow up.

In 2002, Stoiber politically defeated CDU leader Angela Merkel by selecting the CDU candidate / CSU for the Chancellor's office, and challenging Gerhard Schöder.

After that, the move chose in favour of Merkel. Stoiber lost his vote against the SPD's Gerhard Schroeder, whose government lost power three years later.

Two months after early elections in 2005, Merkel was sworn in as the first woman Chancellor in Germany.

The next 12 years would dramatically change Germany's political landscape and the country's role on the world stage.

Merkel experts have speculated that her years in power are based on three major developments.

The first and perhaps the most disturbing challenge of Merkel's mandate was the Eurozone crisis, which threatened not only the integrity of the euro currency but the European Union's.

Soon Merkel became the representative of European bankers, who preached austerity measures against Mediterranean countries.

Explaining her stance in 2012, Merkel said she came from a country in which she had experienced an economic collapse.

If Greece's debt had not been reduced “steadily and with a long-term goal, Europe would no longer be the prosperous continent that the world listened to and caught the attention of many.

Merkel was patient over continuing criticism of her attitude towards Greece, especially the initial phase, in which she was delayed during her commitment to secure a rescue fund.

The philosopher, Juergen Habermas once accused him of being the politician who “acted as incapacitated” and “as if he had slept on volcano”.

In 2011, in the second year of its second term, Merkel responded to the nuclear disaster, Fukushima turning her party's attention to nuclear energy.

It made public known, the plan to curb it, over the next decade, through a decision that continues today, through power producers RWE and Eon in Germany, which have increased renewable energy production in recent years.

In September 2015, during her third term, Merkel opened Germany's doors to refugees.

The German Chancellor's courageous act had positive and negative assessments resulting in what was undoubtedly the greatest threat to Merkel's power, increasing support for the right-wing, Alternative to Germany ( AfD, like the first successful German right-wing movement since the war.

Merkel's confidence, presented in her famous slogan, “We can get out!” faced an increase of support for the AfD and thousands present in the weekly rally against immigrants in Dresden.

Although, after the gradual reduction of the refugee crisis, support for the AfD had dropped, the party has currently voted around 10 percent, and it is almost certain it will overcome the hurdle by five percent, required to enter the national parliament.

To some extent, the refugee decision exposed Merkel's perception as a talented strategy, without having a broad vision.

However, some critics have claimed that Merkel has given priority to short-term tactical benefits in terms of long-term results.

In her rival's words, Martin Schulz of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), Merkel is the extremely capable, accurate, discreet and intelligent”. / ATA. (From Friedrich Heine)