My POV: 

A few days ago I was in my bed, I had just woken up from a 7-hour sleep and usually, I have a book on my side table that I read for thirty minutes before getting out of bed, but this time I didn’t have a book because I slept early last night and forgot to put the book on the side-table. So instead I went on my phone and just responded to some text messages and snaps and just watched some TikToks while I was watching TikTok, I got a notification from CNN. It was about Angela Merkel announcing she is stepping down as Germanys’ chancellor and I had heard some stories about her before and heard she had been a great chancellor, so I decided to click on the story and it was by Ivana Kottasova, The title of the story read “Angela Merkel endured as others came and went. Now world's crisis manager steps down.” I’m open to learn more about Top Leaders and read how they help this world. So obviously I read the article, the article was long but I was so much interested in it all of a sudden and finished reading it in 5 minutes.  The article was so well written but to be honest I didn’t care for how it was written but what is said. The article talked about Angela Merkel’s life and It is so interesting and powerful and she still ignores the hate.

Early Life: 

Angela Merkel (Angela Dorothea Kasner) born July 17, 1954, in Hamburg, West Germany. Her parents were normal people and didn’t have any part in the government of Germany, Her father was Horst Kasner, he was a theology student and her mother was Herlind Kasner, she was a teacher of Latin and English. Her father accepted a pastorate in Quitzow, Brandenburg, and they relocated to East Germany. Before Merkel being born, Her father and mother relocated again to Templin and that is where Merkel finished High School in 1973. Merkel’s early life had politics, power, and leaders too. Merkel participated in the state’s youth organizations. Merkel was a member of the Young Pioneers (from 1962), and the Free German Youth (from 1968).

Study:

Merkel was educated at Karl Marx University, Leipzig, she studied physics there from 1973 to 1978. After earning her diploma in 1978, Merkel studied at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences and later worked there as a chemist from 1978 to 1990. In 1986 Angela Merkel was awarded a doctorate for her thesis on Quantum Chemistry in 1986. 

Political Life: 

1989 The Berlin Wall Fell, Merkel joined the newly founded Democratic Awakening, She also became the party’s press spokesperson on February 1990. Merkel later that year joined the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) in August 1990, that party merged with the western counterpart, the day before the reunification of Germany, on October 1. In the first election, Merkel won a seat in the Bundestag (lower house of parliament) representing Stralsund-Rügen-Grimmen in the first post-reunification election in December 1990. In January 1991, she was appointed by Chancellor Helmut Kohl as the Minister for Women and Youth. She was nicknamed as Kohls Mädchen, (Kohl’s girl) because Kohl's female newcomer from East Germany appealed to several demographics. After the election, Merkel became the minister of environment, conservation, and reactor safety, and she presided over the first United Nations Climate Conference in Berlin in March--April 1995. On 1998, November 7, Merkel was elected secretary-general of the CDU. Merkel, Kohl's former protégée, called on the party to make a fresh start without its honorary chairman in an open letter released on December 22. The stance of Merkel greatly increased her exposure and popularity with the German public, and she gained a lot of notoriety in the public eye of Germany. Merkel became the first woman to ever be elected as the head of CDU and the first non-Catholic to be the head of CDU on April 10, 2000. Merkel faced the side effects of the corruption probe and a divided party as the CDU leader. Merkel first wanted to run for Chancellor in 2002, but most of her party expressed a likeness for Edmund Stoiber of the Christian Social Union (CSU). Merkel became the leader of the opposition after the CDU-CSU narrowly lost the election.

Chancellorship: 

Angela Merkel becomes Chancellor in 2005, by barely defeating Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, winning just by three seats, She was declared Germany's first female, the first East German, age 51, the youngest person to date to hold the office, as the Chancellor after the CDU agreed to a coalition deal with the Social Democrats (SPD). Merkel was then re-elected for a second term, in 2009, where she dealt with Europe’s Financial Crisis. She is re-elected in 2013 for a third term and re-elected in 2017 for the fourth term, she will not be re-elected in 2021, because her party wants to choose a new leader. Angela Merkel has been the chancellor of Germany since 2005, which makes it 15 years.

Challenges Faced:

People made her an icon of budget cuts and tight supervision for the debt crisis. Merkel has also been the guiding force behind the efforts of the EU to regain trust in the euro. The statement by Merkel that if the euro struggles, Europe fails ideally reflects her contribution to the European project. Angela Merkel made Germanies economy flourish, she shortened how many hours people could work a week and started the economic stimulus package. To gain more support Merkel made the statement that she would shut out eight of the 17 Germany’s nuclear reactors, and other would-be phased out by 2022, she won a lot of support not only in Germany but worldwide as well, and later she changed her behavior and kept them. In 2015, Merkel introduced minimum wage (€8.50-an-hour), she helped tackle growing social divisions and dealing with increasing wage inequality. In 2009 Merkel was at a meeting with Vladimir Putin, and Putin knows that Merkel is afraid of dogs because she was bit by one once, brought his dogs into the meeting and let them loose, and said “I'm sure it will behave itself,” then later Merkel talked about that night in an interview and she said “I understand why he has to do this — to prove he's a man,” she told a group of reporters. “He's afraid of his own weakness. Russia has nothing, no successful politics or economy. All they have is this.” Another hypocritical moment with Merkel was when Our Former President Donald Trump, was in a phone call meeting with world leaders and all were gathered to talk about serious issues, Trump wasn’t prepared, all Trump did was bully other world leaders during the meeting, he once called Angela Merkel “Stupid.” A quote from CNN article “The German official quoted above said that during Merkel's visit to the White House two years ago, Trump displayed "very questionable behavior" that "was quite aggressive ... [T]he Chancellor indeed stayed calm, and that's what she does on the phone." The last example of world leaders not treating her equal, is when Silvio Berlusconi (prime minister of Italy 2009) left her standing and waiting at the Nato Summit for more than 15 minutes, while he was on his phone. Angela has been described as boring, calm, pragmatic, and diplomatic she has also been described as “very ... matter of fact, very rational and people would never think of her as being corrupt." said Gabriele Abels, a professor of comparative politics at the University of Tübingen, Germany. 

There have been 4 US presidents from 2005 to the present day, while there has been only one Chancellor for Germany. There have been 8 prime ministers in Japan over the same period. She is known as “Miss Germany,” Bild a huge magazine company in Germany put a photo of her on the cover and headlined it “Miss Germany.” She is also known as “The World’s Crisis Manager.” She isn’t know all of this because of her gender it is because of what she did for the world and her people. It does not matter if she was the first female chancellor in Germany, it matters what change she brings to the world and the country.

SOURCES USED:

Angela Merkel - Chancellorship

Putin brought dog to meeting with Merkel

Ten reasons Angela Merkel is the world’s most powerful woman

Angela Merkel endured as others came and went. Now world's crisis manager steps down

From pandering to Putin to abusing allies and ignoring his own advisers, Trump's phone calls alarm US officials

Angela Merkel - Age, Education & Parents

BBC NEWS | Europe | Berlusconi's phone call leaves Merkel waiting