Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German former politician and scientist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she previously served as Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union from 2000 to 2018. Merkel was the first female chancellor of Germany. During her tenure as Chancellor, Merkel was frequently referred to as the ''de facto'' leader of the European Union (EU), the most powerful woman in the world, and since 2016 the leader of the free world. Merkel was born in Hamburg in then-West Germany, moving to East Germany as an infant when her father, a Lutheran clergyman, received a pastorate in Perleberg. She obtained a doctorate in quantum chemistry in 1986 and worked as a research scientist until 1989. Merkel entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989, briefly serving as deputy spokeswoman for the first democratically elected ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (; Kramp; born 9 August 1962), sometimes referred to by her initials of AKK, is a retired German politician who served as Minister of Defence from 2019 to 2021 and as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 2018 to 2021. In February 2020, Kramp-Karrenbauer announced that she would resign her position as CDU leader later in the year and would not put herself forward as a candidate for chancellor for the 2021 federal election. She was succeeded by Armin Laschet at the 2021 Christian Democratic Union of Germany leadership election. Kramp-Karrenbauer previously served as secretary general of the party and as Minister President of Saarland from 2011 to 2018, the first woman to lead the Government of Saarland and fourth woman to head a German state government. Kramp-Karrenbauer is regarded as socially conservative, but on the CDU's left wing in economic policy and has been described as a centrist. She is an active Catholic and has served on th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Ursula Von Der Leyen
Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen (; Albrecht, born 8 October 1958) is a German politician who has been serving as the president of the European Commission since 2019. She served in the Cabinet of Germany, German federal government between 2005 and 2019, holding successive positions in Angela Merkel's cabinet, most recently as minister of defence. Von der Leyen is a member of the Centre-right politics, centre-right Christian Democratic Union of Germany, Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its EU counterpart, the European People's Party (EPP). She was born and raised in Brussels to German parents. Her father, Ernst Albrecht (politician, born 1930), Ernst Albrecht, was one of the first European civil servants. She was brought up bilingually in German and French. She moved to the Hanover Region in 1971 when her father entered politics to become Minister President of Lower Saxony, minister-president of the state of Lower Saxony in 1976. As an economics student at the London School of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Frank-Walter Steinmeier
Frank-Walter Steinmeier (; born 5 January 1956) is a German politician serving as President of Germany since 19 March 2017. He was previously Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2013 to 2017, as well as Vice Chancellor of Germany from 2007 to 2009. Steinmeier was chairman-in-office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2016. Steinmeier is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), holds a doctorate in law and was formerly a career civil servant. He was a close aide of Gerhard Schröder when Schröder was Prime Minister of Lower Saxony during most of the 1990s, and served as Schröder's chief of staff from 1996. When Schröder became Chancellor of Germany in 1998, Steinmeier was appointed Under-Secretary of State in the German Chancellery with the responsibility for the intelligence services. From 1999 to 2005 he served as Chief of Staff of the Chancellery. Following the 2005 federal election, S ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Wolfgang Schäuble
Wolfgang Schäuble (; born 18 September 1942) is a German lawyer, politician and statesman whose political career has spanned for more than five decades. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he is one of the longest-serving politicians in German history. Schäuble served as President of the Bundestag from 2017 to 2021. Born in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1942,Quentin Peel (12 March 2010)Man in the News: Wolfgang Schäuble''Financial Times''. Schäuble studied at both the University of Freiburg and the University of Hamburg and subsequently began a career in law at the district court of Offenburg in 1978. His political career began in 1969 as a member of the Junge Union, the youth division of the CDU and CSU; in 1972, Schäuble was elected to the Bundestag by winning the constituency seat of Offenburg, and he was still a member of the Bundestag in 2022. His ministerial career began in 1984 when he was appointed Minister for Special Affairs by Chancellor Helmut Kohl. In ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Norbert Röttgen
Norbert Alois Röttgen (born 2 July 1965) is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He was Federal Minister for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2009 to May 2012. From 2014 to 2021, he was Chair of the Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee. Early life and education Röttgen graduated from the Gymnasium of Rheinbach, North Rhine-Westphalia. After completing his Abitur, he started to study law at the University of Bonn in 1984. He passed his first law examination in 1989, his second examination in 1993 and practised as a lawyer in Cologne. He obtained a legal doctorate from the University of Bonn in 2001; his doctoral thesis was on the Court of Justice of the European Union.Matthew Karnitschnig (25 February 2020)The wannabe Merkels''Politico Europe''. Political career Röttgen joined the CDU in 1982 while he was still a high-school student. From 1992 until 1996, he served as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Sigmar Gabriel
Sigmar Hartmut Gabriel (born 12 September 1959) is a German politician who was the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2017 to 2018 and the vice-chancellor of Germany from 2013 to 2018. He was Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 2009 to 2017,Holger Hansen and Madeline Chambers (5 January 2017)SPD leader Gabriel expected to challenge Merkel in German: sources''Reuters''. which made him the party's longest-serving leader since Willy Brandt. He was the Federal Minister of the Environment from 2005 to 2009 and the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy from 2013 to 2017. From 1999 to 2003 Gabriel was Minister-President of Lower Saxony. He represented Salzgitter – Wolfenbüttel in the Bundestag. Gabriel is a member of the Seeheimer Kreis, an official internal grouping of the party with liberal economic positions. Early life and education Gabriel was born in Goslar, West Germany, son of Walter Gabriel (1921–2012), a municipal civil servan ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Olaf Scholz
Olaf Scholz (; born ) is a German politician who has served as the chancellor of Germany since 8 December 2021. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Social Democratic Party (SPD), he previously served as Vice Chancellor of Germany, Vice Chancellor under Angela Merkel and as Federal Ministry of Finance (Germany), Federal Minister of Finance from 2018 to 2021. He was also List of mayors of Hamburg, First Mayor of Hamburg from 2011 to 2018 and deputy leader of the SPD from 2009 to 2019. Scholz began his career as a lawyer specialising in Labour law, labour and employment law. He became a member of the SPD in the 1970s and was a member of the Bundestag from 1998 to 2011. Scholz served in the Government of Hamburg, Hamburg Government under List of mayors of Hamburg, First Mayor Ortwin Runde in 2001, before his election as Social Democratic Party of Germany, General Secretary of the SPD in 2002, serving alongside SPD leader and then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. He beca ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Chancellor Of Germany
The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,; often shortened to ''Bundeskanzler''/''Bundeskanzlerin'', / is the head of the federal government of Germany and the commander in chief of the German Armed Forces during wartime. The chancellor is the chief executive of the Federal Cabinet and heads the executive branch. The chancellor is elected by the Bundestag on the proposal of the federal president and without debate (Article 63 of the German Constitution). The current officeholder is Olaf Scholz of the SPD, who was elected in December 2021, succeeding Angela Merkel. He was elected after the SPD entered into a coalition agreement with Alliance 90/The Greens and the FDP. History of the office The office of Chancellor has a long history, stemming back to the Holy Roman Empire, when the office of German archchancellor was usually held by archbishops of Mainz. The title was, at times, used in several states of German-spea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Friedrich Merz
Joachim-Friedrich Martin Josef Merz (born 11 November 1955) is a German lawyer and politician, serving as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) since 31 January 2022 and as leader of the Union parliamentary group as well as the Leader of the Opposition in the Bundestag since 15 February 2022. Merz joined the Young Union in 1972 and is reputed to be a member of the Andean Pact, a powerful network formed by politically ambitious members of the Young Union in 1979 during a trip to the Andes. After finishing law school in 1985, he worked as a judge and corporate lawyer before entering full-time politics in 1989 when he was elected to the European Parliament. After serving one term he was elected to the Bundestag, where he established himself as the leading financial policy expert in the CDU. He was elected chairman of the CDU/CSU group in the same year as Angela Merkel was elected chairwoman of the CDU, and at the time they were chief rivals for the leadership of the party. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Gerhard Schröder
Gerhard Fritz Kurt "Gerd" Schröder (; born 7 April 1944) is a German lobbyist and former politician, who served as the chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. From 1999 to 2004, he was also the Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). As chancellor, he led a coalition government of the SPD and Alliance 90/The Greens. Since leaving public office, Schröder has worked for Russian state-owned energy companies, including Nord Stream AG, Rosneft, and Gazprom. Schröder was a lawyer before becoming a full-time politician, and he served as Minister President of Lower Saxony (1990–1998) before becoming chancellor. Following the 2005 federal election, which his party lost, and after three weeks of negotiations, he stood down as chancellor in favour of Angela Merkel of the rival Christian Democratic Union. He is the chairman of the board of Nord Stream AG and of Rosneft, after having been hired as a global manager by investment bank Rothschild, and also the chairman o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Volker Kauder
Volker Kauder (born 3 September 1949) is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He served as parliamentary group leader of the ruling CDU/CSU faction in the German ''Bundestag'' from 2005 to 2018, during which he was frequently referred to as the "right hand" of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Political career Career in state politics Kauder was born in Hoffenheim. A student of the Hegau-Gymnasium in Singen, he became a member of Junge Union in the age of 17. In 1991, he became Secretary General of Baden-Württemberg CDU and subsequently served as the party's campaign manager for the state elections in 1992, 1996 and 2001. He served in this office until the resignation of party chairman Erwin Teufel in 2005. Career in national politics A trained lawyer, Kauder has been a member of the German Bundestag since the 1990 elections, representing the town of Rottweil in southwestern Germany ( Rottweil – Tuttlingen). In parliament, he first served on ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Leader Of The Opposition (Germany)
The Leader of the Opposition in Germany is the parliamentary leader of the largest political party in the Bundestag that is not in government. In Germany, the Leader of the Opposition is an informal title that is not even mentioned and does not have any formal functions in the by-laws of the Bundestag. However, the Leader of the Opposition is, by convention, the first person to respond to the most senior government spokesperson during a debate. The title also exists on a state level, but only in the Landtag of Schleswig-Holstein is the position formally recognized as an actual office. Only two Leaders of the Opposition went on to be directly elected Chancellor afterwards: Helmut Kohl (1976–1982) and Angela Merkel (2002–2005). List of opposition leaders in Germany since 1949 (Federal Republic of Germany) References {{reflist, group=note Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most popul ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |