Anne Onken (born 1977 in

Oldenburg Oldenburg may also refer to: Places *Mount Oldenburg, Ellsworth Land, Antarctica *Oldenburg (city), an independent city in Lower Saxony, Germany **Oldenburg (district), a district historically in Oldenburg Free State and now in Lower Saxony *Olde ...

) is a German radio presenter and comedian. Onken was born the daughter of a priest in Oldenburg and started to imitate voices from an early age. Her first successful radio programme was ''Die Pisa-Polizei'' with N-Joy and SWR 3, in which she confronted schoolchildren on the street and asked them difficult questions from various subject areas. In 2005 she began to imitate the voice of politician (and later Federal Chancellor) Angela Merkel on '' The Gerd Show''. Her successful work with

Elmar Brandt Elmar Brandt (born 20 September 1971) is a German impressionist, best known for his imitations of politicians. He was born in Düsseldorf. His most famous series is ''The Gerd Show'', in which actual events are lampooned using an imitation of fo ...

(who imitated

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 ...

) culminated in the popular song "Im Wahlkampf vor mir liegt ein Zonenmädchen", which reached no. 25 in the German charts during the run up to the

2005 German federal elections Federal elections were held in Germany on 18 September 2005 to elect the members of the 16th Bundestag. The snap election was called after the government's defeat in a state election, which caused them to intentionally lose a motion of confide ...

. Shortly before the elections the television broadcaster

Sat.1 Sat.1 is a German free-to-air television channel that is a part of the ProSiebenSat.1 Media Group. It is considered the first privately owned television network in Germany, having been launched in January 1984 as ''PKS'' ''(Programmgesellschaf ...

showed short sketches with Onken and Brandt. Since then Onken has been acclaimed as the best imitator of Angela Merkel in Germany. In October 2005 ''The Gerd Show'' was replaced by a new comedy serial, ''Angela - Schicksalsjahre einer Kanzlerin - Eine Frau geht seinen Weg''. Like ''The Gerd Show'', it was produced by Elmar Brandt and played by Onken using her imitation of Angela Merkel.

Sources

* ''This article is based on a translation of the corresponding German-language Wikipedia article, retrieved on July 6, 2006.''

External links

*
Clips of ''Die Pisa-Polizei''
*
Clips of ''Angela - Schicksalsjahre einer Kanzlerin''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Onken, Anne 1977 births Living people German women comedians German radio presenters German women radio presenters People from Oldenburg (city) Comedians from Lower Saxony