Angela Merkel: Chancellor of Germany

Angela Merkel joined the political playfield—in 1989 after the Berlin Wall fell—as a member of the Christian Democratic Union party. She served as women and youth minister in Germany chancellor Helmut Kohl’s cabinet. She later served as Environment and Nuclear Safety Minister, and then Secretary-General of the CDU.

Merkel narrowly broke the glass ceiling (by three seats) in 2005, elected as the first female chancellor. She was the first former “East German”—officially the German Democratic Republic—to lead Germany after its reunification. Merkel also had a big part in forming the European Union. She stepped down as CDU chair in 2018 and announced she would not seek reelection as chancellor when her term ends in 2021.