When Angela Merkel became Germany's first female chancellor in 2005, many saw this as proof that it is not always a disadvantage to be underestimated by inner-party rivals. DW looks back at the beginnings.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Altwein
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Angela Merkel: Conquerer of political rivals
Angela Merkel has long shown a knack for neutralizing or sidelining politicians who got in her way. This applies as much to members of her own party as to rivals in other parties.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/ANP/R. De Waal
'Kohl's girl' leaves moniker behind
Longtime Chancellor Helmut Kohl gave Merkel her first cabinet post and facilitated her rise. After losing the chancellorship in 1998, his onetime acolyte turned her back and that of their Christian Democratic Union (CDU) on him. Merkel, then CDU secretary general, said Kohl, who had accepted a cash donation from sources he refused to reveal, had hurt the party. The CDU moved on without him.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Altwein
Gerhard Schröder - end of a political career
Merkel was Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's undoing in the 2005 election, though his own vanity was also to blame. His Social Democrats (SPD) finished one point behind her conservative CDU/CSU alliance. On TV with Merkel and other party heads, Schröder insisted Germans had made clear they wanted him to stay. The others rebuffed his apparently absurd claim. She became chancellor. He quit politics.
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Frank-Walter Steinmeier - ever the partner
Frank-Walter Steinmeier had been Germany's foreign minister, serving under Merkel, for nearly four years when the Social Democrat challenged her in the 2009 election. Many people said the SPD's heavy defeat was because of his lack of a popular touch. But he bounced back and in 2013 returned as the country's top diplomat, again with Merkel as the boss. He became Germany's president in March 2017.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Kembowski
Günther Oettinger - out of the way
Eliminating competitors doesn't always mean forcing them off the political scene. Merkel dispatched her party colleague and potential rival Günther Oettinger, premier of the state of Baden-Württemberg, to a top job in the European Commission in 2010. Oettinger had no track record in EU politics and even then was known for sticking his foot in his mouth. He is on his third position as commissioner.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/P. Seeger
Roland Koch - left out in the cold
Roland Koch was known in some parts for his friendship with the Dalai Lama, in others for collecting millions of signatures to catapult the government's plans for dual citizenship. The state premier of Hesse was part of a clique of CDU men who never anticipated Merkel's rise, and then were sure they'd outlast her. Koch waited in vain to be offered a job in Berlin. In the end, she outlasted him.
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Christian Wulff - an unfortunate president
Christian Wulff wasn't Merkel's first pick for president, but left in a pinch when Horst Köhler resigned in 2010, party leaders wouldn't agree to Ursula von der Leyen, now defense minister. The choice of Wulff, the CDU state premier of Lower Saxony who had been rumored to be unhappy in his position, came as a surprise to him, too. He resigned over corruption charges and was later acquitted.
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Peer Steinbrück - right man, wrong time
Merkel had reached the peak of her career by the time the SPD decided Peer Steinbrück should run against her in the 2013 election. She was unchallenged in her party and had come to dominate managing the euro and debt crisis in Brussels. Steinbrück, a finance minister under Merkel and ex-state premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, had the expertise to be chancellor, but he had little chance.
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Friedrich Merz — back again
Friedrich Merz was ousted by Merkel as the head of the CDU/CSU parliamentary party in 2002. He ended up leaving the Bundestag in 2009 and later became the chair of the world's biggest wealth manager, BlackRock. When Merkel announced her decision to step down as the head of the CDU, Merz made a surprising return to the German political scene and threw his hat in the ring to replace her.
Image: Reuters/H. Hanschke
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Despite attempts by several foreign journalists to get her to say how she felt after being picked as Germany's next chancellor, Angela Merkel had difficulties expressing her emotions in her first press conference as chancellor-designate in 2005.
"How do you feel, come on," a Danish reporter asked her, but Merkel only replied: "I'm doing well, I'm in a good mood," adding that she was in a state of "tense concentration" ahead of coalition talks which would shape her first government.
The reaction was typical of a woman who has worked her way to the top political job in Germany by focusing on the politics in favor of the public persona.
Angela Merkel was not taken seriously for a long time by a large part of the general public.
The young woman from eastern Germany was lacking the attributes long associated with political success. She did not work through the ranks as a political foot soldier, had no support network in key positions and little eloquence or media charisma.
Connected to roots
Merkel was born in Hamburg but grew up in Templin, north of Berlin, in what was then communist East Germany. Her father, a protestant minister, moved there to oversee a local parsonage. For Merkel, even today, that connection to her roots still has a tremendous importance.
Angela Merkel was born in Hamburg as the daughter of a Lutheran pastorImage: imago
"I consider it very important for political leaders, even when they're in the government, to have a local voting district, where people treat you differently than they would if you were just traveling around," she said.
After spending her childhood in a small town, Merkel studied physics in Leipzig and earned her Ph.D. at the East German Academy of Sciences. She became interested in politics only after the collapse of the communist regime, appearing on the political stage for the first time as the deputy spokeswoman for the first democratic government of East Germany.
Avoiding scandal
Shortly thereafter, her career took off. After unification, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl named Merkel his Minister for Women's and Youth Affairs. Newspapers called her "Kohl's girl," a sort of alibi easterner who enjoyed the protection of the chancellor. When Kohl lost the 1998 election to his SPD challenger, Gerhard Schröder, CDU party chairman Wolfgang Schäuble appointed Merkel to the post of general secretary of the party. When a slush fund scandal and Kohl's refusal to admit any wrongdoing thrust the party into turmoil, Merkel was asked to make a fresh start as party leader.
Merkel is married to chemistry professor Joachim SauerImage: Reuters/A. Gebert
More than a few Christian Democrats thought it would be easy to sideline the inexperienced easterner. In particular, an ambitious gaggle of young state premiers and regional party leaders were believed to harbor such plans. However, with growing firmness, Merkel solidified her position as party leader and was one of the first to break with the era of her larger-than-life predecessor Helmut Kohl and his machinations. But at the same time, she was also able to mend relations with Kohl and thus restore the all-important inner balance of the party.
Angela Merkel, now in her second marriage — to a chemistry professor, Joachim Sauer — is proud of her Christian roots, which she says only grew stronger growing up in communist East Germany.
Values rooted in religion
"I do not think we can ignore that Europe was fundamentally influenced by the Judeo-Christian tradition, and that a large part of Europe has its roots there," she said. "Most of Europe experienced the period of Enlightenment and that was a very important phase in the development of Christianity. We cannot simply ignore this and say we are neutral. What, then, would be the source of our values?"
Stoiber is one of many politicians whom Merkel left in her wake as her political fortunes roseImage: picture-alliance/dpa/P. Kneffel
In 2002, Merkel stepped aside to let Edmund Stoiber, the chairman of the CDU's Bavarian sister party, CSU, run against Gerhard Schröder in national elections. Stoiber lost narrowly and Merkel emerged the big winner. In addition to the CDU party leadership, she also took over as leader of the join CDU/CSU parliamentary group — much to the chagrin of the previous office-holder, Friedrich Merz, who subsequently bowed out of active politics.
Merkel's internal rivals then realized that "Kohl's girl" was a formidable opponent.
