The German chancellor moved to the northeastern town of Templin as a child and spent her adolescence there. Family members still live in the town and she spends much of her free time in her weekend home nearby.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/B. Settnik
Advertisement
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was made an honorary citizen of Templin, a town located in the Uckermark region of Brandenburg about 75 kilometers (47 miles) north of Berlin where she grew up.
The town of some 16,300 people honored Merkel's achievements and service for Germany in a ceremony on Friday. The Chancellor received a bouquet of flowers, a cake and a plaque from Mayor Detlef Tabbert.
"It is a big honor that means a lot to me. I have many defining memories with this town," Merkel said. "There is no doubt that Templin and the Uckermark have been and will remain my personal home."
A few dozen people protested against Merkel receiving the honor, saying the chancellor had done nothing for the town.
What are the people of the Uckermark like?
01:01
This browser does not support the video element.
Formative years
Merkel was born in Hamburg in 1954 in what was then West Germany. She and her family crossed the inner-German border to settle in Communist East Germany in 1957. Her father, who was a Protestant pastor, took up a position with a church in Brandenburg.
She graduated from high school in Templin in 1973 before attending Karl Marx University in Leipzig. Merkel's mother and siblings still live in Templin, and she spends her free time at her weekend house nearby.
Town councilors approved giving Merkel honorary citizenship in June 2018. The honor is also held by her former classmate, Bodo Ihrke, a local politician who was a member of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), a major rival to Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
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.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
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.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
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.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
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.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
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.