subject: How a female physicist form East Germany could become the most powerful woman in the world [print this page] How a female physicist form East Germany could become the most powerful woman in the world
Since 2005 Angela Merkel is the chancellor of Germany. She is not only the first women in that positions, she is also from East Germany and has an uncommon resume.
Angela Merkel is described as strong personally with extraordinary talents to negotiate and overcome political crisis thru being very authoritarian. Certainly, these are the skills you would expect form a politician who is leading a Country of 82 Million citizen. You would expect that such politician is trained and experienced in such matters. But that is not Angela Merkel's story. Born as a daughter of Christian priest, who grow up in a communism country (East Germany), she decided to study physics. Physics is a field of study which usually attracts students who have a sense for details, work on complex theses on their own and stay in the background of universities or company laborites.
Angela Merkel started to work an anti-government group in East Germany, because she was the only one who could use a computer. This group asked her to write press releases and anti-government information on that computer. And that is how she got involved with politics. Soon after she started, the Berlin Wall came down and the first democratic election was held in East Germany. At that stage, she already was the new government spokeswoman. However, even that position was given to her, because there was a lack of politicians which had not worked for the former regime.
A year later, she became the first Minister for Women and Youth under the government of Helmut Kohl (Former German Chancellor). At that stage, she had no experience in leading such ministry. Furthermore she was childless, which was seen as critical by other politicians at that time.
But her nature of being persistent and being unimpressed by other people's opinions helped her to proof most of her critics wrong. In 2000 she also became the leader of her conservative party. Finally in 2005 she became chancellor.
In Germany her career is described as a success story of an ambitioned career changer who focuses on her talents, even these talents might not be typical for such position. The Germany society sees her as a role model for modern career changers. The German word for career changer (Quereinsteiger) is always bonded with her name. She gave the word a much stronger meaning.
