"The SPD quickly gained popularity and succeeded in forming a social-liberal coalition with the FDP following the 1969 federal election, forcing the CDU out of power for the first time in their history. The CDU continued its role as opposition until 1982, when the FDP's withdrawal from the coalition with the SPD allowed the CDU to regain power. CDU Chairman Helmut Kohl became the new Chancellor of West Germany and his CDU–FDP coalition was confirmed in the 1983 federal election. Public support for the coalition's work in the process of German reunification was reiterated in the 1990 federal election in"
"Robert Schuman, Paul-Henri Spaak and Konrad Adenauer; the three most important figures of the founding fathers of the European Union. Konrad Adenauer Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (; 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a German statesman who served as the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) from 1949 to 1963. He was co-founder and first leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) (till 1966), a Christian Democratic party that under his leadership became one of the most influential parties in the country. In the early years of the Federal Republic he switched focus from"
"Konrad Adenauer Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (; 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a German statesman who served as the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) from 1949 to 1963. He was co-founder and first leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) (till 1966), a Christian Democratic party that under his leadership became one of the most influential parties in the country. In the early years of the Federal Republic he switched focus from denazification to recovery and led his country from the ruins of World War II to a productive and prosperous nation"
"because of the presence of the DSU in de Maizière's grouping; the SPD had originally been willing to govern alongside all parties other than the PDS and DSU. On 5 April 1990, the new Volkskammer elected the CDU's Sabine Bergmann-Pohl as its president. As the State Council was at the same time dissolved, she became East Germany's interim head of state. Four days later, de Maizière announced that he had reached an agreement for a grand coalition consisting of the Alliance parties (the CDU, DSU and DA), the SPD, the liberal Association of Free Democrats (BFD), and one non-attached member."
"called ""Bundesminister"" (Federal Ministers). The chancellor's authority emanates from the provisions of the Basic Law and from their status as leader of the party (or coalition of parties) holding a majority of seats in the ""Bundestag"" (""Federal Diet"", the lower house of the German Federal Parliament). With the exception of Helmut Schmidt, the chancellor has usually also been chairman of their own party. This was the case with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder from 1999 until he resigned the chairmanship of the SPD in 2004. The first chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, set many precedents that continue today and established the chancellorship as the"
"On 3 October 1990 East Germany and West Germany were reunified, hence East Germany became part of the Community in the new reunified Germany (not increasing the number of states). A key person in the Community creation process was Jean Monnet, regarded as the ""founding father"" of the European Union, which is seen as the dominant force in European integration. Martin Schulz proposed the abolition of the National parliaments of the European Union and their replacement by the European Parliament for the establishment of the United States of Europe where every Head of government will be appointed by the representative"
"German Bundestag. The governing CDU/CSU-FDP coalition was returned to office with a landslide majority, and Helmut Kohl remained chancellor. The CDU did exceptionally well in the former East Germany, which had been the heartland of the SPD before the Nazi era. 1990 German federal election Federal elections were held in Germany on 2 December 1990 to elect the members of the 12th Bundestag. They were the first competitive and universal all-German election since the elections of March 1933, which cemented Adolf Hitler's power. The result was a comprehensive victory for the governing coalition of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union"
"leader of East Germany until free elections were held on 18 March 1990—the first held in that part of Germany since 1933. The SED, renamed the Party of Democratic Socialism, was heavily defeated. Lothar de Maizière of the East German Christian Democratic Union became Prime Minister on 4 April 1990 on a platform of speedy reunification with the West. The two Germanies were reunified on 3 October 1990. The Kremlin's willingness to abandon such a strategically vital ally marked a dramatic shift by the Soviet superpower and a fundamental paradigm change in international relations, which until 1989 had been dominated"
"Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; Kasner, born 17 July 1954) is a German politician serving as Chancellor of Germany since 2005. She served as the leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 2000 to 2018. Merkel has been widely described as the ""de facto"" leader of the European Union, the most powerful woman in the world, and the leader of the Free World. Merkel was born in Hamburg in then-West Germany and moved to East Germany as an infant when her father, a Lutheran clergyman, received a pastorate in Perleberg. She obtained a doctorate in quantum"
"decision by Merkel to authorize unrestricted entry led to heavy criticism in Germany as well as within Europe. In that period, Berlin was affected by a truck ramming incident in a Christmas market in December 2016. In 2017, Angela Merkel was elected to a fourth term as Chancellor. The FDP reenters the Bundestag and for the first time, the right-wing conservative AfD also enters. History of Germany since 1990 The history of Germany since 1990 spans the period following the Reunification of Germany, when West Germany and East Germany were reunited after being divided during the Cold War. Germany after"
"since Karl Dönitz in May 1945. At midnight on 3 October 1990, during the official festivities held before the Reichstag building in Berlin to mark the moment of the reunification of Germany, President Weizsäcker delivered the only speech of the night, immediately after the raising of the flag, and before the playing of the National Anthem. His brief remarks, however, were almost inaudible, due to the sound of the bells marking midnight, and of the fireworks that were released to celebrate the moment of reunification. In those remarks he praised the accomplishment of German unity in freedom and in peace."
"set the guidelines for all policy areas, thus making the chancellor the real chief executive. The role is generally comparable to that of a prime minister in other parliamentary democracies. The 8th and current Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany is Angela Merkel, who was elected in 2005 and re-elected in 2009, 2013 and 2018. She is the first female chancellor since the establishment of the original office in 1867 and is known in German as ', the feminine form of '. Merkel is also the first chancellor elected since the fall of the Berlin Wall to have been"
"in October 1990, German reunification. At the hitherto important Carola Bluhm's career prospects disappeared. In 1990 she was informed succinctly in writing that she was being temporarily laid off (""""in Warteschleife geschickt"""") and six months later, her job disappeared permanently (although according to her own website she remained, at least formally, an employee of the Berlin Economics Academy till early in 1991). Unemployment, hitherto a theoretical issue that she had researched and on which she had taught as an academic, became her personal reality. The old Socialist Unity Party (""""Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands"""" / SED), hitherto the ruling party in the"
"had not received instructions from Moscow to engage in violent suppression of any uprising, as they had done back in 1953. That opened the way for a series of changes which led to an end for one-party dictatorship and then, formally in October 1990, German reunification. The state for which Felgner and her Stasi handlers had worked no longer existed. Armed with an (apparently embellished) background as a qualified nurse with a school graduation certicate and some kind of degree in business administration from the Free University of Berlin, Felgner launched herself in the new Germany as a business woman."
"chairman Theodor Heuss in the second ballot. Schumacher died on 20 August 1952 of the long-term consequences of his concentration camp imprisonment during the Nazi years. Adenauer had favoured the formation of a smaller centre-right coalition from the beginning. Nominated by the CDU/CSU faction, he was elected the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany on 15 September 1949 by an absolute majority of 202 of 402 votes. Adenauer had ensured that the votes of the predominantly Social Democrat West Berlin deputies did not count and later stated that he ""naturally"" had voted for himself. On 20 September, he"
"West German counterpart, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). From February 1990, Angela Merkel served as the party's spokeswoman. After the mergers, Merkel was elected in the post-unification election as a member of the all-German Bundestag for the CDU, and eventually became Chancellor of Germany in 2005. Democratic Awakening Democratic Awakening () was an East German political movement and political party that was active during the Fall of Communism and in the period leading up to the German reunification. While it was a relatively minor party, it took part in the first democratically elected government in East Germany in 1990, and"
"the coalition government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl. On 15 March 1991, the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany—that had been signed in Moscow back on 12 September 1990 by the two German states that then existed (East and West Germany) on one side, and by the four principal Allied powers (the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union and the United States) on the other—entered into force, having been ratified by the Federal Republic of Germany (after the unification, as the united Germany) and by the four Allied nations. The entry into force of that treaty (also known"
"tried to ""relativize"" the past. Unification of Germany Because of the high esteem in which he was held by Germany's political establishment and in the population, Weizsäcker is so far the only candidate to have stood for elections for the office of President unopposed; he was elected in that way to a second term of office on 23 May 1989. Weizsäcker took office for his second presidential term on 1 July 1989, and in the course of it he oversaw the end of the Cold War and the Reunification of Germany. Thereupon, Weizsäcker became the first all-German Head of State"
"Main as the seat for the European Central Bank. In 1997, Kohl received the Vision for Europe Award for his efforts in the unification of Europe. By the late 1990s, Kohl's popularity had dropped amid rising unemployment. He was defeated by a large margin in the 1998 federal elections by the Minister-President of Lower Saxony, Gerhard Schröder. The later Chancellor Angela Merkel started her political career as Kohl's protegée and was known in the 1990s as ""Kohl's girl""; in January 1991, he lifted the then little-known Merkel to national prominence by appointing her to the federal cabinet. A red-green coalition"
"Gerhard Schröder Gerhard Fritz Kurt Schröder (; born 7 April 1944) is a German politician, and served as Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005, during which his most important political project was the Agenda 2010. As a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), he led a coalition government of the SPD and the Greens. Before becoming a full-time politician, he was a lawyer, and before becoming Chancellor he served as Prime Minister of Lower Saxony (1990–1998). Following the 2005 federal election, which his party lost, after three weeks of negotiations he stood down as Chancellor in"
"parodied Merkel to international acclaim with German media dubbing her impersonation as the best spoof of Merkel in the world. In 2016, a documentary film ""Angela Merkel – The Unexpected"", a story about her unexpected rise to power from an East German physicist to the most powerful woman in the world, was produced by Broadview TV and MDR in collaboration with Arte and Das Erste. Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; Kasner, born 17 July 1954) is a German politician serving as Chancellor of Germany since 2005. She served as the leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)"
"the Federal Republic of Germany in 1972. He died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 1972, aged 51. Karl Theodor Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg Karl Theodor Maria Georg Achaz Eberhardt Josef Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg (23 May 1921 – 4 October 1972) was a German politician of the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU). He was parliamentary secretary of state in the Chancellor's Office in the government of Kurt Georg Kiesinger from 1967 until 1969, as well as the foreign policy spokesman of the CDU/CSU group in the Bundestag. Guttenberg was perceived as a hardline conservative anticommunist as well"
"He gave a longer speech at the act of state at the Berliner Philharmonie later that day. In 1990, Weizsäcker became the first head of state of the German Federal Republic to visit Poland. During his four-day visit, he reassured Poles that the newly unified German state would treat their western and northern borders, which included prewar German lands, as inviolable. In 1992, Weizsäcker gave the eulogy at the state funeral of former Chancellor Willy Brandt at the ""Reichstag"", the first state funeral for a former chancellor to take place in Berlin since the death of Gustav Stresemann in 1929."
"that time, he was widely considered to be one of Kohl's closest advisers. In a cabinet reshuffle Schäuble was made Minister of the Interior on 21 April 1989. In this role he also led the negotiations on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany for reunification with the GDR in 1990. He and East German State Secretary Günther Krause signed the Unification Treaty on 31 August 1990. In a speech to parliament in 1991, Schäuble clinched the argument in favour of moving the German capital from Bonn to Berlin. In the 1990s Schäuble was one of the most popular politicians"
"calling for the two Germanys to expand their cooperation with a view toward eventual reunification. Initially, no timetable was proposed. However, events rapidly came to a head in early 1990. First, in March, the Party of Democratic Socialism—the former Socialist Unity Party of Germany—was heavily defeated in East Germany's first free elections. A grand coalition was formed under Lothar de Maizière, leader of the East German wing of Kohl's Christian Democratic Union, on a platform of speedy reunification. Second, East Germany's economy and infrastructure underwent a swift and near-total collapse. While East Germany was long reckoned as having the most"
"144 deputies in the chamber who on 3 October 1990, as part of the German reunification process, became members of the Bundestag (National Assembly) of the reunited Germany. In the following two national elections, in December 1990 and in October 1994, he was elected to the Bundestag as a deputy for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Ortleb remained a member of the Bundestag till 1998. On 3 October 1990 Rainer Ortleb was one of the formerly East German political leaders to join the cabinet of the newly reunified Germany, under Federal Chancellor Kohl. Initially he served as a Minister without portfolio, but following the"
"under the Chancellor of West Germany Helmut Kohl, who also announced the reunification of Germany on 3 October 1990, it was decided to refurbish the area around the Bundestag into a modern government complex. As part of this effort, there were plans to extend the U5 from its current western terminus at Alexanderplatz through the city centre, past the Brandenburg Gate and the Bundestag, to the new central train station, Berlin Hauptbahnhof. This ""Kanzlerlinie"" (Chancellor Line), so nicknamed because it passed through the government quarter, was originally planned since the as a diagonal line through central Berlin, continuing to Turmstraße"
"German chancellor until the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 while the Archbishop of Cologne was Chancellor of Italy and the Archbishop of Trier of Burgundy. These three Archbishops were also Prince-electors of the empire. Already in medieval times the chancellor had political power like Willigis of Mainz (Archchancellor 975–1011, regent for Otto III 991–994) or Rainald von Dassel (chancellor 1156–1162 and 1166–1167) under Frederick I. The modern office of chancellor was established with the North German Confederation, of which Otto von Bismarck became chancellor of the Confederation (official German title: ""Bundeskanzler"") in 1867. After unification of Germany"
"holding its inaugural meeting. Chancellor Helmut Kohl said that was not the policy after all. On 19 May 1990, Waigel and his East German counterpart Walter Romberg signed a state treaty to merge their economies and make the West German mark the sole legal currency in both nations by 2 July 1990. In July 1990, Waigel joined Kohl and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher on a trip to Moscow for meeting President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, where both worked to convince the Soviet leader to drop his remaining objections to German unification within NATO. On 9 August 1990, Waigel announced that West"
"the CDU meant that the task of forming a new East German government fell to the party chairman, Lothar de Maizière. In April Christa Schmidt was appointed as a minister, mandated to head up the newly formed Ministry for Family and Women (""""Ministerium für Familie und Frauen""""). The ended in the context of German reunification on 3 October 1990, when what had been East Germany was incorporated into the German Federal Republic. 144 of the 400 members who had sat as members of the now defunct East German Volkskammer since March 1990 now became members of a newly enlarged Bundestag"
"succeeded Peter Altmaier. Braun is a Roman Catholic and is married. Helge Braun Helge Reinhold Braun (born 18 October 1972) is a German politician of the CDU. Since 2018, Braun has been serving Head of the Chancellery and Federal Minister for Special Affairs in the fourth coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel. He was the Parliamentary Secretary of State for Bureaucracy Reduction and Federal-State Relations at the Chancellery between 2013 and 2018. After passing the Abitur in 1992 at the Liebigschule in Giessen, Braun studied Medicine at the Justus-Liebig University in Giessen. From 2001 until 2009 he was a scientific"
"importance and merely oversaw the transition to the parliamentary elections of March 1990. The new People's Chamber, the first that emerged from free elections, constituted on 5 April 1990. Among its first measures was an amendment to the constitution abolishing the State Council. As provided in the constitution, the president of the People's Chamber, Sabine Bergmann-Pohl, served as interim head of state until reunification with West Germany on 3 October. State Council of East Germany The State Council (German: ""Staatsrat"") was the collective head of state that governed East Germany (German Democratic Republic) from 1960 to 1990. When the German"
"October the SPD announced their future ministers and on 17 October the CDU/CSU announced theirs. Edmund Stoiber of the CSU was to become the Federal Minister of Economics and Technology, but refused the post on 1 November after a conflict with Angela Merkel over the abilities of the minister to succeed him, and chose to continue his state-level role in Bavaria. The coalition agreement (""Koalitionsvertrag""), titled ""Together for Germany. With courage and humanity"", was signed and accepted by the congress of the CDU, CSU, and SPD on 12, 13, and 14 November. Angela Merkel was elected Chancellor of Germany on"