"parliament). With the exception of Helmut Schmidt, the chancellor has also been chairman of his or her own party. This was the case with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder from 1999 until he resigned the chairmanship of the SPD in 2004. The German chancellor is officially addressed as ""Herr Bundeskanzler"" if the chancellor is a man. The current holder of this office, Angela Merkel, considered to be the planet's most influential woman by Forbes Magazine, is officially addressed as ""Frau Bundeskanzlerin"", the feminine form of the title. Use of the mixed form ""Frau Bundeskanzler"" was deprecated by the government in 2004 because"
"Helmut Kohl Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (; 3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a German statesman who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 (of West Germany 1982–1990 and of the reunited Germany 1990–1998) and as the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998. From 1969 to 1976, Kohl was minister president of the state Rhineland-Palatinate. Kohl chaired the Group of Seven in 1985 and 1992. In 1998 he became honorary chairman of the CDU, resigning from the position in 2000. Born in 1930 in Ludwigshafen to a Roman Catholic family, Kohl"
"a ""highly reputed statesman, one of the patriarchs of European and world politics."" NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Kohl was ""a true European"" and the ""embodiment of a united Germany in a united Europe."" UN Secretary-General António Guterres said Kohl had ""played an instrumental role in the peaceful reunification of his country"" and that ""today's Europe is a product of his vision and his tenacity, in the face of enormous obstacles."" Helmut Kohl Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (; 3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a German statesman who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 (of"
"Helmut Kohl was reelected as Chancellor for his fifth and last term. The ruling liberal-conservative coalition government, consisting of the CDU/CSU and the FDP, lost the German federal election, 1998, and Gerhard Schröder was elected as Chancellor, the head of a coalition government consisting of his own SPD party and The Greens. Joschka Fischer, a leading Green politician, became Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister. Shortly after the formation of the government, Minister of Finance Oskar Lafontaine, a former SPD chairman and rival of Schröder, resigned from the cabinet. He was succeeded as Minister of Finance by Hans Eichel. In 1998,"
"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"
"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)"
"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"
"Kohl. In autumn 2005, the Bundestagswahl 2005 ended the Gerhard Schröder era; Angela Merkel became chancellor of a Union/SPD-cabinet. From 2005 to 2013, Hintze served as Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Technology under ministers Michael Glos (2005–2009); Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (2009); Rainer Brüderle (2009-2011); and Philipp Rösler (2011–2013) in the first and second cabinets of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Between 2007 and 2013, he was also the government’s Coordinator of Aerospace Policy. From 2006, Hintze led the Bundestag group of CDU parliamentarians from North Rhine-Westphalia, the largest delegation within the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. In the"
"to form a majority in the Bundestag. A grand coalition between the CDU/CSU and SPD faced the challenge that both parties demanded the chancellorship. However, after three weeks of negotiations, the two parties reached a deal whereby Merkel would become Chancellor and the SPD would hold 8 of the 16 seats in the cabinet. On 22 November 2005, Merkel assumed the office of Chancellor of Germany following a stalemate election that resulted in a grand coalition with the SPD. The coalition deal was approved by both parties at party conferences on 14 November 2005. Merkel was elected Chancellor by the"
"Hannelore Kohl Hannelore Kohl (7 March 1933 – 5 July 2001) was the first wife of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. She met him for the first time at a prom in Ludwigshafen, Germany in 1948, when she was 15 years old, and they became engaged in 1953. They were married from 1960 until her death in 2001, including during his entire political career. They were the parents of Walter Kohl and Peter Kohl. As the first lady of Rhineland-Palatinate (1969–1976) and later as the wife of the Chancellor (1982–1998) she undertook official duties, and was engaged in philanthropic work. According"
"First Merkel cabinet Merkel's first cabinet led the government of Germany from 22 November 2005 to 27 October 2009 throughout the 16th ""Bundestag"". Led by Christian Democrat Angela Merkel, the first female chancellor in German history, the cabinet was supported by a grand coalition between the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU), and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). It followed the Second Schröder cabinet. It ceased to function after the formation of Second Merkel cabinet, which was created after the 2009 federal elections, and was later sworn in on 28 October 2009. The federal"
"immediately following her entry into parliament, Merkel was appointed by Chancellor Helmut Kohl to serve as Minister for Women and Youth in the federal cabinet. In 1994, she was promoted to the position of Minister for the Environment and Nuclear Safety, which gave her greater political visibility and a platform on which to build her personal political career. As one of Kohl's protégées and his youngest Cabinet Minister, she was frequently referred to by Kohl as """"mein Mädchen"""" (""my girl""). After the Kohl Government was defeated at the 1998 election, Merkel was appointed Secretary-General of the CDU, a key position"
"Walter Scheel was appointed as Acting Chancellor and served for nine days until the election of Helmut Schmidt on 16 May 1974. The 18th and current Vice Chancellor of Germany is Olaf Scholz, who also serves as Federal Minister of Finance in the Fourth Merkel cabinet. Unlike in other parliamentary legislatures, the ""Bundestag"" or ""Federal Diet"" (lower house of the German Federal Parliament) cannot remove the chancellor with a traditional motion of no confidence. Instead, the removal of a chancellor is only possible if a majority of the ""Bundestag"" members agree on a successor, who is then immediately sworn in"
"in her PhD thesis. She resigned on 9 February 2013 and was succeeded by Johanna Wanka. Second Merkel cabinet The second Merkel cabinet was the Government of Germany during the 17th legislative session of the Bundestag following the 2009 federal election, and left office on 17 December 2013. It was preceded in office by the first Merkel cabinet. Led by Chancellor Angela Merkel (the first female chancellor in German history), it was supported by a coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU), and the Free Democratic Party (FDP). The cabinet served as a"
"Second Merkel cabinet The second Merkel cabinet was the Government of Germany during the 17th legislative session of the Bundestag following the 2009 federal election, and left office on 17 December 2013. It was preceded in office by the first Merkel cabinet. Led by Chancellor Angela Merkel (the first female chancellor in German history), it was supported by a coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU), and the Free Democratic Party (FDP). The cabinet served as a caretaker government following the elections on 22 September 2013; which saw the removal of the Free"
"Olaf Scholz Olaf Scholz (; born ) is a German politician, serving as Federal Minister of Finance and Vice Chancellor alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel from the CDU since 14 March 2018. He had been First Mayor of Hamburg from 7 March 2011 to 13 March 2018 and Acting Chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) from 13 February to 22 April 2018. A member of the Bundestag from 1998 to 2001 and again from 2002 to 2011, Scholz was Minister of the Interior of Hamburg under First Mayor Ortwin Runde from May to October 2001 and General Secretary of his"
"Nazism, and Religious views of Adolf Hitler. This table doesn't include Walter Scheel, a Lutheran who served as acting Chancellor in May 1974. Religious affiliations of Chancellors of Germany Most German Chancellors have been followers of a Christian church. German society has been affected by a Catholic-Protestant divide since the Protestant Reformation, and the same effect is visible in this list of German Chancellors. It is largely dominated by Roman Catholics and Lutherans as these remain the main confessions in the country. The current German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is a Lutheran Protestant within the Evangelical Church. Most of Germany's chancellors"
"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"
"chemistry in 1986 and worked as a research scientist until 1989. Merkel entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989, and briefly served as a deputy spokesperson for the first democratically elected East German Government headed by Lothar de Maizière in 1990. Following German reunification in 1990, Merkel was elected to the Bundestag for the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and has been reelected ever since. As the protégée of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Merkel was appointed as the Federal Minister for Women and Youth in Kohl's government in 1991, and became the Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and"
"Chancellor Angela Merkel. At the ministry, he oversaw the German government's annual budget. He was in charge of representing Germany in the negotiations on the annual budget of the European Union. In the fourth Merkel cabinet, Spahn was appointed Federal Minister of Health in March 2018, succeeding Hermann Gröhe. An economic liberal and openly gay Roman Catholic, Spahn has combined a platform of lower taxes and less red tape with support for same-sex marriage. In 2012, he and twelve other CDU/CSU MPs united in their call for defending tax-law equality for couples registered in a civil union. In a public"
"as a possible future Chancellor, though he faced occasional criticism from civil rights activists for his law and order policies. After the defeat of the CDU/CSU in the 1998 federal election, Schäuble succeeded his mentor Helmut Kohl as Chairman of the CDU, but resigned after less than two years in the aftermath of the 1999 party financing scandal. In 2005, Schäuble again became Minister of the Interior in the Cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel, and in 2009 Minister of Finance, a position he remained in for almost eight years. Described in this capacity as ""Germany's second most powerful person"" after"
"reduce social welfare spending, and try to introduce policies to stimulate production and facilitate jobs. Lambsdorff argued that the result would be economic growth, which would itself solve both the social problems and the financial problems. As a consequence, the FDP switched allegiance to the CDU and Schmidt lost his parliamentary majority in 1982. For the only time in West Germany's history, the government fell on a vote of no confidence. Helmut Kohl (1930–2017) brought the conservatives back to power with a CDU/CSU-FDP coalition in 1982, and served as Chancellor until 1998. After repeated victories in 1983, 1987, 1990 and"
"Helmut Kohl as Chancellor in a constructive vote of no confidence. Following national elections in March 1983, Kohl emerged in firm control of both the government and the CDU. The CDU/CSU fell just short of an absolute majority, due to the entry into the Bundestag of the Greens, who received 5.6% of the vote. In January 1987 the Kohl–Genscher government was returned to office, but the FDP and the Greens gained at the expense of the larger parties. Kohl's CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, slipped from 48.8% of the vote in 1983 to 44.3%. The SPD fell"
"Maike Kohl-Richter Maike Kohl-Richter (born April 1964 in Siegen, née Richter) was the second wife of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl from 2008 to 2017. She is controversial in Germany for her right-wing anti-immigrant views and support for Viktor Orbán, and for her public feud with Kohl's children and grandchildren, She has been accused of hijacking Kohl's legacy and ""has been criticised by Mr Kohl’s own children for allegedly hero-worshipping the former chancellor and being obsessed"" with him. She was criticized by German media, public figures and the Kohl family after Kohl’s death. Richter was born April 1964 in a"
"one of only three women in the Cabinet and one of only two people from eastern Germany in Chancellor Helmut Kohl's 16-member Cabinet; the other was Environment Minister Angela Merkel. On November 30, 1994 she was named the Council of the European Union’s President – again the youngest ever. In 1998 she left the German cabinet when her party joined the opposition. From 1996 to 2000 Nolte was a member of the CDU presiding council in Germany and from January 1999 to October 2002 she was commissioner of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group for disabled people. From 2002 to 2005, Nolte"
"1994 he was finally defeated by a landslide that was the biggest on record, for the left in the 1998 federal elections, and was succeeded as Chancellor by Gerhard Schröder of the SPD. Kohl is best known for orchestrating reunification with the approval of all the Four Powers from World War II, who still had a voice in German affairs. During the summer of 1989, rapid changes known as ""peaceful revolution"" or ""Die Wende"" took place in East Germany, which quickly led to German reunification. Growing numbers of East Germans emigrated to West Germany, many via Hungary after Hungary's reformist"
"and the CSU as separate parties. The Greens rejected coalition with the CDU/CSU after talks broke down. The CDU/CSU pressed their case for the Chancellery after victory in the delayed vote in Dresden, and ahead of talks with the SPD; the SPD maintained their own claim, but Schröder indicated that he would step aside if his party wished it. Finally, on 10 October, officials from the CDU/CSU and the SPD announced that negotiations to form a grand coalition had succeeded. Angela Merkel would become Chancellor and the sixteen seats in the new cabinet (including the Chancellery) would go equally to"
"in Germany and there was constant speculation that he would replace Kohl as Chancellor, whose popularity was declining. In November 1991, Schäuble became the Christian Democrats' parliamentary floor leader, replacing 71-year-old Alfred Dregger, in a move that made him Kohl's likely heir-apparent. In 1997 Helmut Kohl stated that Schäuble was his desired candidate to succeed him, but he did not want to hand over power until 2002 when the European monetary union would be completed with the introduction of the euro. However, as the CDU/CSU lost the 1998 election, Schäuble never became Chancellor. After Eberhard Diepgen was voted out as"
"and the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), but a desire to exclude the PDS, the successor party to East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party, from government (i.e. a ""cordon sanitaire"") led the leaders of the SPD and the CDU/CSU to agree to form a grand coalition with CDU leader Angela Merkel as chancellor and an equal number of cabinet seats for each party. The chancellor was elected on 22 November, and the 1st Merkel Cabinet took office. The second grand coalition in German history ended when, after the 2009 federal election, a coalition was agreed between the CDU/CSU and the"
"22 November 2005 by 397 votes to 202. From that date the cabinet was officially in power. First Merkel cabinet Merkel's first cabinet led the government of Germany from 22 November 2005 to 27 October 2009 throughout the 16th ""Bundestag"". Led by Christian Democrat Angela Merkel, the first female chancellor in German history, the cabinet was supported by a grand coalition between the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU), and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). It followed the Second Schröder cabinet. It ceased to function after the formation of Second Merkel cabinet, which was"
"because they object to their father and grandfather not being interred next to his wife of 41 years, Hannelore Kohl. In his biography of his mother, Kohl's son Peter Kohl wrote that Maike Richter seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with his father and compared her to a stalker who had ensnared his father. The Kohl family, unlike Maike Richter, also supports a state ceremony in Berlin. Death and funeral of Helmut Kohl Helmut Kohl, the former Chancellor of Germany, died at 9:15 a.m. on Friday, 16 June 2017 in the Oggersheim district of Ludwigshafen, his home town, aged 87."
"Helmut Schmidt Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt (; 23 December 1918 – 10 November 2015) was a German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who served as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) from 1974 to 1982. Before becoming Chancellor, he had served as Minister of Defence (1969–1972) and as Minister of Finance (1972–1974). In the latter role he gained credit for his financial policies. He had also served briefly as Minister of Economics and as acting Foreign Minister. As Chancellor, he focused on international affairs, seeking ""political unification of Europe in partnership"
"Fourth Merkel cabinet The fourth cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel is the current government of Germany, sworn in on 14 March 2018 after Merkel was proposed as Chancellor by President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier and elected on the first ballot. It is the 24th cabinet of Germany (Federal Republic). This government is supported by a coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU), and the Social Democrats (SPD), as was its immediate predecessor. The cabinet consists of Chancellor Angela Merkel and fifteen Federal Ministers. Fourteen ministers head a department, one member of the cabinet,"