Angela MerkelAngela Merkel, who served as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 2005 to 2021, was the first woman in the country's most powerful office. Born in 1954 in Hamburg and raised in the GDR, where she studied physics and earned a doctrate in physics, she was elected to the German Bundestag in 1990. From 1991 to 1994, she was the Federal Minister for Women and Youth; from 1994 to 1998, Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety; and from 2000 to 2018, she was the leader of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany. In 2021, she ended her active political career. Read More Read Less