Biography

• Born on 17th July 1954 in Hamburg.
• Doctorate in Physics; between 1978 and 1990 member of the research staff at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry at the Academy of Sciences in East Berlin.
• After the Volkskammer elections in March 1990 and the setting up of de Maiziere’s coalition government she became deputy government spokesperson.
• In 1990 she joined the CDU; she was elected to the German Bundestag.
• From January 1991 to November 1994 she was Minister for Women and Youth, later until October 1998 Minister for the Environment and Reactor Safety. After she had been Deputy Federal Chair of the German CDU from 1991 to November 1998 she took on the position of Secretary General of the CDU in November 1998.
• On 10th April 2000 she was elected Federal Chair of the German CDU. In September 2002 she also became leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the German Bundestag.
• On 22nd November 2005 she was elected as first woman Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.