Letter to you from
View(s):
To whom it may concern,
“Whoever dedicates their life to politics knows that earning money is not the top priority”
I led 80 million Germans, for 18 years. When I started my career I didn’t know what to expect, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, I joined the newly founded Democratic Awakening and in February 1990 became the party’s press spokesperson. This is when my political career began.
I wasn’t always a politician, I am to this day a Doctor of Quantum Chemistry.
In 1973 I went to Leipzig to study physics at Karl Marx University (now the University of Leipzig). There I met my first husband, one of my fellow physics students Ulrich Merkel, we got married in 1977. After earning my diploma in 1978, I worked as a member of the academic faculty at the Central Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences in East Berlin. In 1982 my husband and I divorced, but I kept his last name. Then I earned my Doctorate for Quantum Chemistry in 1986.
I consider myself to be a woman of few words, I have focused on my work, and the integrity of myself and my country. I have dealt with 4 US Presidents, 5 British Prime Ministers. I have seen the world change, go through it’s different challenges and adjust adapt over the years; the iPhone was introduced, Saddam Hussein was executed, Global Financial crisis, earthquake in Haiti, the Arab Spring, Snowden leaks, Black Lives Matter, Crimea Annexation, the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Brexit, Fridays for the Future, the Hong Kong Protests.
My political career is attributed to how I have dealt with crises. But there is also another story to tell, one of census building and a centrist approach. My party Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the sister party Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), together known as the Union block formed governing coalitions with other parties. While I governed in my first term (2007) we created new child care provisions and ended mandatory military conscription. Following the Fukushima disaster in Japan, there were mass protests against Nuclear Power in Germany. As a public servant, I had to think on my feet and do what was best and required for the country; so we phased out nuclear energy much earlier than planned. I always listened to public opinion and found the balance, even if this meant going against the blocks conservative traditions. By 2013 I had the Union in share in Parliament as never before in history, I don’t keep the numbers in my head.
I have tried to bring my party to embrace being liberal, but that hasn’t always been the best for my party. As I’d like to mention, not every decision we make is going to be the best and the most correct, but it will be the timely one we need. In 2015 during the immigration crisis, I let in over a million asylum seekers in to the country. Initially many Germans were welcoming, but then it changed. After this in 2017 our block lost 65 Parliament seats during the elections. Amidst all this criticism, we were still leading, and I remained the party leader.
I have time to time ignored political confrontations, and let my opponents battle it out until their political time is out. All I cared about was how best to navigate the country to achieve best for my people.
Dedicate your life to your craft, do it honestly and strategically. Holding your ground and be unwaveringly courageous when it comes to opponents, media and any naysayers; there will be many.
It was a pleasure to serve my country and leave the best parts of me for the world.
Yours Truly,
Angela Merkel
Written by Devuni Goonewardene
(Direct any feedback and discussions to devuni@gmail.com)