German election TV debate win adds to Olaf Scholz’s momentum in the race to succeed Angela Merkel
The SPD candidate was the clear winner in snap polling after the first of three encounters.
ByReviewing politics
and culture since 1913
Angela Dorothea Merkel is a German former politician and scientist. She was the chancellor of Germany between 2005 and 2021, leader of the opposition between 2002 and 2005 and leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) between 2000 and 2018. She was the first female chancellor of Germany. In 1986 she obtained a doctorate in quantum chemistry. Here you can find all of our latest news, analysis and comment about Angela Merkel.
The SPD candidate was the clear winner in snap polling after the first of three encounters.
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As Germany’s leader prepares to step down, the past five years of polling show a country willing to consider political change.
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Jeremy Cliffe hosts a live recording of the World Review podcast at the Progressive Governance Summit.

Jeremy Cliffe in Berlin and Emily Tamkin in Washington DC discuss the latest in global affairs on the World Review…
Berlin is buzzing with potential coalitions, but after a damaging year the CDU might benefit from a period in opposition.
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Angela Merkel’s cautious, incremental progressivism drew strong support from women and migrants. Can her successor retain them?
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The German model is a package deal, whose transmission to Britain would require a decades-long institutional overhaul.
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A primer on German politics as it approaches an epochal transition.
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Germany’s population of 83 million has suffered 9,000 deaths, while in Britain, with its population of 67 million, there have…
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Why, despite being at the height of her powers, the chancellor will probably not seek a fifth term. And I say goodbye…
ByGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel has agreed a further easing of lockdown measures with the heads of the country’s 16 states,…
ByChancellor Angela Merkel has bowed to pressure to lift lockdown restrictions as Germany emerges from the first wave of the outbreak. …
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An early “Merxit” in 2020 is becoming, if not probable, at least thinkable.
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Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has resigned as CDU leader, destroying the chancellor’s carefully laid succession plan.
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Despite the spin, the conversation that Downing Street is using as a pretence to collapse negotiations is neither new nor…
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For German Christian Democrat leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, once regarded as Angela Merkel’s natural successor as chancellor, recent weeks have been…
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Angela Merkel often recalls how, as a schoolgirl in East Germany, she was once ordered to jump off a three-metre-high…
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A leadership crisis in the Social Democratic Party is likely to trigger new elections – and the departure of Merkel.
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The faltering performance of Merkel’s heir apparent, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, has dramatically reopened the race to become German chancellor.
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The Brexit strategies of the past two prime ministers have been predicated on the assumption that people will give up…
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