Angela Merkel

2005, and the Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) since 2000. Having earned a doctorate as a physical chemist, Merkel entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989, briefly serving as a deputy spokesperson for the first democratically-elected East German Government in 1990. Following German reunification in 1990, Merkel was elected to the Bundestag for Stralsund-Nordvorpommern-Rügen in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a seat she has held ever since. Merkel was later appointed as the Minister for Women and Youth in 1991 under Chancellor Helmut Kohl, later becoming the Minister for the Environment in 1994. After Kohl was defeated in 1998, Merkel was elected Secretary-General of the CDU before becoming the party's first woman leader two years later in the aftermath of a donations scandal that toppled Wolfgang Schäuble.