Angela Merkel
Personal life

In 1977, at the age of 23, Merkel, then Angela Kasner, married physics student Ulrich Merkel (born 1953) and took his surname. The couple divorced in 1982. Her second and current husband is quantum chemist and professor Joachim Sauer, who has largely avoided media attention during and after Merkel's political career. They first met in 1981 and married in 1998. Merkel has no children, but Sauer has two adult sons from a previous marriage.

Having grown up in East Germany, Merkel learned Russian at school. She was able to speak informally to Vladimir Putin in Russian but conducted diplomatic dialogue through an interpreter. She rarely spoke English in public but delivered a small section of an address to the British Parliament in English in 2014.

Merkel is a fervent football fan and was known to listen to games while in the Bundestag and to attend games of the national team in her official capacity, including Germany's 1–0 victory against Argentina in the 2014 World Cup Final.

Merkel has stated that her favorite film is The Legend of Paul and Paula, an East German movie released in 1973.

Merkel has a fear of dogs, which developed after she was attacked by one in 1995. Vladimir Putin brought in his Labrador Retriever during a press conference in 2007. Putin claims he did not mean to scare her, though Merkel later observed, "I understand why he has to do this – to prove he's a man.... He's afraid of his own weakness."

Since 2017, Merkel has occasionally been seen shaking visibly on several public occasions, recovering shortly afterwards. After one such occasion, she attributed the shaking to dehydration, saying that she felt better after a drink of water.

In September 2021, after evading the question for most of her career, Merkel said that she considered herself a feminist. The statement came in a conference along with Nigerian writer and feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Since her retirement, Merkel has commented on the Russian invasion of Ukraine but has otherwise limited her involvement in political matters. She has instead focussed on travelling, attending only "feel-good events" (Wohlfühltermine) in a private capacity.

Merkel reportedly "detested" U.S. President Donald Trump, according to Politico, citing a forthcoming book by Jonathan Karl.
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