📍Templin, Brandenburg, Germany
1957 – 1973“Angela Merkel was born Angela Kasner in Hamburg in 1954, but within weeks her father, Horst, a Lutheran pastor, took the family east into the communist German Democratic Republic, where the church badly needed clergy. In 1957 they settled in Templin, a small walled town among the lakes and forests of the Uckermark, north of Berlin. Her father ran the Waldhof, a church centre for training pastors, and next door was a home for people with disabilities, with gardens, a farm and workshops where residents worked. The family lived in a large house on the edge of the woods. Her mother, Herlind, was an English teacher who was not allowed to teach in the state system, so she stayed home with the children and gave them a curiosity about the wider world. Angela learned early that in the GDR you had to watch what you said outside; only at home, at the table with her parents and her younger brother and sister, could the family speak freely. As a pastor's daughter she was something of an outsider at school, but she was a brilliant pupil, especially in maths and Russian, winning a national Russian Olympiad that took her to Moscow. In 1973 she left Templin to study physics at Leipzig. She went on to become a quantum chemist in East Berlin, and after the Wall fell she entered politics, serving as Germany's chancellor for sixteen years. She has said that Templin is where her roots are and always will be, and she still keeps a country home nearby.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today