Well deserved!! The only person with a spine, courage and moral guidance amongst European leaders on the refugee crisis!
Time Magazine names Angela Merkel ‘Person of the Year’ | Deutsche Welle |
Time Magazine announced on Wednesday that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was its “Person of the Year.”
The US publication, which every year recognizes an influential person, group or idea for an exclusive year-end issue, debuted the cover on its Twitter feed.
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Angela Merkel as leader of the Christian Democrats and female Chancellor from East-Germany (Time)In an essay on its website, Managing Editor Nancy Gibbs celebrated Merkel’s steady, guided leadership during this year’s succession of emergencies on the European continent: the possibility of Greek bankruptcy, Russian aggression in the Ukraine, the refugee crisis and, finally, the terrorist attacks in Paris.
“At a moment when much of the world is once more engaged in a furious debate about the balance between safety and freedom,” Gibbs wrote, “the Chancellor is asking a great deal of the German people, and by their example, the rest of us as well.”
In the end, Gibbs wrote, the magazine chose Merkel for “asking more of her country than most politicians would dare, for standing firm against tyranny as well as expedience and for providing steadfast moral leadership in the world where it is in short supply.”
How Angela Merkel Went From Ignored to Person of the Year | TIME |
Fifteen years ago, TIME irked one German reader by leaving Merkel out of a story about her party’s future
Today, the importance of Angela Merkel–Germany’s first female chancellor and its first born in East Germany–isn’t exactly in question. She has the most influential voice in European politics, she has a leading role in shaping the answers to the world’s biggest questions and she’s just been named TIME’s 2015 Person of the Year. But 15 years ago, her first appearance in this magazine was very different.
In fact, she didn’t even get mentioned.
On Jan. 31, 2000, TIME ran a story about the legacy of Helmut Kohl, the Chancellor who presided over German reunification, and the problems within his Christian Democratic Union party. Merkel, who was once described as Kohl’s protégée, wasn’t mentioned in the piece, irking one German reader of TIME.
“[You] did not do justice to Wolfgang Schauble and Angela Merkel,” wrote Hans-Gunter Kruppa of Osnabruck. “They have both worked hard to weed out the dark jungle of bank accounts, to bring secrets to light and to report to the public in agonizing press conferences and countless embarrassing talk shows.”
Read my diary of 10 years ago – Amazing Chancellor Angela Merkel :: Takes Germans By Pleasant Surprise
