German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier honored former Chancellor Angela Merkel, calling her “a model and symbol of our democracy” on the eve of her 70th birthday.
“The special thing about this anniversary is that your 70 years of life can be precisely divided into two halves. The first 35 years until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the second 35 years in the freedom you desired,” Steinmeier wrote.
“In the next 35 years, Merkel as Chancellor decisively shaped the path to German unity,” he said.
Merkel served as Chancellor for 16 years, from 2005 to 2021, and was the first woman to hold this position.
She was also the first Chancellor to have grown up in former East Germany. Angela Merkel celebrates her 70th birthday this Wednesday.
“It was always important for you to emphasize the value of freedom and the value of an enlightened society,” wrote Steinmeier, otherwise a social democrat.
“Your arguments were so convincing because you knew even better from your experience the incomparable value of life in a liberal democracy,” he pointed out.
Steinmeier served twice as Foreign Minister in Angela Merkel’s government – from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2013 to 2017.
