German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday took the oath of office in parliament, launching her fourth-term government in Europe’s biggest economy.
Lawmakers in Berlin’s glass-domed Reichstag had elected her with a margin of 364-315 with nine abstentions. Merkel was then formally appointed by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier before taking the oath of office in the lower house.
Merkel was born in Hamburg in then West Germany and moved to East Germany as an infant when her father, a Lutheran clergyman, received a pastorate in Perleberg. She obtained a doctorate in quantum chemistry in 1986 and worked as a research scientist until 1989. Merkel entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989, and briefly served as a deputy spokesperson for the first democratically elected East German Government headed by Lothar de Maizière in 1990.