My Reluctant Feminist Hero

Part 1: Thursday Was Sauna Day

As history so often does, it happened very gradually and then all at once. 

For 28 years starting in 1961, the Berlin Wall—an almost 100-mile barricade—cleaved Europe into two distinct blocs. To the east were countries that were affiliated or influenced by the Soviet Union; to the west were those belonging to NATO, the military alliance established in the aftermath of World War II. Travel between the two was severely restricted for many.

It was an Iron Curtain, physically and politically, culturally and socially. So entrenched was it, that it may have seemed almost unimaginable in the 1980s that it might one day be consigned to history. But by November 1989, political changes sweeping through the East had started to gather irrepressible momentum. In turn, they fueled a frustration—a growing discontent at the incumbent regime. Public pressure was reaching a fever pitch, and just before 7 p.m. on the evening of Nov. 9, the government of East Germany announced to the press that its citizens would henceforth be able to travel freely to West Germany. It was a misinformed message which was the result of a bungled communication—an accident. But as word spread, there was no going back.

Soon, crowds of East Germans started gathering along the wall and particularly at the checkpoints between East and West Berlin. They demanded that the guards immediately open the gates, and before long those guards were outnumbered and overwhelmed. Crowds of East Germans swarmed to the former forbidden land, where West Germans greeted them with flowers and Champagne. 

In the days that followed, citizens from both sides took to the wall with tools—pickaxes and chisels—eager to play a part in tearing down a structure that had become the ultimate symbol of division. It was the dawn of a new era, not just for the country, and not just for the continent, but for the entire world. 

In the days and weeks that followed, the once-impenetrable wall would be dismantled brick-by-brick. Blocks of concrete would be kept and saved and later sold to gullible tourists for too much cash in kitschy gift shops near Checkpoint Charlie—the erstwhile crossing point between the two blocs. It was a period of deconstruction that symbolized a freer, more open world: A peaceful revolution.

Looking back at photographs and footage of the night of Nov. 9 1989, it can seem like every German was out in the streets to witness a moment that would define the 20th Century. One person, however, was not: Angela Dorothea Merkel—a 35-year old with a Ph.D. in quantum chemistry and a half-hearted desire to be a politician. She was at a sauna with one of her girlfriends. It was a Thursday, after all, and Thursday was sauna day.

"The atmosphere had been tense for days,” Merkel, the daughter of a pastor, told the Guardian in an interview in 2009, reflecting on that night two decades earlier. “I thought something was going to happen, and had heard the announcement on television that the borders would open," she added.

But also—she reasoned in that same interview—if the wall really was about to come down, it’s not like it was going to go right back up. She’d have plenty of time to explore the West, she thought. Why spoil a perfectly good night with her friend?

Part 2: Discovering Merkel

More than three decades on, it’s hard not to be both amused and charmed by Merkel’s display of unadulterated pragmatism—a pragmatism that would go on to define her role as chancellor of Europe’s biggest economy. And it’s particularly striking, considering what happened next. The fall of the wall was not only an inflection point for international diplomacy, it was also a catalyst for Merkel’s political career. 

This you know. What you probably don’t know is that as Merkel was convening at conferences of world leaders and communing with Bush and Putin, and later fostering a cozy relationship with Obama—the lone brightly colored blazer in a sea of men’s suits—I, an aspiring journalist just out of high school, was getting very interested in Merkel’s life.

In the summer of 2006, a few weeks after finishing high school in my native Switzerland, I came across a photograph in a newspaper next to an article about a recent G8 summit of world leaders that had taken place in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg. Against a backdrop of the imposing Constantine Palace, the photo showed ten leaders standing shoulder to shoulder. At the time I recognized Vladimir Putin—stony-faced in the middle—and George Bush, to his left. I also recognized a grinning Tony Blair.

But amid the relatively monotonous panorama, it was Angela Merkel who stood out to me: Second from the left in a pale green jacket and black trousers, the wind gently blowing back her hair, her hands in front of her. She seemed to be looking at something beyond the frame of the picture; and smiling. At the time, my grasp of world politics was tenuous at best. But I do remember dwelling on Merkel. “Why,” I remember thinking, “is she the only woman there?” But also: “How fascinating that she is there. I need to know more.”