Commentary Remember how the world, especially the American media, fawned over former German Chancellor Angela Merkel? The adoration was so over the top that in 2015 Time magazine named Merkel its “Person of the Year.” It described her as the “Chancellor of the Free World.” Time owes whatever readers it has left a solemn apology….

BERLIN—Angela Merkel was assured of a place in the history books as soon as she became Germany’s first female chancellor on Nov. 22, 2005. Over the next 16 years, she was credited with raising Germany’s profile and influence, working to hold a fractious European Union together, managing a string of crises, and being a role…

BERLIN—The European Union must be prepared to enact more sanctions against Russia if the situation in and around eastern Ukraine or on the Belarus-Poland border escalates, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday. Speaking at a joint news conference in Berlin with her Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki, the outgoing Chancellor said the EU had to…

Commentary Politicians who aspire to lead their centre-right parties into the deep left might first consider the electoral cataclysm that has taken place in Germany over the past six years. Departing German Chancellor Angela Merkel has left her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party a husk of its previous heights in 2013 when it fell just…

BERLIN—A three-way German government led by the Social Democrats (SPD) should be ready to take office by the end of the year, the co-leader of the center-left party said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday. Norbert Walter-Borjans said he was confident his party, which won Sunday’s national election by a narrow margin that left…

BERLIN—Germany’s Social Democrats narrowly won Sunday’s national election, projected results showed, and claimed a “clear mandate” to lead a government for the first time since 2005 and to end 16 years of conservative-led rule under Angela Merkel. The center-left Social Democrats (SPD) were on track for 26.0 percent of the vote, ahead of 24.5 percent for…

BERLIN—Germany’s Social Democrats narrowly won Sunday’s national election, projected results showed, and claimed a “clear mandate” to lead a government for the first time since 2005 and to end 16 years of conservative-led rule under Angela Merkel. The center-left Social Democrats (SPD) were on track for 26.0 percent of the vote, ahead of 24.5 percent for…

BERLIN—Germany’s CDU/CSU conservatives and their Social Democrat rivals were tied in Sunday’s national election, an exit poll showed, leaving open which of them will lead the next government as Angela Merkel prepares to stand down after 16 years in power. The CDU/CSU bloc won 25 percent of the vote, their weakest result in a post-war…

WARSAW, Poland—German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday that she found it unacceptable that refugees were being used to apply pressure to Poland and other European Union members on the border with Belarus. Speaking at a news conference during what she said she expected to be her last official visit to Poland as chancellor, Merkel appealed…

Germany’s new ambassador to China, who was previously a senior adviser to Chancellor Angela Merkel, has died less than two weeks after assuming his post, the German government said on Sept. 6. Germany’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the “sudden death” of Jan Hecker, 54, in a short statement in the early hours of Sept….