Angela Merkel was born as "Angela Dorothea Kasner" in Hamburg, as the daughter of Horst Kasner (b. 6 August 1926 in Berlin-Pankow), a Lutheran pastor and his wife, Herlind (b. 8 July 1928 in Elbing as Herlind Jentzsch), a teacher of English and Latin. Her mother is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Her grandparents on her mother"s side lived in Elbing in East Prussia. She has a brother, Marcus (born 7 July 1957), and a sister, Irene (b. 19 August 1964).

Merkel"s father studied Theology in Heidelberg and, afterwards, in Hamburg. In 1954 her father received a pastorship at the church in Quitzow near Perleberg in Brandenburg, and the family moved to Templin. Thus Merkel grew up in the countryside 80 km (50 miles) north of Berlin, in the socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR). Gerd Langguth, a former senior member of Merkel"s Christian Democratic Union states in a bookthat the family"s ability to travel freely from East to West Germany, as well as their possession of two automobiles, leads to the conclusion that Merkel"s father had a "sympathetic" relationship with the communist regime, since such freedom and perquisites for a Christian pastor and his family would have been otherwise impossible in East Germany.Like most pupils, Merkel was a member of the official, socialist-led youth movement Free German Youth (FDJ). Later she became a member of the district board and secretary for "Agitprop" (agitation and propaganda) at the Academy of Sciences in that organisation. However, she did not take part in the secular coming of age ceremony Jugendweihe, which was common in East Germany, and was confirmed instead.

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