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Germans to get first female Chancellor

Angela Merkel, a physicist-turned-politician who grew up behind the Iron Curtain, will become the first female chancellor in German history, under a deal the country`s two biggest political parties announced Monday to form an unusual coalition. Merkel will succeed Gerhard Schroeder, the two-term chancellor and steadfast critic of U.S. policy in Iraq whose government was defeated in national elections three weeks ago.

The daughter of a Protestant minister who moved his family to East Germany in 1954, Merkel did not become politically active until after the Berlin Wall crumbled in 1989. U.S.-German relations have cooled over the conflict in Iraq, although both sides have tried to patch up differences recently.

Merkel, who speaks English fluently, will likely receive a better reception in Washington than current Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who is hesitant in English and uses an interpreter. In the new government, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, one of Germany`s most popular politicians and a frequent visitor to Washington, will leave the cabinet. His party, the Greens, will not be part of the new coalition.