German Chancellor Merkel’s mother has died, government confirms

On Apr 11, 2019

Herlind Kasner, mother of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, waits for the approval of Merkel’s fourth term in office at the Reichstag building. On 10 April 2019, a government spokesman announced the death of Kasner aged 90. Photo: Gregor Fischer/dpa

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mother, Herlind Kasner, has died, a government spokesman told dpa on Wednesday.

The spokesman asked for the chancellor’s privacy to be respected.

According to an earlier report in the Bild newspaper, Kasner died at the beginning of April, aged 90.

Kasner, who was born in the Free City of Danzig, as Gdansk in today’s Poland was known in Germany between 1920 and 1939, moved to communist East Germany in 1954 with her husband Horst when he took up a post at a Lutheran seminary in Brandenburg.

A teacher by trade, she was not allowed to teach in East German state schools because of her husband’s work in the church, which was frowned upon by the communist authorities.

She ended up teaching English and Latin in Templin, a small town in the Uckermark district of Brandenburg, where the family settled.

Templin mayor Detlef Tabbert recently remarked that she was still teaching English at the age of 90.

Herlind Kasner lived in Templin until her death. Her husband passed away in 2011.

Source: dpa