--- title: TIME Person of the Year: How Angela Merkel Was Once Ignored description: Fifteen years ago, TIME irked one German reader by leaving Merkel out of a story about her party’s future canonical: https://time.com/4141619/time-person-of-the-year-angela-merkel-helmut-kohl/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-09T11:43:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:00:47.716Z article:section: History og:title: How Angela Merkel Went From Ignored to Person of the Year og:description: Fifteen years ago, TIME left Merkel out of a story about her party’s future og:url: https://time.com/4141619/time-person-of-the-year-angela-merkel-helmut-kohl/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5965ff4b84e1aaea/6988747a2dce0170169e6dac/time-person-of-the-year-angela-merkel-kohl.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Eberhard Diepgen, Helmut Kohl, Angela Merkel og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Angela Merkel Went From Ignored to Person of the Year twitter:description: Fifteen years ago, TIME left Merkel out of a story about her party’s future twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5965ff4b84e1aaea/6988747a2dce0170169e6dac/time-person-of-the-year-angela-merkel-kohl.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Angela Merkel Went From Ignored to Person of the Year  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Dec 9, 2015 11:43 AM UTC  From left: Eberhard Diepgen, Helmut Kohl, and Angela Merkel attend a CDU ceremony on Oct. 1, 2000. From left: Eberhard Diepgen, Helmut Kohl, and Angela Merkel attend a CDU ceremony on Oct. 1, 2000.aslu/ullstein bild/Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Dec 9, 2015 11:43 AM UTC Today, the importance of Angela Merkel—Germany’s first female chancellor and its first born in East Germany—isn’t exactly in question. She has the most influential voice in European politics, she has a leading role in shaping the answers to the world’s biggest questions and she’s just been named TIME’s 2015 Person of the Year. But 15 years ago, her first appearance in this magazine was very different. In fact, she didn’t even get mentioned. On Jan. 31, 2000, TIME ran a [story ](http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2050667,00.html)about the legacy of Helmut Kohl, the Chancellor who presided over German reunification, and the problems within his Christian Democratic Union party. Merkel**,** who was once [described](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1066924,00.html) as Kohl’s protégée, wasn’t mentioned in the piece, irking one German reader of TIME. “\[You\] did not do justice to Wolfgang Schauble and Angela Merkel,” [wrote](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,996143,00.html) Hans-Gunter Kruppa of Osnabruck. “They have both worked hard to weed out the dark jungle of bank accounts, to bring secrets to light and to report to the public in agonizing press conferences and countless embarrassing talk shows.” Another five years would pass before that name—Angela Merkel—again appeared in the magazine**.** [By then](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1066924,00.html), Merkel was the leader of the Christian Democrats, and Merkel’s party was suddenly poised to beat the leading Social Democrats in an election called a year before it had been originally scheduled. By that September, Merkel was the front-runner to become Chancellor. “Ten years ago, the idea that we’d have a female Chancellor from East Germany would have raised nothing but laughs,” political analyst Alfons Söllner[ told TIME](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1098954,00.html). “Today it will make people proud.” The elections that year did not yield a majority for the Christian Democratic Union or for the incumbent Social Democrats, but Merkel became Chancellor of a coalition government. “We are obliged to achieve success,” she [said ](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1118350,00.html)at the time, of the need to work together. “We have to succeed.” A decade later, there’s no question that she has. **_Read More:_** [_TIME’s 2015 Person of the Year_ _Is Angela Merkel_](http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2015-angela-merkel/) ### See Every Person Of The Year Cover Ever  Photograph by Mark Mahaney for TIME  Portrait by Jason Seiler for TIME  Photograph by Evgenia Arbugaeva for TIME  2018: The Guardians Photographs by Moises Saman-Magnum Photos for TIME  TIME Person of the Year 2017: The Silence Breakers Billy & Hells for TIME  2016: Donald Trump TIME  2015: Angela Merkel TIME  2014: The Ebola Fighters TIME  2013: Pope Francis TIME  2012: President Barack Obama TIME  2011: The Protester TIME  2010: Mark Zuckerberg TIME  2009: Ben Bernanke TIME  2008: President Barack Obama TIME  2007: Vladimir Putin TIME  2006: You TIME  2005: The Good Samaritans: Bill Gates, Bono, Melinda Gates TIME  2004: President George W. Bush TIME  2003: The American Soldier TIME  2002: The Whistleblowers: Cynthia Cooper, Coleen Rowley and Sherron Watkins TIME  2001: Rudy Giuliani TIME  2000: President George W. Bush TIME  1999: Jeff Bezos TIME  1998: Kenneth Starr and Bill Clinton TIME  1997: Andrew Grove TIME  1996: Dr. David Ho TIME  1995: Newt Gingrich TIME  1994: Pope John Paul II TIME  1993: The Peacemakers: Yitzhak Rabin, Nelson Mandela, F.W. De Klerk, Yasser Arafat TIME  1992: President Bill Clinton TIME  1991: Ted Turner TIME  1990: President George H.W. Bush TIME  1989: Mikhail Gorbachev TIME  1988: Endangered Earth TIME  1987: Mikhail Gorbachev TIME  1986: Corazon Aquino TIME  1985: Deng Xiaoping TIME  1984: Peter Ueberroth TIME  1983: President Ronald Reagan and Yuri Andropov TIME  1982: The Computer TIME  1981: Lech Wałęsa TIME  1980: President Ronald Reagan TIME  1979: Ayatollah Khomeini TIME  1978: Deng Xiaoping TIME  1977: Anwar Sadat TIME  1976: President Jimmy Carter TIME  1975: American Women TIME  1974: King Faisal TIME  1973: John Sirica TIME  1972: President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger TIME  1971: President Richard Nixon TIME  1970: Willy Brandt TIME  1969: The Middle Americans TIME  1968: The Apollo 8 Astronauts TIME  1967: President Lyndon B. Johnson TIME  1966: Men and Women 25 and Under TIME  1965: William Westmoreland TIME  1964: Lyndon B. Johnson TIME  1963: Martin Luther King, Jr. TIME  1962: Pope John XXIII TIME  1961: President John F. Kennedy TIME  1960: U.S. Scientists TIME  1959: President Dwight D. Eisenhower TIME  1958: Charles de Gaulle TIME  1957: Nikita Khrushchev TIME  1956: The Hungarian Freedom Fighter TIME  1955: Harlow Curtice TIME  1954: John Foster Dulles TIME  1953: Konrad Adenauer TIME  1952: Queen Elizabeth II TIME  1951: Mohammad Mossadegh TIME  1950: The American Fighting Man TIME  1949: Winston Churchill TIME  1948: President Harry S. Truman TIME  1947: George Marshall TIME  1946: James F. Byrnes TIME  1945: President Harry S. Truman TIME  1944: Dwight D. Eisenhower TIME  1943: George Marshall TIME  1942: Joseph Stalin TIME  1941: President Franklin D. Roosevelt TIME  1940: Winston Churchill TIME  1939: Joseph Stalin TIME  1938: Adolf Hitler TIME  1937: Chiang Kai-shek and Soong May-ling TIME  1936: Wallis Simpson TIME  1935: Haile Selassie TIME  1934: President Franklin D. Roosevelt TIME  1933: Hugh S. Johnson TIME  1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt TIME  1931: Pierre Laval TIME  1930: Mahatma Gandhi TIME  1929: Owen D. Young TIME  1928: Walter Chrysler TIME  1927: Charles Lindbergh TIME ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4141619/time-person-of-the-year-angela-merkel-helmut-kohl/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4141619/time-person-of-the-year-angela-merkel-helmut-kohl/"},"headline":"How Angela Merkel Went From Ignored to Person of the Year","datePublished":"2015-12-09T11:43:27.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:00:47.716Z","description":"Fifteen years ago, TIME irked one German reader by leaving Merkel out of a story about her party’s future","url":"https://time.com/4141619/time-person-of-the-year-angela-merkel-helmut-kohl/","keywords":["Germany","angela merkel","Person of the Year topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5965ff4b84e1aaea/6988747a2dce0170169e6dac/time-person-of-the-year-angela-merkel-kohl.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5965ff4b84e1aaea/6988747a2dce0170169e6dac/time-person-of-the-year-angela-merkel-kohl.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Eberhard Diepgen, Helmut Kohl, Angela Merkel","caption":"Eberhard Diepgen, Helmut Kohl, Angela Merkel","creditText":"aslu/ullstein bild/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4141619/time-person-of-the-year-angela-merkel-helmut-kohl/","name":"How Angela Merkel Went From Ignored to Person of the Year"}}]}] ```