The spouses of the first persons of the state are always in sight: sometimes they are discussed no less than the leaders of the countries themselves. Angela Merkel's husband is an exception. Joachim Sauer leads a closed lifestyle and rarely appears at social or official events.
Despite the fact that Joachim Sauer is married to the leader of the most populous country in the European Union, he is known to try his best to avoid the media and leads an extremely closed life. For example, Sauer did not even attend the inauguration ceremony of his wife.
The beginning of the relationship with Angela Merkel
Angela Merkel married Joachim Bauer in December 1998. The future spouses tried so hard to hide the solemn event that they did not invite either their own parents or friends. Some of Merkel's relatives learned about her marriage from the newspapers.
This was the second marriage for both of them. Merkel, whose maiden name is Kasner, was previously married to physics student Ulrich Merkel from 1977 to 1982. The name of Sauer's first wife was not publicly disclosed.
Their marriage may have been politically motivated. According to Reuters, they first met in 1981 when they were both married to other people. They lived together for ten years before getting married. It is assumed that this was done under pressure from the church and the Christian Democratic Union. Party members thought it would be inappropriate for the leader of the German Conservative Party to live with a man for so long and not be married to him.
What Joachim Sauer does
Sauer is currently a professor at the University of Berlin. Humboldt University, one of the oldest universities in Germany. From 1967 to 1972 he studied at this university at the Faculty of Chemistry, and in 1974 he already received his doctorate in this field. Three years later he entered the Academy of Sciences, Central Institute of Physical Chemistry.
At that time, the political situation in Germany was quite acute. Sauer could not leave the Soviet bloc until 1989 because he was not a member of the Communist Party. When he was finally allowed to leave, he immediately went to San Diego (USA) for a year to work at BIOSYM Technologies Corporation. Around the same time, his future wife was also going through a turning point in her life, leaving the field of science to pursue politics.
In 1992 Joachim Sauer returned to Humboldt.
Since 1993, Angela Merkel's husband has been professor of physical and theoretical chemistry at the University of Berlin. He is an active scientist conducting research in quantum chemistry and computational chemistry. His computational studies allowed for a better understanding of the structure and activity of some catalysts, such as zeolites. Experts predict the Nobel Prize for Sauer in his scientific field of quantum chemistry.
Currently, Sauer is not only pursuing a brilliant career as a chemical scientist. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Fride Springer Foundation. Sauer is one of seven councilors, which also includes former German President Horst Köhler.
The foundation was founded by Horst Köhler, the widow of the publisher Axel Springer and the current owner of Europe's largest newspaper, Bild. She is also one of the richest people in Germany, with a net worth of $ 4.1 billion according to Forbes. After the death of her husband, Fride Springer founded several charitable organizations, including the non-profit foundation and the Frida Springer Heart Foundation.
The character of Joachim Sauer
Sauer's surname literally translates to "sour". For many, this fact is the reason for the corresponding jokes: in Germany there are a lot of anecdotes and all kinds of stand-up monologues playing on the name of Angela Merkel's husband. According to rumors, the personality of Joachim Bauer justifies the meaning of his own surname. He almost always looks gloomy and displeased, and is extremely sensitive to his privacy. According to his former students, Sauer threatened his students with expulsion if they told the media anything about him.
The press has repeatedly expressed the opinion that Sauer's persistent bad mood was so well known that it could negatively affect Merkel's career and minimize her chances of becoming chancellor. Of course, this did not happen, since she has held this post in Germany for more than ten years.
A logical question arises - how does Angela Merkel, being a difficult and tough person, get along with a man about whom there are only negative opinions? According to some people close to Merkel, such a negative portrait of her husband is not entirely accurate. But others dispute this portrait of Sauer. According to these testimonies, this man is gloomy only in public. In fact, he is quite unpretentious in everyday life and has a subtle sarcastic sense of humor. In addition, he devoted his life to science, is far from politics and would hardly have been satisfied with the status of "companion of the German Chancellor."
“The clichés that are being circulated in the German media about Joachim Sauer are absolutely superficial and flawed,” Reinhold Messner, a climber and close friend of Sauer, told one of the publications. “He's witty, he's deep, he can be incredibly funny, and he's a very smart guy. He is an ideal life partner for a person of the level of an Angel."
Sauer is a renowned opera fan and is particularly fond of Richard Wagner. Many people know that he even got the nickname "The Phantom of the Opera" because he often attends famous theatrical performances.
