Word: merkel
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There'll be an unfamiliar face at Angela Merkel's side when the German Chancellor travels to President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, on Friday - Germany's "first gentleman," Joachim Sauer. Unlike other head-of-state spouses in Germany and elsewhere, Sauer is rarely seen at his wife's side as she carries out her duties as the world's most powerful woman...
...quantum chemist and full professor at Berlin's Humboldt University, he is said to resent being called Herr Merkel, even in jest. German tabloids have dubbed him the "Phantom of the Opera" because of his tendency to show up only at the Bayreuth opera festival, while preferring to avoid muddying his boots at the annual pig farmers' convention in Schleswig-Holstein. But Sauer clearly has a soft spot for some events on his wife's schedule - in particular, those that involve rubbing shoulders with the Bushes, according to Merkel biographer Gerd Langguth. His natural reserve notwithstanding, the scientist has made...
...Although previous first spouses such as Doris Schroeder-Kopf , wife of Gerhard Schroeder, kept an office in the Chancellery so as to be available for public functions, Merkel and Sauer have worked out an arrangement in which "whenever he can make time, he will be with her," explains Alexander Freiherr von Fircks, former protocol adviser for the German Government. He says Sauer's reluctance to appear at public functions in Germany is not about gender or "ill will" - "Professor Sauer has a 14-hour workday; he just has a very tight schedule." Nor, however, adds Langguth, "does he want...
...Crawford are clearly in another category for Sauer, who apparently has plenty of time for the U.S. When the Berlin Wall came down, allowing him finally to travel freely, one of Sauer's first destinations was California, where he briefly took a job at a San Diego software company; Merkel visited him there before they were married. Merkel's "very positive image of America," says Langguth, dates from that period. During her first trip, "she gushed about the land of opportunity," says Langguth...
...Berlin's ties with Washington have improved markedly since Merkel replaced Schroeder at the Chancellery, in part because of Merkel and Sauer's personal enthusiasm for the U.S. While some Germans winced at photographs of George W. Bush giving Merkel a neck rub during the G8 meeting in St. Petersburg in 2006, German papers dubbed the gesture a "love attack" - a demonstration of Bush's reciprocal affection for the German Chancellor...