Angela Merkel is "a quarter Polish"

True to form, Angela Merkel is "a quarter Polish." We now know that the chancellor nearly had Polish ancestry and that her grandpa was also of Polish descent. Ludwig Kazmierczak, her grandpa, was born in Poznan, then a part of the German Reich, in 1896. The family took great pride in its Polish heritage. Not grandfather Ludwig, who left for Berlin when Poznan was once more reclaimed by the Polish after the First World War. Horst Kazmierczak, Angela's father, was born as a result of his marriage to a Berlin-based lady.

In the early 1930s, the family made the decision to forsake their Polish ties. Following a typical practice, the Kazmierczaks changed their family name from Kazmierczak to Kasner. Merkel was unaware of the father and son's conversion from Catholicism to the Protestant faith until lately. For a lady who was raised in a rectory and whose Protestantism is essential to understanding her personality, that was a perplexing revelation. As soon as Merkel's Polish heritage was made known, a second cousin invited her to supper.