Angela Merkel made a revelation about the privacy of her home which went viral: “My husband takes care of the washing machine”

Angela Merkel was giving an interview on the use of smart technologies in the home when she made a revelation about the division of labor at home that went viral: her husband does the laundry.

“Ms Merkel, do you use smart technology at home or do you turn on the washing machine yourself?” Asked journalist Miriam Meckel in an interview with DW this Monday.

“Frankly my husband takes care of it“, The Chancellor replied about her husband, chemist Joachim Sauer.

The Chancellor therefore belongs to a minority in Germany, where housework continues to be the responsibility of women even in couples with a more modern vision. According to a 2019 study by the Institute of German Economics (IW), less than a quarter of women working full time you divide this task with your partner.

// Angela Merkel’s hairstylist revealed that “herself is calling to request an appointment”

It wasn’t Merkel’s only straightforward response in the interview. Asked if they put the clothes in the wash at night, when it is cheaper according to the electricity consumption pricing system in force in Germany, the head of government replied that “turn on the washing machine the night I would need a house with thicker walls so as not to hear the noise of the machine ”.

Merkel’s simplicity and austerity are well known. With her husband, they resided for years in a apartment for rent in central Berlin, which he did not decide to change after winning his first election in 2005.

Several times the German press has published photos of the most powerful woman in Europe shopping at the supermarket.

Merkel is also known for her cloakroom: He always seems to be wearing the same set of loose pants and fitted jacket, in different hues, so much so that someone has come to create the pantone Merkel.

The costumes range from cheerful apple green to petrol blue and black to garish fuchsia, range of pinks and violets, and also browns. As for your favorite shoes, they are usually the loafers, comfort seems above all to be Merkel’s motto.

Two years ago, her hairstylist Udo Walz, who died in November, revealed that she had called her salon herself to make an appointment to have her hair cut or had her hair done.

“Her name is, she just identifies herself as Merkel and asks if I have an available shift“Said the stylist to the magazine Gala.

A love story that began in the GDR

Sauer and Merkel met at the Academy of Sciences during the German Democratic Republic (GDR) era. Some rumors suggest that Merkel, separated from her first husband in 1981, was the cause of the end of Sauer’s marriage, who had two children, in 1985. The scientific couple got married seventeen years later, in December 1998.

Although the chemist and professor of physicochemistry at Humboldt University in Berlin had always been under the attention of all flashes of his wife’s political career, Sauer was tasked with making it clear that he was low-key. In fact, he has never agreed to give a personal interview that does not focus on his work as a researcher.

It is not very common to see Merkel and her husband together in public. In fact, in 2005 when they went to the Bayreuth City Opera Festival, local media dubbed him “the phantom of the Opera”.