Berlin – Sabine Bergmann-Pohl was East Berlin’s top pulmonologist until 1990, a successful woman from the East who, like Angela Merkel, only came into politics after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The doctor of medicine became President of the last GDR People’s Chamber in 1990, later a member of the Bundestag and State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Health. In 2002 Bergmann-Pohl left politics, but, like Angela Merkel, still gives speeches on German unity. We called her at her house in Zeuthen and asked what she said to her compatriots during these speeches, whether she was surprised at how personal Merkel became as Chancellor in her last unified speech and how she herself reacted to insults from West Germans.
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