The making of Angela Merkel, a German enigma.

This weekend, there's an election that will influence the future of much of Europe - Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Greece and many other countries. But none of them can vote. The election is in Germany - and the woman at the centre of this political event is Angela Merkel.
For every country in Europe, it's all about the economy. Across the continent, people are still battling with the twists and turns of the financial crisis. And wherever you are, economic recovery depends heavily on how Angela Merkel treats the next stage of the crisis: these days, most roads lead to Berlin.
That's why it has long seemed to me that one of the most important political reporting jobs right now is to try to understand Angela Merkel better. But Mrs Merkel is an unusually private and reticent politician - there is no exhibitionism and grandstanding. Even for Germans, she's a hard woman to know.
She didn't want to do an interview ahead of the German elections, and certainly not in English - even though she speaks it quite well. But we've spoken to a range of her friends, her political allies and her critics. We've delved back into to her upbringing in the pretty East German town of Templin, some 50 miles from Berlin, and spoken to childhood friends and student mates who knew her at a time when politics was more dangerous and tricky.
Merkel was actually born in Hamburg, West Germany. Her father Horst, a Lutheran pastor, moved the family to the East in 1954 when Angela was just a few weeks old.
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Merkel was prone to wearing unflattering clothes and a brutal cropped haircut
*.Watch The Making Of Merkel with Andrew Marr on BBC Two at 20:00 BST on Saturday 21 September or catch it later on the BBC iPlayer.
The Making of Merkel with Andrew Marr
As a politician, Merkel has never been overbearing when it comes to her religious views, but it's clear that her father's position in the church had a deep influence on her - creating a powerful moral compass.
Her childhood was also shaped by the Cold War - Merkel's Socialist father held politically charged gatherings at his seminary and as she grew up, vigorous debates rang around the dinner table. The young Angela had to learn to keep her cards close to her chest for fear of drawing the attention of the Stasi, the secret police.
Being unable to openly express your opinion in East Germany affected people in different ways.
An old school friend of Merkel's, Hartmut Hohensee, compared it to lapsing into "a sort of paralysis, just hoping winter will pass and the flowers will begin to grow eventually". Merkel's political flowers would begin to grow - but not until 1989, after the Berlin Wall was toppled.
The fall of the Wall produced a maelstrom in German politics. Cafe conversations became street protests; movements became political parties; individuals tried to take control of their country for the first time. It was this world that Angela Merkel decided to enter, aged 35.
Merkel, who has a doctorate in quantum chemistry, stood out from the rest in that political world.
"She didn't seem to care about her outward appearance at all," says Lothar de Maiziere, who went on to be East Germany's last prime minister. "She looked like a typical GDR scientist, wearing a baggy skirt and Jesus sandals and a cropped haircut."
To the surprise of many, the East German woman brought up under Communism joined the overwhelmingly male and patriarchal Christian Democrats. In late 1990 she became a member of the Bundestag for the CDU, the largest party in West Germany, and began her rise to the top.
Germany's Chancellor Helmut Kohl wanted someone female, quiet and a former East German for his first post-reunification cabinet. De Maiziere recommended Merkel. Beginning as minister for women, she moved slowly up the ranks, becoming minister of the environment.
But in 1999 the quiet girl from Templin stunned everyone. It emerged that Helmut Kohl, who used to call her his "Maedchen" or little girl, had been putting donations into a secret slush fund which he'd used to reward his friends.
Nobody seemed prepared to confront Kohl but Angela Merkel refused to follow the pack. In a front-page piece in a leading conservative newspaper, she denounced her former mentor and called upon him to resign. It was a stunning act of political patricide and set Merkel on a trajectory towards the top of German politics.
"One of the things people don't always understand about her is she's… actually a ruthless political operator," says Jonathan Powell, who got to know her when he was chief of staff to the UK prime minister. "The way she dealt with all of her rivals in the CDU was extraordinarily Machiavellian from that point of view. She would get rid of them in a switch of an eyebrow."
Angela Merkel became chair of the CDU in 2000 and Germany's first woman chancellor five years later.