Merkel Says Doctors Ordered Treatment for High Blood Pressure
German Chancellor Angela Merkel indicated that she’s being treated for high blood pressure, saying the condition was discovered two decades ago when she applied for a government job.
A medical exam related to her job application to the German government’s press office “pointed out to me that I have to watch my blood pressure a bit,” Merkel said in response to a question by ARD television talk-show host Guenther Jauch in Berlin late yesterday. “Since then, I’ve been getting good medical treatment.”
While Merkel confirmed that elevated blood pressure led to her rejection for the government job, she said she didn’t challenge it because she won a seat in December 1990 parliamentary elections, the first after East and West Germany reunited following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Merkel, who was raised under communism in former East Germany, said she applied for the job after acting as spokeswoman for Lothar de Maiziere, the premier who emerged from the country’s first and last free elections earlier in 1990.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Czuczka in Berlin at aczuczka@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net
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