2. TIME: 2015 Person of the Year

3. TIME’s 2015 Person of the Year Is Angela Merkel

5. The German chancellor, whose leadership has helped
preserve and promote an open, borderless Europe in the
face of economic turmoil and an ongoing refugee crisis,
is TIME’s 2015 Person of the Year

7. …At a moment when much of the world is once more engaged in a
furious debate about the balance between safety and freedom, the
Chancellor is asking a great deal of the German people, and by their
example, the rest of us as well. To be welcoming. To be unafraid. To
believe that great civilizations build bridges, not walls, and that wars
are won both on and off the battlefield. By viewing the refugees as
victims to be rescued rather than invaders to be repelled, the woman
raised behind the Iron Curtain gambled on freedom.
The pastor’s daughter wielded mercy like a weapon. You can agree
with her or not, but she is not taking the easy road.
Leaders are tested only when people don’t want to follow. For asking
more of her country than most politicians would dare, for standing
firm against tyranny as well as expedience and for providing
steadfast moral leadership in a world where it is in short supply,
Angela Merkel is TIME’s Person of the Year.

8. 10 Photos That Show Why Angela Merkel Is the World’s Most Powerful Woman

9. ORBAN/REA/Redux
January: From left: French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President of the European Council Donald Tusk, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud
Abbas link arms during a silent march against terrorism in Paris on Jan. 11, 2015 following the attack on French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket.

10. Sergei Ilnitsky/Reuters
May: Chancellor Angela Merkel gestures as Russian President Vladimir Putin looks on during a news conference after peace talks about east Ukraine at the Kremlin in Moscow on May
10, 2015.

11. Getty Images
May: Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron listen to their nations' national anthems upon Cameron's arrival at the Chancellery on May 29, 2015 in Berlin.
Cameron was in Berlin as part of his tour of European Union member states capitals in order to persuade leaders on the necessity of E.U. reforms.

12. Michael Kappeler—Reuters
June: From left: U.S. President Barack Obama, Chancellor Angela Merkel and France's President Francois Hollande attend a working dinner at the G7 summit at the castle Elmau in
Kruen, Germany on June 7, 2015. Leaders from the Group of Seven (G7) industrial nations met in the Bavarian Alps for a summit overshadowed by Greece's debt crisis and ongoing
violence in Ukraine.

13. Michael Kappeler—Reuters
June: Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks with U.S. President Barack Obama outside the Elmau castle in Kruen near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany on June 8, 2015 during the G7
summit.

14. Getty Images
June: Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomes Queen Elizabeth II upon her arrival at the Federal Chancellery during the royal couple's four-day visit to Germany on June 24, 2015 in Berlin.
The Queen and Prince Philip visited Berlin, Frankfurt and the concentration camp memorial at Bergen-Belsen during their first to Germany since 2004.

15. Bundesregierung/laif/Redux
October: Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron talk at the beginning of their meeting at the country residence of the prime minister at Chequers in
Buckinghamshire, England on Oct. 9, 2015.

16. Eric Vidal—Reuters
October: Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel prior to a meeting over the Balkan refugee crisis with leaders from central and eastern Europe at
the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels on Oct. 25, 2015.

17. Guido Bergmann—Bundesregierung/Getty Images
October: Chancellor Angela Merkel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talk at the Federal Chancellery on Oct. 21, 2015 in Berlin.

18. Jason Lee—Reuters
October: China's Premier Li Keqiang and Chancellor Angela Merkel inspect honor guards during a welcoming ceremony outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Oct. 29, 2015.

19. More Person Of The Year
The Short List
ABU BAKR AL-BAGHDADI
DONALD TRUMP
BLACK LIVES MATTER
HASSAN ROUHANI
TRAVIS KALANICK
CAITLYN JENNER

32. Women Named Time's Person Of The Year

33. 1936: Wallis Simpson

34. 1937: Chiang Kai-shek and Soong May-ling

35. 1952: Queen Elizabeth II

36. 1966: Men and Women 25 and Under

37. 1969: The Middle Americans

38. 1975: American Women

39. 1986: Corazon Aquino

40. 2002: The Whistleblowers: Cynthia Cooper,
Coleen Rowley and Sherron Watkins

41. 2005: The Good Samaritans: Bill Gates,
Bono, Melinda Gates

42. 2006: You

43. 2011: The Protester

44. 2014: The Ebola Fighters (left: Salome Karwah; right: Ella Watson-Stryker)

45. cast TIME: 2015 Person
of the Year
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