Queen and chancellor get close over cuppa
ONE of the most powerful women on the planet met one of the most famous when German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed Britain’s Queen Elizabeth to Berlin.
On the first full day of the queen’s four-day state visit, Merkel met her majesty at the Chancellery, her official workplace near the Reichstag.
It is the third time the two women have met, but the first in Germany, and Merkel looked delighted to be hosting a woman she admires.
Merkel did not curtsey to the queen, but shook hands.
Inside the Chancellery, they sat down for a cup of tea and a chat together, while Prince Phillip went off separately to speak to Peter Altmaier, head of the federal chancellery.
The chancellor sat in an armchair and the queen sat on a white sofa.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” Merkel asked. “Yes, of course,” the queen replied.
One of her staff quickly produced a cuppa for the queen. “Usually, I make it myself,” the chancellor said. Merkel showed the queen the Berlin skyline from her office, pointing out landmarks including where the Berlin Wall used to run through the city centre.
She and the queen were then left alone to talk privately.
The queen wore the white, crystalstudded coat created for her for the Diamond Jubilee River Pageant in 2012, together with a white hat.
The queen is hugely popular in Germany, and large crowds are expected to greet her when she carries out royal walkabouts later in the tour.
Earlier, she was given an official welcome by President Joachim Gauck at his residence, the Bellevue Palace.
While the queen inspected a guard of honour with Gauck, the Duke of Edinburgh chatted to the president’s girlfriend, Daniela Schadt.
Gauck, 75, is still married to his wife of 56 years, Gerhild Radtke, but they have been separated since 1991.
Schadt, a 55-year-old journalist who was not even born when the president got married, has been his official partner since 2000.
From the Bellevue Palace the queen and the duke walked about 200 metres to the River Spree, where they boarded a boat that took them down the river to the Chancellery. Thousands of people lined the banks.
She smiled warmly and waved a lilac-gloved hand at the crowds, as Gauck pointed out the landmarks.
The duke – leaning casually with one elbow on the outside of the boat – also appeared caught up in the moment, beaming as he too waved at the onlookers. One group of children sang God Save The Queen in English.
For a journey designed to show Berlin to the queen, and the queen to Berlin, she travelled in the Ajax, an “express cruiser” built for a German brewing magnate in the year she was born, 1926.
The 25-minute journey took her past some of Berlin’s best-known landmarks, including the Tiergarten, Berlin’s second-largest park, created in the 16th century as a hunting ground for the King of Prussia.
At Berlin’s Central Memorial for the Victims of War and Tyranny, the queen laid a wreath in front of the memorial’s only object, a statue of a mother holding her dead son.
Large crowds had gathered outside the memorial and most stood in respectful silence when she arrived.
The queen and the duke are staying at the Hotel Adlon in the former East Germany, near the Brandenburg gate, where Michael Jackson famously dangled his baby from a balcony in 2011.
The hotel would not say whether the queen was staying in the same suite as Jackson.
The queen, on her fifth state visit to Germany, was scheduled to attend a banquet last night which was also attended by David Cameron.
Cameron has been accused of politicising the visit at a time when he is trying to garner support from Merkel for his attempt to renegotiate a deal with the European Union.
The queen’s visit will also include her first trip to a nazi concentration camp, when she goes to Bergen-Belsen tomorrow.
It is the only camp to be liberated by the British.– The Telegraph