‘One of us’: Merkel hometown a refuge from wild world

There’s a place just 90 minutes’ drive from Berlin where Angela Merkel can escape the crucible of her office, see the people who’ve known her longest and let her hair down. The picturesque town of Templin, population 16,000, is celebrating its 750th birthday this year, one year late due to the coronavirus pandemic. Video: Raphaelle Logerot / AFPTV / AFP Set in the verdant Uckermark, dotted with glistening lakes hidden in lush pine forests, it’s where Merkel grew up and has served as a sanctuary that helped sustain her in 16 crisis-racked years in power. Merkel chose one recent late summer day, just weeks before she retires from political life, to pay tribute to her hometown. “Despite all the state surveillance and the lack of freedom we had,” she said, referring to the authoritarian regime of the former GDR. ”I have many fond memories of my childhood and my youth here in Templin. “This is where I come from, this is where my roots are and they will always be here,” she said to applause from a crowd of about 100 that gathered to welcome her. Merkel was actually born in the bustling port city of Hamburg in 1954 but her pastor father moved the family to communist East Germany when...