能让欧洲“大女主”默克尔洗手做羹汤的男人，果然不简单……
文：21世纪英文报
微信公众号：i21stCentury
默克尔又双叒叕赢了。
据德新社25日凌晨报道，德国联邦议院选举初步计票结果显示，默克尔领导的联盟党获33.0％选票，社会民主党和德国选择党分获20.5％和12.6％选票。
也就是说，默克尔毫无悬念地赢下了这场大选，如无意外将再次连任总理。
而这也是她连续第四次获得连任，德国即将迎来“默克尔4.0时代”。
十几年来，不少西方国家的领导人换了又换，而默克尔在德国总理的位置上一坐就是12年，并且还将再坐4年……
但这位德国”铁娘子”，每天早上醒来想的第一件事并不是国家大事，而是如何为自己的丈夫，约阿希姆·绍尔 (Joachim Sauer) 做一顿可口的早饭。
默克尔会看似随意地向媒体透露：丈夫很喜欢她做的蛋糕以及撒在蛋糕上面的配料，而她自己喜欢土豆汤。
●
而做蛋糕和土豆汤是德国主妇的传统强项，也是传统家庭生活的象征。
When German Chancellor Angela Merkel gets up in the morning, she doesn't start her day by saving the euro. She doesn't behave like a woman who dominates Europe,
dominates Germany and dominates the European Union. When Angela Merkel gets up in the morning,
she makes breakfast for her husband Joachim Sauer. She wants to make sure that he has a decent meal in his stomach before he leaves the house.
那么，能让这位欧洲“大女主”亲自洗手做羹汤的德国第一先生，究竟是个什么样的人呢？
当默克尔和绍尔1981年在原东德科学院相遇时，默克尔是个物理学研究生，而绍尔则是学院里的教师。
当时他们俩都已有家庭，但后来两人都先后离婚，并慢慢走到了一起。
He met Merkel in 1981. She was 27, a graduate physics student. He was 32, teaching at the Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Both were married.
Merkel’s marriage to Ulrich Merkel, also a physicist, ended in divorce in 1985. Sauer’s to a fellow chemist ended in 1983 when he moved out of their flat; they divorced in 1985, after 16 years’ marriage. They had two sons together.
如今是柏林洪堡大学化学系教授的绍尔很早就学术研究方面展现出了过（学）人（霸）天（属）赋（性）。
1974年，年仅25岁的绍尔便以最高荣誉获得了洪堡大学的化学博士学位并留校任教。
◆
曾与他共事的同事更是称他为全球前30的理论化学家，水平仅次于那些获得诺贝尔奖的化学界大牛。
而且，他甚至还能为物理专业的默克尔提供指导。在默克尔1986年的物理毕业论文中，默克尔在前言部分专门感谢了绍尔“批判性的洞见”(critical insight)。
Reinhart Ahlrichs, who led a research group at Karlsruhe University where Sauer briefly worked, described him as one of the top 30 theoretical chemists worldwide but just below the rank of those who tend to win Nobel prizes.
And in a foreword to her 1986 physics dissertation, Merkel thanked Sauer for his “critical insight.”
Her future husband was a prodigious student. He got his doctorate in chemistry with the highest honor - summa cum laude - from Humboldt University at 25 in 1974,
and taught there before moving to the Academy of Sciences in Berlin in 1977. His work won acclaim in the West.
在默克尔从政之后，绍尔依然继续钻研科研，保持着低调的生活。
默克尔2005年竞选德国总理时，作为丈夫的绍尔并没有去帮妻子拉票，也拒绝接受媒体的采访。
他希望人们能以一个科学家的身份看待他，而不是“默克尔的老公”。
“我决定不接受采访，也不和采访我妻子的政治活动的记者进行对话，交流仅限于我作为大学教师和研究人员的活动。”
"I have decided not to give interviews and not to hold conversations with journalists who deal with the political activity of my wife rather than my activity as university teacher and researcher."
他很少在公众场合露面，也从不评论政治，甚至就连默克尔的就职仪式都没去现场，只在电视机前观看。
●
而在英国女王访问德国时，绍尔也因为自己的工作原因没有和默克尔一起进行接待。
总之，这位德国第一先生经常“不在线”。
Over the course of his wife’s political career, Mr Sauer has earned a reputation for being publicity-shy and sometimes rude.
During his wife’s 2005 election campaign, Mr Sauer – whose name literally means sour or angry in German – refused to speak to the media.
When Ms Merkel was sworn in as Germany’s first female Chancellor in November 2005, her husband shunned the ceremony and instead watched it on television.
In the years since he has remained largely out of the spotlight, choosing not to accompany his wife on international summits. And when the Queen visited Germany in June, 2015, Mr Sauer declined to join a meeting between chancellor and monarch.
当时，英国《每日电讯报》(The Telegraph) 等不少外媒甚至还认为绍尔正如其名，脾气很坏（“绍尔”在德语中意为“生气的”或者“酸味的”），会影响默克尔在选举中的支持率。
“臭脾气的丈夫对默克尔想当德国总理的努力构成了威胁”
估计他们当时也没想到，默克尔能在德国总理的宝座上稳坐这么多年……
◆
而且据了解默克尔和绍尔的知名登山家Reinhold Messner表示，绍尔明明就是个很风趣幽默的人好么！
“The clichés that circulate in the German media about Joachim Sauer are a total fallacy,” says Reinhold Messner, a renowned mountain climber who has hiked with Sauer and Merkel in the Alps.
“The fact is that he’s his own man. He’s witty, he’s profound, he can be incredibly funny, and he’s an extremely bright guy. He’s an ideal counterpart to the Chancellor.”
“流传在德国媒体中关于绍尔的陈词滥调完全就是错的，”曾和绍尔默克尔夫妇一同在阿尔卑斯山徒步的著名登山家Reinhold Messner表示。
“事实上，他是个极度我行我素的人。他机智、渊博、相当风趣，也是十分快乐的人。他是德国总理理想的另一半。”
虽然绍尔不常出席政治活动，但平时陪老婆，却一次都没有少。
默克尔和绍尔都是德国作曲家瓦格纳的死忠粉，夫妻俩每年都会去参加一年一度的夏季瓦格纳歌剧节。
不过，即便是和默克尔合体出现在了公众场合，绍尔也从不接受采访。
在一次歌剧节的红毯上，绍尔甚至还很生气地对媒体咆哮道：“我不会对你的麦克风说一句话！”
◆
每年都来参加歌剧节，却不接受采访，绝望的德国媒体甚至还给这位“臭脾气先生”起了个外号 —— “歌剧魅影”( Phantom of the Opera)。
While other “first spouses” sometimes speak out on the issues of the day or support favorite causes, Sauer has no public opinions. His determination to stay out of the public eye can sometimes appear hostile.
“I am not going to say anything into your microphone,” he growled into a camera on the red carpet with Merkel at the Bayreuth opera festival in 2005, when she was still opposition leader.
Within a year or two of Merkel’s taking power, German journalists had already given up trying to report on the unapproachable man they call the “Phantom of the Opera.”
当然啦，除了一起去参加歌剧节之外，绍尔还会带默克尔去各种地方度假~
围观的德国媒体表示，这是他们所见过的“最轻松的默克尔”(the most relaxed we've ever seen her)
尽管不喜欢出现在镜头前，但绍尔在不少关键的外交场合，依然会陪伴默克尔左右。
2016年，绍尔更是“破天荒”地陪着默克尔前往日本参加G7峰会，德国媒体的头条都直接刷屏了。
●
而且，感觉作为参会唯一的“第一先生”，绍尔和几位“第一夫人”相处得还挺开心的
The G7 summit in Japan has been notable for something besides grim warnings of the perils of Brexit and Donald Trump - it has also produced a rare sighting of the most elusive of global leaders’ spouses: Angela Merkel’s husband, Joachim Sauer.
This is the first time the extremely private Prof Sauer has ever consented to accompany Mrs Merkel to an international summit abroad, and his appearance has made headline news in Germany.
More than that, Germans have been astonished to see the professor laughing and larking about with the wives of the Japanese and Canadian leaders, belying his reputation as shy and ill-tempered.
而在今年7月于德国汉堡举办的G20峰会上，作为东道主的绍尔为了招待来访的各国领导人配偶，还策划了一系列活动。
除了观光和乘船游览之外，绍尔还让“第一夫人团”了解了有关德国气候计算中心 ( German Climate Computing Center)的工作，让大家学习了解气候变化。
Parallel to the launch of the G20 summit on Friday, the Spouse Programme began.
Professor Joachim Sauer, husband of Chancellor Angela Merkel, welcomed the spouses and partners of summit participants as they arrived at Hamburg’s new concert hall, the Elbphilharmonie.
The group went on to enjoy the best of Hanseatic weather during a one-hour boat trip round Hamburg’s harbour area, before mooring at the Dockland in the early afternoon.
The group lunched together in Hamburg’s harbour area, before the programme moved on to focus on climate change mitigation.
At a lecture, the spouses of the G20 leaders found out more about the work of the DKRZ, the German Climate Computing Center, which is one of the most important climate research institutes in Germany.
▲
美国总统特朗普此前宣布退出《巴黎气候协定》的事情，引发了不少西方领导人的强烈反对，其中就包括了默克尔。
而绍尔这次的策划安排，也可以说是相当力挺夫人了。
虽然默克尔两口子在公众面前的同框照根本也没几张，更不怎么会秀恩爱。
但在偶尔谈到自家丈夫时，这位“欧洲铁娘子”字里行间都是对丈夫的依恋。
她曾形容自己和丈夫之间的对话“几乎如生命般重要”，并称丈夫是个“很好的建议者”。
Merkel has in the past described her conversations with her husband as “almost vital” and called him “a very good giver of advice.”
◆
“我们俩都做着各自的工作，”默克尔曾在接受德国名人杂志《Bunte》采访时表示。“我不是个家庭主妇，他也不是个家庭煮夫。”
“Each of us goes about their job,” Merkel once told Bunte, a German celebrity magazine. “I‘m not a housewife and he’s not a house-husband.”
而在周围的人看来，面对身为德国总理的妻子，绍尔却依然能将她视作一个普通人，坦诚地指出默克尔的不足：
一位在默克尔首个任期与她工作往来密切的德国官员透露，“她（默克尔）多次表示，‘我丈夫不懂我们在这儿做的事情’。然后我们就聊了起来。
不过我认为他不是个积极影响政策的人。他更像是为她‘检查现实’的人。”
“She has come into work a number of times and said, ‘My husband doesn’t understand what we’re doing here’. And then there’s a discussion. But I don’t see him as someone who actively influences policy. He is more of a ‘reality check’ for her.”says a German official who worked closely with Merkel in her first term.
（默克尔）一位亲密的助手表示，绍尔“绝对是默克尔最重要的‘指路人’，”能在晚上和她讨论一些政治以外的事情。“他会坦诚地告诉她内心所想。”
A close aide said Sauer is “most definitely an important ‘corrective’ for Merkel,” someone she can talk to about other things than politics in the evenings. “He’s someone who’ll openly tell her what he thinks.”
▲
不知道默克尔这次再度连任总理，绍尔会不会参加默克尔的就职仪式？
不过不论绍尔是否参加，在默克尔看来都没什么关系了吧
为什么女人会想查男人手机
男人会想验小孩的DNA？
这个世界究竟是怎么了
作者：21世纪英文报，微信公众号：i21stCentury
▼▼▼Touch me，Get more wonderful~
新海归精英联盟-微信公众平台
中国【98万】海归，留学生，华人ABC，海派人生活-商务平台
微信平台的成员来自全球四十个欧亚国家和一百多个国际城市
新海归精英联盟【WWW.NEW-HAIGUI.COM
ABOUT HISTORY
【新海归精英联盟】
NWe are the world
Keep up with the world
[www.new-haigui.com]