 She has also been called the "Iron Chancellor", in reference to Otto von Bismarck.In addition to being the first female German chancellor, the first to have grown up in the former East Germany (though she was born in the West), and the youngest German chancellor since the Second World War, Merkel is also the first born after World War II, and the first chancellor of the Federal Republic with a background in natural sciences.While she studied physics, her predecessors studied law, business or history, among other professions.