Ludwig Marian Kasner | |
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![]() Kaźmierczak in Polish Blue Army uniform with his wife Marie Margarethe Pörschke | |
Born | Ludwik Marian Kaźmierczak October 17, 1896 |
Died | February 3, 1959 (aged 62) |
Spouse | Marie Margarete Pörschke (1905 - 1986) |
Children | Horst Kasner |
Parent(s) | Ludwik Wojciechowski (father) Anna Kaźmierczak (mother) |
Relatives | Angela Merkel (granddaughter) |
Ludwig Marian Kasner (né Ludwik Marian Kaźmierczak; October 17, 1896 – February 2, 1959)[1] was a German[2] policeman of Polish ethnicity[3][4][5] who worked with the Berlin Police. He was the paternal grandfather of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose birth name Kasner had been Germanized from Kaźmierczak by Ludwig Kasner in 1930.
In 2013 Ludwig Kasner received media attention in Poland and Germany after a new book shed light on Angela Merkel's family background. This was not only due to Kasner's being of Polish origin, but also because Kasner's nephew had provided a photograph of him in the uniform of the Polish Blue Army (also known as "Haller's Army") which had fought for Poland's independence in the late stages of World War I.[6][7][8]