German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Photo: Jacques Grießmayer.

Bloomberg – Angela Merkel won an overwhelming endorsement from German voters, putting the country’s first female chancellor on course for the biggest election tally since Helmut Kohl‘s post-reunification victory of 1990.

Merkel’s Christian Democratic bloc took 41.8 percent in today’s election to 25.5 percent for theSocial Democrats of Peer Steinbrueck, projections on ZDF television as of 8:57 p.m. showed. Earlier forecasts had her group with a one-seat majority in the lower house for only the second time since World War II after Konrad Adenauer in 1957. The euro gained even as her lead later shrank below a majority.

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