وكالة الأنباء الألمانية
Merkel studied at Justus Liebig University Giessen. After working for the "Deutscher Sportbund (DSB) in Hesse" (German Sports Federation) he became head of dpa's picture services Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa), a well-known news agency. Merkel was involved in developing "global media services" und "news aktuell". Since 2002 he was CEO of "dpa Picture Alliance", a platform of the six large stock photographies akg-images, Bildagentur Huber, dpa-Bilderdienste, kpa photo archive, OKAPIA, and Picture Press. Merkel was initiator of the dpa international facsimile broadcasting.