Deutsche Presse-Agentur
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.