granted by German nationality law, as most other Transylvanian Saxons after the fall of the Iron Curtain. However, he chose to live and work in Romania. As of 2014, his parents, sister and a niece live in Würzburg. Iohannis stated that his family settled in Transylvania in present-day Romania 850 years ago. After graduating from the Faculty of Physics of the Babeș-Bolyai University (UBB) in Cluj-Napoca in 1983, Iohannis worked as a high school physics teacher at various schools and colleges in Sibiu, including, from 1989 to 1997, the Samuel von Brukenthal National College in Sibiu, the oldest German-speaking school in Romania. From 1997 to 1999, he was Deputy General School Inspector of Sibiu County, and from 1999 until his election as mayor in 2000, he was the General School Inspector, head of public schools in the county. Alongside his native German and Romanian, Iohannis also speaks English fluently and has some knowledge of French. The original German spelling of his name is Johannis, but the name was registered by a Romanian official as Iohannis on his birth certificate and he has used both spellings interchangeably. In 1989, he married ethnic Romanian Carmen Lăzurcă, an English teacher at the Gheorghe Lazăr National College in Sibiu. They have no children. Iohannis is also a member of the Evangelical Church of Augustan Confession in Romania, the German-speaking Lutheran church in Transylvania. Political career He joined the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania (FDGR/DFDR) in 1990, and served as a member of its board of education in Transylvania from 1997, and a member of the local party board in Sibiu from 1998. In 2001, he was elected President of the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania (FDGR/DFDR), succeeding former president Eberhard Wolfgang Wittstock. Mayor of Sibiu In 2000, the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania in Sibiu/Hermannstadt (FDGS), the local chapter of the Democratic Forum of Germans (FDGR/DFDR), decided to back him as a candidate for mayor. While initially not wanting anything else than to represent the forum through a local candidate and to obtain a certain degree of local political visibility at that time, the leadership of FDGR/DFDR was surprised for his subsequent victory. Despite the fact that Sibiu's German minority (represented, more specifically, by Transylvanian Saxons) had shrunken to a mere 1.6%, Iohannis was elected with 69.18% of the votes and has won three re-elections in a row, getting some of