After completing her
secondary education, Petra Merkel attended the commercial vocational school of the
Lette-Verein in
Berlin and worked as a commercial employee from 1966 to 1969 and again from 1979 onwards. Petra Merkel is Protestant, divorced, and has one daughter. Since the early 1970s, Petra Merkel founded a parent-child group in Charlottenburg-Nord at the former youth center on Halemweg. Later, she became involved as a parent representative at the Erwin-von-Witzleben Elementary School and subsequently at the . Petra Merkel has been involved with the International Federation since the early 1990s. She started in Berlin at the training hotel on
Kurfürstendamm, and later joined the IB Berlin office in Reinickendorf, located on Aroser Allee. In 2007, she became a member of the International Federation's executive board. In 2013, Petra Merkel was elected honorary president of the
Internationaler Bund, a position she still holds today. In 2002, Petra Merkel became a member of the and remains on the board of the association to this day. She has been President of the Berlin Choral Association since 2009, a member of the Presidium of the German Choral Association () since 2011, and Vice President of the German Choral Association since 2008. In November 2015, Petra Merkel founded Begegnungschor e. V. with the Chorverband Berlin and has been treasurer ever since. Petra Merkel has been a member of the board of trustees of the for several years . Since 2022, Petra Merkel has been a member of the University Council of . A particularly significant event for Petra Merkel was the suggestion in 2012 to lay a Stolperstein (memorial plaque) for Paula Dienstag at Goethestraße 15, in front of a daycare center. By a stroke of luck, she got in touch with Yuval Doron, Paula Dienstag's grandson. == Party ==