A baby boy was found abandoned in a garbage box in Vietnam in 1973, just hours after his birth. Taken in by nuns at a Catholic orphanage in Soc Trang, he was given the name Giang Giac Bac. No one at the time could have imagined the path his life would take. Decades later, that same child became Philipp Rösler, the former Vice Chancellor of Germany.
He was the first person of Vietnamese descent to hold one of the highest political offices in the country. Yet a vital piece of his story has always remained missing: the identity and whereabouts of his biological mother. Rösler, born with the name Giang Giac Bac, is now searching for his birth mother in Vietnam, hoping to complete that missing part of his life’s journey. The search has been extremely difficult, as he possesses very little evidence to go on.
The only information he has is her name, Giang Thi, and a former address at 40 Mo Huay Street, District 1, Saigon. The circumstances of his abandonment were painfully common in Vietnam at the time. Sister Anna Lucia, who devoted most of her life to caring for abandoned children at the orphanage, recalled that period with striking clarity. People were desperately poor, and many families simply could not afford to raise their children.
Some parents brought their infants directly to the orphanage, while others left them in trash boxes outside the gates. The sisters accepted every child, believing each one deserved love and compassion. Rösler’s arrival was one such case. People discovered the abandoned newborn in a trash box and brought him to the convent, where he was welcomed into their care.
A short time later, a German couple visiting Vietnam came to the orphanage hoping to adopt a child. Among all the children there, it was Rösler they chose. The orphan once known as Giang Giac Bac boarded a plane to Germany with a new name and a new life. His adoptive father had been a German soldier.
His experiences during military training in the United States, where he met many Vietnamese refugees, shaped his decision to adopt. He realized he had two options: he could spend his life protesting the suffering caused by war, or he could change the future of one child forever. He chose the latter. That child was Philipp.
Although Rösler grew up without knowing his biological parents, he never doubted that he was loved. His adoptive parents surrounded him with warmth, security, and encouragement. When he was just four years old, however, his adoptive parents separated. His sisters stayed with their mother, while Rösler moved with his father to the German town of Putzberg.
His father was determined that Rösler never doubt his belonging. When Rösler was six, his father stood beside him in front of a mirror and pointed to their two reflections, noting how different they looked, their eyes, their noses, everything. Then he told his son that none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was that he was his father.
Growing up in Germany, Rösler rarely thought about looking different. His Catholic elementary school welcomed children from many backgrounds, making diversity seem completely natural. After his first day of school, he came home excited to tell his father that there were many foreign students in his class. His father burst out laughing.
As he grew older, Rösler sometimes imagined he might belong to a royal family in Vietnam. He once asked his father if Vietnam had princes. His father smiled and explained that Vietnam had once had a royal dynasty, but not anymore. That answer ended his childhood fantasy, but it never erased the quiet longing beneath it.
Who had given him life? Why had they given him up? Those questions remained buried under decades of remarkable success. His adoptive father believed every child deserved a chance to build a future.
Instead of focusing on Philipp’s difficult beginnings, he taught him integrity, responsibility, and empathy. Rösler devoted himself to his studies. Quiet and disciplined, he earned excellent grades and developed a passion for medicine. Helping people came naturally to him, perhaps because someone had once helped him when he had nothing.
After finishing high school, he joined the German armed forces as a military medical officer before continuing his education at Hannover Medical School. After years of hard work, he received his doctorate in medicine at just 29 years old. Medicine taught him how to care for individuals. Politics gave him the opportunity to improve people’s lives on a much larger scale.
In the early 2000s, he joined Germany’s Free Democratic Party. Colleagues quickly noticed his thoughtful leadership. In 2009, at only 36, he became Germany’s youngest Minister of Health. Two years later, he reached another historic milestone when he was appointed Vice Chancellor, also serving as Minister of Economics and Technology.
Rösler often credited his father’s principles, freedom, openness, and tolerance, for guiding his decisions. More importantly, his father showed him what unconditional love looked like. Those lessons stayed with him after he married physician Vipa Rösler and later became the father of twin daughters. His life appeared complete.
But part of his story remained unwritten. He still did not know who had brought him into the world. Those questions rarely pressed on him, but they never disappeared. Everything changed because of a conversation at home.
His wife gently told him that one day they would have children, and she wanted to be able to tell them about the country where he was born. Her words made him realize his past no longer belonged to him alone. His daughters would one day ask about their father’s homeland. He wanted to give them more than just a name on a map.
At 33, Rösler returned to Vietnam for the first time since leaving as an infant. The journey began with a simple hope of seeing where his life started. Finding it proved harder than expected. The village of Can Hong, recorded as his birthplace, no longer appeared on modern maps.
Then an unexpected discovery changed everything. While visiting the Independence Palace in Ho Chi Minh City, Rösler noticed an old historical map displayed inside the building. There it was, Can Hong, a forgotten name preserved by history. That discovery led him to the orphanage that had once sheltered him.
As the familiar yellow buildings slowly appeared before his eyes, Rösler stood in silence. He had no memories of the place, but for the first time in his life, he felt he was standing at the beginning of his own story. More than 30 years had passed since Rösler left Vietnam as a nine-month-old infant. Returning without any memories of the place, he nonetheless felt an unexpected peace as he traveled through southern Vietnam, as if he were slowly finding his way back to where his story began.
His journey eventually led him to the Catholic orphanage in Soc Trang. The building had changed over the decades. After the Vietnam War, it became a small medical clinic, and the nuns only resumed caring for orphaned children there after the coronavirus pandemic. Rösler walked through the courtyard quietly.
He knew he would not suddenly remember lying there as an infant. But standing in the place that had protected him during the first months of his life was enough. He greeted the elderly nuns who had dedicated their lives to children who had no one to care for them. As he held their hands, his emotions finally overcame him.
He spoke of the incredible warmth he felt. The nuns had cared for him when he was just a baby. Over the years, they had raised nearly 3,000 orphaned children there. Not all of them had become doctors or ministers, but each one was just as grateful as he was.
He noted that the nuns never cared for them because they expected something in return. They had no idea what any of them would become. Their love was simple, a mother’s love for her children. Although they had little, they gave everything without asking for anything back.
During the visit, Rösler spent time with the children now living in the orphanage. Some had lost their parents during the pandemic. Others had been separated from their families through circumstances beyond their control. As he watched them laugh together, he noticed that many of the girls were the same age as his twin daughters.
He spoke about the children with visible emotion. He acknowledged that they smile, but not because the pain inside them has disappeared. They watched their fathers suffer and die. He reflected that he had become an orphan from birth, too young to remember the horrors of the Vietnam War, but these children were old enough to remember losing their parents.
They carried emotional scars that would stay with them for a very long time. Those encounters changed the course of his journey. Finding his roots remained important, but he no longer wanted his return to Vietnam to be limited to discovering the past. He wanted to create opportunities for children facing the same uncertain beginnings he had once faced.
When he celebrated his 50th birthday in Germany, he asked friends and guests to make donations instead of bringing gifts. The money helped improve education at the orphanage and funded scholarships for young women from the Mekong Delta who hoped to study medicine. His commitment continued to grow through partnerships supporting healthcare, education, mental health services, and vocational training for orphaned children across Vietnam. Every time he visited the orphanage, he reminded the children that their futures were not defined by the circumstances of their birth.
Alongside education and vocational training, he emphasized the importance of emotional support for orphaned children. He promised every child in the orphanage the opportunity to study whatever profession they dreamed of. He told them he had come from that same orphanage and had become a doctor and later a politician in Germany. He wanted them to know their futures were not limited by their starting points.
Still, one deeply personal search remained unfinished. Over the years, Rösler had only been able to uncover two pieces of information about the woman who gave birth to him: her name, Giang Thi, and an old address on Guan Wayi Street in Saigon. When investigators followed those leads, they discovered she had moved away long ago, and no one knew where she had gone. The search reached another dead end.
Although he still hopes to solve the mystery one day, Vietnam has already given him something he never expected. It has given him a deeper understanding of who he is. The country he left as an infant has become the place where he continues to invest his time, energy, and heart. When Rösler speaks about Vietnam today, he rarely says he is coming for a visit.
He simply says he is returning home.