1. Friedrich Merz was born in Brilon in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in West Germany.
86 Facts About Friedrich Merz
1. 2.
Friedrich Merz has served on the boards of numerous companies, including BlackRock Germany.
3.
Friedrich Merz was elected CDU leader in December 2021, assuming the office in January 2022.
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Friedrich Merz had failed to win the position in two previous leadership elections in 2018, and January 2021.
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Friedrich Merz is seen as a representative of the traditional establishment conservative and pro-business wings of the CDU.
6.
Friedrich Merz has long been considered "exceptionally pro-American" and has been chairman of the Atlantik-Brucke association which promotes German-American friendship and Atlanticism.
7.
Friedrich Merz is a staunch supporter of the European Union, NATO and the liberal international order, having described himself as "a truly convinced European, a convinced transatlanticist, and a German open to the world".
8.
Friedrich Merz is critical of the Trump administration, having likened the United States under Donald Trump to Russia under Vladimir Putin, criticized American and Russian election interference and said Europe must urgently strengthen its defenses and potentially find a replacement for NATO to achieve "independence" from the United States.
9.
Joachim-Friedrich Martin Josef Merz was born on 11 November 1955 to Joachim Merz was born on 1924 and and Paula Sauvigny was born on 1928 and in Brilon in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in then-West Germany.
10.
Friedrich Merz's father was a judge and a member of the CDU.
11.
Friedrich Merz was raised in his mother's family home Sauvigny House in Brilon.
12.
From 1966 to 1971 Merz studied at the Gymnasium Petrinum Brilon, which he left for disciplinary reasons, moving to the Friedrich-Spee Gymnasium in Ruthen where he finished his Abitur in 1975.
13.
From July 1975 to September 1976 Friedrich Merz served his military service as a soldier with a self-propelled artillery unit of the German Army.
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Friedrich Merz became President of the Brilon branch of the Young Union in 1980.
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Friedrich Merz successfully ran as a candidate in the 1989 European Parliament election and served one term as a Member of the European Parliament until 1994.
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Friedrich Merz was a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and of the parliament's delegation for relations with Malta.
17.
Years before his admission, Friedrich Merz had already a "fundamental loyalty" to his peers in the Andean Pact.
18.
Between 2005 and 2009, Friedrich Merz was a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs.
19.
Friedrich Merz has taken on numerous positions on corporate boards, including the following:.
20.
Between 2010 and 2011, Friedrich Merz represented the shareholders of WestLB, a publicly owned institution that had previously been Germany's third-largest lender, in talks with bidders.
21.
Friedrich Merz served as a CDU delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2012 and in 2017.
22.
In November 2017, Friedrich Merz was appointed by Minister-President Armin Laschet of North Rhine-Westphalia as his Commissioner for Brexit and Transatlantic Relations, an unpaid advisory position.
23.
Friedrich Merz's candidacy was promoted by the former CDU chairman and "crown prince" of the Kohl era, Wolfgang Schauble.
24.
On 7 December 2018, in the second round of the leadership election, Friedrich Merz was defeated by Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.
25.
Laschet was quick to placate Friedrich Merz by recruiting him to his campaign team.
26.
Laschet justified this by saying that Friedrich Merz was "without doubt a team player" and that his economic and financial expertise could provide crucial help in overcoming the huge challenge of the pandemic in a sustainable way.
27.
Friedrich Merz instead replaced him, returning to the Bundestag after a 12-year absence.
28.
On 15 November 2021, Friedrich Merz announced his candidacy in the second 2021 CDU leadership election.
29.
Friedrich Merz was formally elected Chairman of the CDU by its 1001 congress delegates at the virtual federal party congress on 22 January 2022.
30.
Friedrich Merz officially took office as party leader on 31 January 2022.
31.
In September 2024, Friedrich Merz became the Union's designated candidate for Chancellor of Germany in the 2025 federal election, after Hendrik Wust and Markus Soder decided not to run and after both declared their support for Friedrich Merz.
32.
On 5 March 2025, Friedrich Merz proposed a significant increase in defence spending.
33.
Friedrich Merz, who had promised to not touch the debt brake rule prior to the german federal election, justified the increase in defence spending by the threat from Russia, citing Putin's "war of aggression against Europe".
34.
Friedrich Merz has focused on economic, foreign, security, and family policies.
35.
Friedrich Merz has described himself as socially conservative and economically liberal and is seen as a representative of the traditional establishment conservative and pro-business wings of the CDU.
36.
Friedrich Merz says he sees limiting irregular migration as the most important task after the 2025 German federal election.
37.
Friedrich Merz deems Angela Merkel's policy of open borders during the 2015 European migrant crisis to be fatal.
38.
In 2024, Friedrich Merz called for asylum seekers to be comprehensively rejected directly at the border.
39.
Friedrich Merz believes this would send a signal that would lead to less irregular migration.
40.
Friedrich Merz explained that Kretschmer's statement roughly describes "what we can still achieve today with our integration power".
41.
Friedrich Merz's CDU seeks to speed up visa processing for foreign skilled workers.
42.
In October 2023, following the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Friedrich Merz said Germany could not accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza, stating, "We have enough antisemitic young men in the country".
43.
In December 2024, Friedrich Merz called for deportations of illegal Syrian immigrants to Syria and a freeze on new admissions of refugees.
44.
Friedrich Merz announced that under his "leadership, there will be fundamental changes to the right of entry, asylum and residence in the Federal Republic of Germany".
45.
Friedrich Merz said that if he were elected chancellor, on the first day of his term in office, he would instruct the Federal Ministry of the Interior to "permanently control the German state borders", and, "to reject all attempts at illegal entry without exception".
46.
Friedrich Merz announced a tightening of detention for departure and deportation, and he wants more powers for the federal police.
47.
Friedrich Merz opposed the Burgergeld and, like the CDU, wants to see it abolished and replaced by another system called New Basic Security.
48.
Friedrich Merz wants to altogether cancel unemployment payments to those who could work but do not.
49.
Friedrich Merz has been accused of veering between inclusive rhetoric and dog whistling.
50.
Weeks before, Friedrich Merz had referred to some Ukrainian refugees as "welfare tourists" and said that many had come to Germany seeking safety, only to then travel back and forth between both countries after securing social benefits, remarks that he later said he regretted.
51.
Friedrich Merz is a staunch supporter of the European Union, NATO and the liberal international order.
52.
Friedrich Merz is known for hawkish stances on authoritarian countries, in particular Russia and China.
53.
In 2023, Friedrich Merz called for Germany to involve key allies, especially France, in negotiations with China as part of a rethinking of ties with the country that reflected a global "paradigm shift" in security and foreign policy.
54.
Friedrich Merz called China "an increasing threat to [German] security", and criticized Scholz's decision to allow China's COSCO to take a stake in the port of Hamburg.
55.
In February 2025, Friedrich Merz said that Germany would negotiate with France and the United Kingdom about extending their nuclear umbrella to Germany.
56.
Friedrich Merz received international support for the financial package from NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
57.
Friedrich Merz is critical of the Trump administration and has likened the Trump-led United States to Germany's primary adversary, Putin's Russia.
58.
Friedrich Merz said the Trump administration does not care about Europe and is aligning with Russia and that the continent must urgently strengthen its defences and potentially even find a replacement for NATO, within months.
59.
Friedrich Merz has criticized the Trump-led United States for alleged election interference after American government officials tried to bolster the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany party, regarded as extremist by Germany's domestic intelligence agency, comparing it to Russian election interference.
60.
Friedrich Merz has criticized Donald Trump more harshly than Angela Merkel did and has especially criticized Trump's trade war against Europe.
61.
When polls during the 2024 German government crisis predicted that Friedrich Merz would be the most likely to become the next chancellor, he said that Germany "must go from being a sleeping middle power to becoming a leading middle power again".
62.
Friedrich Merz said he would, as chancellor, try to bring about a European decision on the matter of the question of whether to allow Ukraine to strike against targets deep within Russian territory with Western weapons.
63.
Friedrich Merz said he would signal Putin his willingness to talk beforehand.
64.
In October 2024, Friedrich Merz successfully urged the German government to resume weapons deliveries to Israel, including spare parts for tanks.
65.
Friedrich Merz proposed stripping dual nationals of their German citizenship for protesting against Israel.
66.
Friedrich Merz criticized the International Criminal Court's decision to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes during the Gaza war.
67.
Friedrich Merz called the phase-out of nuclear power in Germany a "grave strategic mistake".
68.
Friedrich Merz went on to deny that time is running out for successful climate change measures and that the country will be on the right track if it makes the right decisions over the next decade.
69.
In 2023, Friedrich Merz opposed the proposed EU phase-out of fossil fuel vehicles and hybrid vehicles by 2035, stating that the fight for net-zero emissions "must be achieved with technology and open-mindedness, not bans".
70.
Friedrich Merz blamed the crisis at Volkswagen on the Scholz government's focus on electromobility.
71.
However, Friedrich Merz did not take action against the steadily increasing local cooperation between CDU politicians and AfD politicians from the following year onwards, partially due to the AfD's rising electoral performance.
72.
Friedrich Merz was criticized by large parts of his own party, who feared a crumbling of the firewall against the far right.
73.
In June 2023, Friedrich Merz retracted his promise in 2018 to halve the AfD, claiming that his party in the opposition could not halve the AfD if the government counteracted by "strengthening it" with its policies.
74.
Friedrich Merz has been known for his many secondary jobs over several legislative periods.
75.
In 2006 alone, Friedrich Merz was represented on the boards of eight different companies.
76.
Friedrich Merz probably earns a nice six-figure sum annually for his work in the law firm.
77.
In 2007, Friedrich Merz wrote a letter to his voters in an attempt to defend himself against criticism of his secondary activities.
78.
In 2021, before the federal election and 12 years after he left the Bundestag in 2009, Friedrich Merz announced that he would no longer pursue any "professional activities outside of politics" if he were to be re-elected to the Bundestag.
79.
At the hearing in October 2006, Friedrich Merz pointed out that according to Article 38 of the Basic Law of Germany, members of parliament are "not bound by instructions and are subject only to their conscience".
80.
In November 2018, when asked in an interview with the tabloid media Bild, Friedrich Merz said that he was a millionaire and thus would belong in his understanding to the upper middle class.
81.
Friedrich Merz later specified that he, at that time, earned "around one million euros gross" per year.
82.
Friedrich Merz has made statements about LGBT+ people perceived as insensitive.
83.
In November 2018, Friedrich Merz said that introducing same-sex marriage in Germany was the right thing to do.
84.
Friedrich Merz clarified after an outcry that he had not meant to link homosexuality with pedophilia.
85.
Friedrich Merz has three children and resides in Arnsberg in the Sauerland region.
86.
In 2018, Friedrich Merz rejected the Ludwig Erhard Prize, citing objections to publications by the chairman of the Ludwig Erhard Foundation, Roland Tichy, considered by some to be on the extreme right.