Friedrich Merz

At Bonn he was a member of, a Roman Catholic student fraternity founded in 1844 that is part of the Cartellverband.

Joachim-Friedrich Martin Josef Merz (born 11 November 1955) is a German politician serving as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) since 31 January 2022 and as leader of the Union parliamentary group as well as the Leader of the Opposition in the Bundestag since 15 February 2022.

Joachim-Friedrich Martin Josef Merz was born on 11 November 1955 to Joachim Merz (born 1924) and Paula Sauvigny (born 1928) in Brilon in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in then-West Germany.

His father was a judge and a member of the CDU.

The Sauvigny family was a locally prominent patrician family in Brilon, of French Huguenot ancestry, and his maternal grandfather was mayor of Brilon.

Friedrich Merz is Roman Catholic.

Merz was raised in his mother's family home Sauvigny House in Brilon.

The house was announced for sale for 2 million euros in 2021.

As a young politician in the 1970s and 1980s, he was a staunch supporter of anti-communism, the dominant state doctrine of West Germany and a core tenet of the CDU.

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.

His book Mehr Kapitalismus wagen (Venturing More Capitalism) advocates economic liberalism.

He has been chairman of the Atlantik-Brücke association which promotes German-American understanding and Atlanticism, and is a staunch supporter of the European Union and NATO, having described himself as "a truly convinced European, a convinced transatlanticist".

Merz advocates a closer union and "an army for Europe".

Merz is Catholic and of French Huguenot descent on his mother's side.

His wife, Charlotte Merz, is a judge; they have three children.

A corporate lawyer and reputed multimillionaire, he is also a licensed private pilot and owns two airplanes.

Merz joined the Young Union in 1972 and is reputed to be a member of the Andean Pact, a powerful network formed by politically ambitious members of the Young Union in 1979 during a trip to the Andes.

In 1972, at the age of seventeen, he became a member of the CDU's youth wing, the Young Union, and he has been described by German media as a member of the "Andean Pact," a supposed network of influential CDU members formed by members of the Young Union during a trip to the South American Andes region in 1979.

After finishing his Abitur exam in 1975 Merz served his military service as a soldier with a self-propelled artillery unit of the German Army.

From 1976 he studied law with a scholarship from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, first at the University of Bonn, later at the University of Marburg.

He became President of the Brilon branch of the Young Union in 1980.

After finishing law school in 1985, he worked as a judge and corporate lawyer before entering full-time politics in 1989 when he was elected to the European Parliament.

After serving one term he was elected to the Bundestag, where he established himself as the leading financial policy expert in the CDU.

He was elected chairman of the CDU/CSU group in the same year as Angela Merkel was elected chairwoman of the CDU, and at the time they were chief rivals for the leadership of the party.

After finishing law school in 1985, he became a judge in Saarbrücken.

In 1986 he left his position as a judge in order to work as an in-house attorney-at-law at the German Chemical Industry Association in Bonn and Frankfurt from 1986 to 1989.

Merz speaks German, French and English.

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.

He was a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and of the parliament's delegation for relations with Malta.

From the 1994 German elections, he served as member of the Bundestag for his constituency, the Hochsauerland.

In his first term, he was a member of the Finance Committee.

In October 1998 Merz became vice-chairman and in February 2000 Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group (alongside Michael Glos), succeeding Wolfgang Schäuble.

In this capacity, he was the opposition leader in the Bundestag during Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's first term.

In 2002, he stepped down as leader of the opposition in favour of Merkel and gradually withdrew from politics, focusing on his legal career and leaving parliament entirely in 2009, until his return to parliament in 2021.

Ahead of the 2002 elections, Edmund Stoiber included Merz in his shadow cabinet for the Christian Democrats' campaign to unseat incumbent Schröder as chancellor.

During the campaign, Merz served as Stoiber's expert for financial markets and the national budget.

In 2004 he became a senior counsel with Mayer Brown, where he has focused on mergers and acquisitions, banking and finance, and compliance.

He has served on the boards of numerous companies, including BlackRock Germany.

In 2018, he announced his return to politics.

He was elected CDU leader in 2022, having failed to win the position in two previous leadership elections in 2018, and then 2021.