Friedrich Merz

Friedrich Merz was born in Brilon in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in then-West Germany to Roman Catholic parents Joachim Merz and Paula née Sauvigny.[11] His father was a judge and a CDU member until he left the party in 2007.[12] The Sauvigny family was a prominent patrician family in Brilon, of French Huguenot ancestry; his grandfather Josef Paul Sauvigny was a lawyer and served as mayor of Brilon from 1917 to 1937.[13][14][15]

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. At Bonn he was a member of KDStV Bavaria Bonn, a Roman Catholic student fraternity founded in 1844 that is part of the Cartellverband. 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.[16]

Merz speaks German, French and English.[17]

In 1972, at the age of seventeen, he became a member of the CDU's youth wing, the Young Union,[11] 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.[18] He became President of the Brilon branch of the Young Union in 1980.

Upon leaving politics, Merz has worked as a corporate lawyer. Since 2004 he has been a Senior Counsel at Mayer Brown's Düsseldorf office,[20] where he works on the corporate finance team; before 2004 he was a senior counsel with Cornelius Bartenbach Haesemann.[21] His work as a lawyer and board member has made him a multimillionaire.[22] He has also taken on numerous positions on corporate boards, including the following:

• Robert Bosch GmbH, Member of International Advisory Committee (since 2011)
• WEPA Hygieneprodukte GmbH, Chairman of the Supervisory Board (since 2009)
• Deutsche Rockwool, Member of the Supervisory Board
• Ernst & Young Germany, Member of the Advisory Board
• Odewald & Compagnie, Member of the Advisory Board
• DBV-Winterthur Holding, Member of the Supervisory Board
• Cologne Bonn Airport, Chairman of the Supervisory Board (2017-2020)[23][24]
• BlackRock Germany, Chairman of the Supervisory Board (2016-2020)[25][26]
• Stadler Rail, Member of the Board of Directors (2006-2020)[27][28][29]
• HSBC Trinkaus, Chairman of the Advisory Board (2010-2019)[30]
• Borussia Dortmund, Member of the Supervisory Board (2010-2014)
• Axa Konzern AG, Member of the Supervisory Board (2007-2014)[31]
• IVG Immobilien, Member of the Supervisory Board (2006-2010)
• Deutsche Börse, Member of the Supervisory Board (2005-2015)
• Interseroh, Member of the Supervisory Board (2005-2009)[32]

Between 2010 and 2011, Merz represented the shareholders of WestLB, a publicly owned institution that had previously been Germany's third-largest lender, in talks with bidders.[33] In 2012, he joined Norbert Röttgen’s campaign team for the North Rhine-Westphalia state election as advisor on economic policy.[34] He served as a CDU delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2012[35] and in 2017.

In November 2017, Merz was appointed by Minister-President Armin Laschet of North Rhine-Westphalia as his Commissioner for Brexit and Transatlantic Relations, an unpaid advisory position.[36][23]

After Angela Merkel announced her intention to step down as Leader of the CDU party, Merz announced he would run in the subsequent 2018 party leadership election.[1] His candidacy was promoted by the former CDU chairman and "crown prince" of the Kohl era, Wolfgang Schäuble (current President of the Bundestag, ranked second in federal precedence).[37] On December 7, 2018, in the second round of the leadership election, Merz was defeated by Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.[1][2]

On February 25, 2020, he announced his candidacy in the 2021 leadership election.[38] On January 16, 2021, he was defeated in the second round by Armin Laschet.[3][4] The same day, after losing the leadership election, Merz proposed to "join the current government and take over the Ministry for Economy". The ministry was already headed by his party colleague Peter Altmaier at the time. The proposal was rebuffed.[39]

Merz has focused on economic policy, foreign and security policy and family policy. He has described himself as socially conservative and economically liberal, and is seen as a representative of the conservative and pro-business wings of the CDU.[6] 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. As a young politician in the 1970s and 1980s, he was a staunch supporter of anticommunism, the dominant state doctrine of West Germany and a core tenet of the CDU. In 2018, he described himself as "a truly convinced European, a convinced transatlanticist" and said that "I stand for a cosmopolitan Germany whose roots lie in Christian ethics and the European Enlightenment and whose most important political allies are the democracies of the West. I gladly use this expression again: The democracies of the West."[40][7] He especially advocates closer relations between Germany and France. Merz has criticized Donald Trump more harshly than Angela Merkel did and has especially criticized Trump's trade war against Europe.[41] In 2018, he co-authored an article in defence of the European project, which among other things called for "an army for Europe."[8] In July 2018, 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.[42] In November 2018, Merz said that the introduction of same-sex marriage in Germany is correct.[43]

• Deutsche Nationalstiftung, Member of the Senate[44]
• Peace of Westphalia Prize, Member of the Jury[45]
• Bayer Foundation for German and International Labor and Business Law, Member of the Board of Trustees (1998-2002)
• KfW, Member of the Supervisory Board (2003–2004)[46]
• Ludwig Erhard Foundation, Member (1998–2005)

Friedrich Merz is married to the judge Charlotte Merz. He has three children and resides in Arnsberg in the Sauerland region. In 2005, the couple established the Friedrich und Charlotte Merz Stiftung, a foundation supporting projects in the education sector.[47]

On 17 March 2020 Merz was tested positive for COVID-19.[48]

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• German article about his political comeback / die-wirtschaftsnews