Free Republic

BERLIN (AP) — Members of Germany's biggest opposition party, the center-right Christian Democratic Union of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, have chosen prominent conservative Friedrich Merz as its new leader, the party said Friday. Merz's election with a strong mandate appears to mark at least a symbolic break with the Merkel era. Making his third run for the CDU's top post, he took 62.1% support in a ballot of the party's membership to beat two centrist contenders. A party convention next month will have to sign off officially on the membership vote, but that should only be a formality. Armin Laschet,...

The Social Democratic Party’s Olaf Scholz has been elected Chancellor of Germany, marking the end of Angela Merkel’s 16-year reign. Olaf Scholz, who was elected Chancellor of Germany on Wednesday, will lead a so-called “Traffic Light” coalition of left-wing parties, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD, red), the Green Party, and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP, yellow).

Berlin: The state finance minister of Germany's Hesse region, which includes Frankfurt, has been found dead. Authorities said he appears to have killed himself and the state's governor suggested Sunday that he was in despair over the fallout from the coronavirus crisis. The body of Thomas Schaefer, a 54-year-old member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, was found Saturday on railway tracks at Hochheim, near Frankfurt. German minister Thomas Schaefer commits suicide over coronavirus worries, body found on railway tracks File image of Thomas Schäfer (CDU), Minister of Finance of Hesse. AP

BERLIN — Millions of Germans will head to the polls in a federal election on Sunday that will determine who will succeed Angela Merkel after 16 years as Germany's chancellor. According to the latest polls, Germany's center-left Social Democratic Party is narrowly ahead of Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian partner, the Christian Social Union. They're closely followed by the Greens, the far-right Alternative for Germany and the libertarian Free Democratic Party, all holding onto double-digit poll numbers going into Sunday's election. Josef Janning, a senior associate fellow with the German Council on Foreign Relations, says the...

The WerteUnion (Values Union) was founded in 2017 by members of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat Union (CDU) who believed that Germany’s last big-tent party had moved too far left. The movement followed a similar path to that of the Tea Party, which emerged in 2009 within the US’s Republican Party, bringing together libertarians and right-wing populists focused on challenging the leadership of the Republican Party, which they felt wasn’t doing enough to confront Democratic President Barack Obama. In contrast, the WerteUnion focused its ire within the center-right CDU on Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom adherents saw as being too liberal. Expansion...

BERLIN (AP) – Two German state election defeats have put the spotlight on chances of a government without Chancellor Angela Merkel’s bloc after September’s national vote. A possible contender to succeed her said Monday that the center-right needs to raise its game to keep the country’s top job. Final results showed that Merkel´s Christian Democratic Union was handily defeated in Sunday´s elections by two popular incumbent state governors: the Green party´s Winfried Kretschmann in Baden-Wuerttemberg and the center-left Social Democrats´ Malu Dreyer in Rhineland-Palatinate.

When Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) met online to elect a new party leadership in January, hackers carried out a series of massive attacks aimed at throwing the summit into chaos. The attacks picked up speed every time delegates were about to vote. According to CDU spokespeople, the assailants, operating mostly from abroad, bombarded the party’s website with internet traffic to overwhelm its server. At some point, they succeeded. The site collapsed and the livestream of the event cut out. In the end, the CDU managed to push the intruders out […] Yet the thwarted attack illustrates the...

ANGELA MERKEL is facing the end of her political career at the helm of Germany, with more than 1,000 members of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party voting on a new leader - with Armin Laschet, chairman of the North Rhine-Westphalia, emerging victorious.

Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leadership hopeful Friedrich Merz came under fire on Monday for a response he gave when questioned on whether he could imagine Germany having a homosexual chancellor. Merz, a candidate in the CDU election set to take place in December to find a replacement for Angela Merkel, who is stepping down — made the comment to German media outlet Bild. On the news segment named “The Right Questions,” Merz was asked whether he would have reservations if a gay chancellor were to lead Germany. “No,” Merz replied to Bild. “Concerning the question of sexual orientation, as long...

These thoughts reflect the writer's concern about the worsening political and social conditions in Germany, a nation whose importance — for America, Europe, and the world — should require no laboring to a readership of politically sophisticated Americans. What's happening today in Germany is deeply disturbing. And it's not for the reason casual American observers, including many conservatives, might think based on information derived from the mainstream English-language media. Contrary to these purveyors of globalist, multi-cultural propaganda, the reason for growing unease about Germany is not the presence in the German parliament (Bundestag), and persistent electoral strength, of "Die Alternative...

A new poll carried out in the wake of a far-right scandal in Thuringia has shown impressive gains in support for the Left party and a significant tumble for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) in the eastern state. The poll was conducted by infratest dimap and commissioned by the public broadcaster MDR. The CDU in has been accused of colluding with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Thuringia to get a conservative candidate elected state premier, despite the fact that his party — the laissez-faire Free Democrats (FDP) — barely cleared the 5% hurdle to get into Thuringia’s...

The woman who was widely seen as German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chosen successor will not lead her crisis-racked CDU party into upcoming elections, a party source told AFP on Monday. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, known as AKK, took over from Merkel as CDU chairwoman and presumed shoo-in for chancellor in 2018 but “has now said she will not be a candidate for the chancellery”, the source said. She made the surprise announcement after telling a crunch CDU meeting that the center-right party had “an unresolved relationship” with the far-right AfD party and the far left. It comes after an election debacle in...

The parliamentary group leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has sparked a divisive debate after he said a Muslim could be a future CDU leader and chancellor of Germany. Asked by media outlet Idea if a Muslim could lead the party and become chancellor in 2030, Ralph Brinkhaus said: “Why not, if they’re a good politician, and they represent our values and our political views?” The interview took place in late February, but it stirred a backlash only after Bild, Germany’s biggest tabloid newspaper, reported on it on Wednesday. “For the love of God, I can’t believe Ralph...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced she would close her Facebook page Friday as she continues to plan the end of her political career. In a video posted on her page, Merkel explained that she no longer needs the account since she is no longer leading the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). “Today is the day on which I would like to thank you for all your support of my Facebook page,” she said. “You know that I am no longer CDU president, so I will now close my Facebook page.” Merkel has announced that she will not run for another term...

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a 56-year-old career politician committed to the status quo, has been chosen to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel as leader of Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Kramp-Karrenbauer — often referred to as "Mini-Merkel" or "Merkel 2.0" because many view her as Merkel's clone — won by just 35 votes (517 to 482) in a second-round run-off against her main opponent, a conservative named Friedrich Merz, at a CDU conference in Hamburg on December 7. Kramp-Karrenbauer's extremely narrow victory (51.7% to 48.2%) revealed a party split down the middle. Merz had pledged to pull the CDU back to its conservative...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced she will give up leadership of her center-right Christian Democrat Union (CDU) party after 18 years in the post, German media has reported. Merkel announced during a meeting with officials that she will not seek to run for re-election at the party's convention in December. But she made clear that she wanted to remain as chancellor, a position she has held since 2005, CNN affiliate RTL reported, citing party sources. Angela Merkel's Bavarian allies lose majority in crushing vote The announcement is a sign of Merkel's weakened power within her own party, and waning...

"He arrived in our hallowed German land. Because he can't get a lady, he helped himself to one with a knife" 14-year-old Ida Marie Muller's poem that caused a storm in Germany recently All expectations are of a sharp rebuke to Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union, in the Sunday October 14th state election in the southernmost state. The outrage over mass migration and the social consequences of it for Germany are boiling with the anti-mass immigration Alternative for Germany Party now polling as the second most popular party nationwide behind Merkel's party which is...

Voters in the southern German state of Bavaria go to the polls on Sunday in a regional election that could shake the fragile coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. The Christian Social Union (CSU) -- a conservative sister party to Merkel's Christian Democrat Union (CDU) -- has dominated Bavarian politics for almost seven decades. Apart from a three-year period in the 1950s, the party has continuously governed the state since 1949. At this election, however, the CSU could lose votes to the anti-immigration, far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party and to the left-wing, environmentalist Greens.

For most of Germany’s postwar history, the conservative CDU/CSU and the Social Democrats (SPD) were the undisputed twin poles of German politics. Known as Volksparteien, literally “popular parties,” these big-tent associations of interests have led every government since 1949. They were the German equivalents of the Republicans and Democrats in the United States or Tories and Labour in the United Kingdom. But their popularity is eroding alarmingly. In the words of venerable German political scientist Herfried Münkler, the Volksparteien look increasingly like “last year’s models.” The most recent Deutschlandtrend survey, published on September 20, put support for the CDU/CSU at...

"Horst Seehofer and the CSU have preformed a cheap bit of theater. The back and forth and the cancellation of his resignation as interior minister were all staged." Alternative for Germany Party co-leader parliamentary leader Alice Weidel comments even before the 'deal' was reported in Germany Alice Weidel of the AfD Party broke into a bit of a laugh when she spoke the words above to the media in Germany today and perhaps in the end, she got the story right even before it broke late tonight. The deal between the CDU and CSU parties involves 'transit centers' for migrants...