Friedrich Merz, a man who has never held a government role, is preparing to take the reins in Germany just as the country faces its biggest economic and diplomatic crises in decades and Europe looks urgently for a new generation of leaders for an era of transatlantic tension. The leader of Germany's conservatives has a comfortable poll lead over Chancellor Olaf Scholz's unloved minority government for Sunday's election, with his closest rival, the far-right Alternative for Germany, still eight points behind. Victory would be an unlikely third-act triumph for the 69-year-old, who just seven years ago was seen as a failed politician fully reconciled to ending his career as a wealthy lobbyist and member of numerous company boards.
A protege of the late Wolfgang Schaeuble, finance minister and icon of German fiscal conservatism, Merz enjoyed a meteoric rise through his Christian Democrats, becoming the party's parliamentary leader in the 2000s. Tall and with a sonorous voice, the arch-conservative Merz was a perfect figure for the party in 1989 - when he first won elected office for the European Parliament. Hailing from the Sauerland, a Catholic upland region in far western Germany known for its social conservatism and close-knit village communities, he embodied many of the virtues of West Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall - transatlanticist, business-oriented and socially conservative.
However, reunification in 1990 allowed Angela Merkel, the East German daughter of a p.
