The Christian Social Union in Bavaria is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. Having a regionalist identity, the CSU operates only in Bavaria while its larger counterpart, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), operates in the other fifteen states of Germany. It differs from the CDU by being somewhat more conservative in social matters, following Catholic social teaching. The CSU is considered the de facto successor of the Weimar-era Catholic Bavarian People's Party.
Edmund Rüdiger Stoiber is a German politician who served as the 16th minister-president of the state of Bavaria between 1993 and 2007 and chairman of the Christian Social Union (CSU) between 1999 and 2007. In 2002, he ran for the office of Chancellor of Germany in the federal election, and in one of the narrowest elections in German history lost against Gerhard Schröder. On 18 January 2007, he announced that he would step down as minister-president and as party chairman by 30 September, after having been under fire in his own party for weeks.
Germany is a democratic and federal parliamentary republic, where federal legislative power is vested in the Bundestag and the Bundesrat.
Jürgen Trittin is a German Green politician who served as Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in the government of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 2005.
Hermann Müller was a German Social Democratic politician who served as foreign minister (1919–1920) and was twice chancellor of Germany during the Weimar Republic.
Georg Friedrich Karl Freiherr von Hertling, from 1914 Count von Hertling, was a German politician of the Catholic Centre Party. He was foreign minister and minister president of Bavaria, then chancellor of the German Reich and minister president of Prussia from 1 November 1917 to 30 September 1918. He was the first party politician to hold the two offices; all the others were career civil servants or military men.
Franz Müntefering is a German politician. He was Chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) from 2004 to 2005 and again from 18 October 2008 to 13 November 2009. He served as the minister of Labour and Social Affairs, as well as the vice chancellor of Germany, in the cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2005 to 2007.
Kurt Beck is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who served as the 7th Minister President of Rhineland-Palatinate from 1994 to 2013 and as the 55th President of the Bundesrat in 2000–01. In May 2006, he succeeded Matthias Platzeck as chairman of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). He resigned from that post in September 2008.
The Free State of Prussia was one of the constituent states of Germany from 1918 to 1947. The successor to the Kingdom of Prussia after the defeat of the German Empire in World War I, it continued to be the dominant state in Germany during the Weimar Republic, as it had been during the empire, even though most of Germany's post-war territorial losses in Europe had come from its lands. It was home to the federal capital Berlin and had 62% of Germany's territory and 61% of its population. Prussia changed from the authoritarian state it had been in the past and became a parliamentary democracy under its 1920 constitution. During the Weimar period it was governed almost entirely by pro-democratic parties and proved more politically stable than the Republic itself. With only brief interruptions, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) provided the Minister President. Its Ministers of the Interior, also from the SPD, pushed republican reform of the administration and police, with the result that Prussia was considered a bulwark of democracy within the Weimar Republic.
Niels Annen is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in the coalition government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz since 2021. He served as Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office from 2018 to 2021 in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Klaus Schütz was a German politician, who served as the Mayor of West Berlin from 1967 to 1977, as a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Bavaria, one of the states of Germany, has a multiparty system dominated by the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU). Bavaria has long been a bastion of conservative politics in Germany, with the Christian Social Union has won every election of the state parliament since 1946 and having almost a monopoly on power. Every Minister-President since 1957 has been a member of this party. On the other hand the bigger and more liberal, or rather social democratic, cities, especially Munich, have been governed for decades by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) until recently the second biggest party. In 2018 the Alliance 90/The Greens which have been represented in the state parliament since 1986, became the second biggest political party in the Landtag and in 2020 the biggest party in the Munich City Council. From the historical point of view, older Bavaria was one of the most liberal, predominantly Roman Catholic states until the rather rural areas of Swabia and Franconia were added in 1814/15 at the Congress of Vienna.
Ralf Stegner is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as a member of the German Bundestag for the constituency of Pinneberg since the 2021 elections.
The Second Merkel cabinet was the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany during the 17th legislative session of the Bundestag. Installed after the 2009 federal election, it left office on 17 December 2013. It was preceded by the first Merkel cabinet and succeeded by the third Merkel cabinet. Led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, it was supported by a coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU), and the Free Democratic Party (FDP).
Nils Schmid is a German lawyer and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Since 2018, he has been the SPD parliamentary group's spokesperson for foreign affairs in the German Bundestag.
Hubert Dietmar Woidke is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Since August 2013, Woidke has served as Minister President of Brandenburg.
Michael Georg Link is a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) who has served a member of the Bundestag from 2005 to 2013 and again since 2017. In addition to his parliamentary mandate, he has been serving as the Coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation at the Federal Foreign Office in the coalition government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz since 2022.
Michael Helmut Roth is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) who has been serving as a member of the German Bundestag since 27 September 1998.
Peter Tschentscher is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Since 28 March 2018 he has been the First Mayor of Hamburg. As First Mayor, he is head of the current government of the city-state. Since 2008 he has been a member of the Hamburg Parliament. From 2011 until 2018 he served as State Minister of Finance in the first and second governments of Olaf Scholz.
Florian Pronold is a German lawyer and politician of the SPD who served as a member of the German Bundestag from 2002 until 2021. From 11 July 2009 to 20 May 2017, he was state chairman of the SPD Bavaria.
