Shorouk Express
Born a decade after the end of World War II in Sauerland, a rural, mountainous region of West Germany, Merz was, by his own account, a less than spectacular student and an early smoker and drinker prone to disciplinary problems. Despite that rebellious streak, he was influenced by the deeply embedded conservative culture of the area and joined the center-right Christian Democratic Union while still in high school. After serving a brief stint in the military, Merz went to university in Bonn, then the capital of West Germany, where he studied law.
Merz became a conservative member of the European Parliament in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell, and, five years later, was elected to the German Bundestag, where he developed a close relationship with Wolfgang Schäuble, the CDU stalwart and forceful advocate of European Union integration. Under Schäuble’s tutelage, Merz rose in stature and was considered a likely choice for chancellor candidate.
His rise ended in 2002, however, when he lost a power struggle with the more centrist Angela Merkel.
Merz, seeing no role for himself in the CDU under Merkel, withdrew to the back benches, and, in the midst of the world financial crisis of 2008, published a paean to free markets titled “Dare for More Capitalism.” A year later, he left the Bundestag to work as a corporate lawyer while also taking the helm of Atlantik-Brücke, a lobbying organization advocating for transatlantic ties.
While with Atlantik-Brücke, Merz pushed for an EU-U.S. trade agreement — The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP — and forged closer connections with the U.S., networking with American politicians and corporate leaders. One of his favorite places in the U.S., he told biographer Volker Resing, is the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, where the former president is buried.
Over a decade in the private sector, Merz sat on a series of corporate boards, including a four-year stint with U.S. asset manager BlackRock, a time he counts as among the happiest in his life, according to biographer Resing. Merz says this time provided him valuable experience outside of politics, but his critics accuse him of simply using his political connections to lobby for powerful interests, making himself a millionaire in the process.
