Thomas de Maizière Bundesminister a. D. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 De Maizière in 2017 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minister of the Interior | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 17 December 2013 – 14 March 2018 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chancellor | Angela Merkel | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Hans-Peter Friedrich | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Horst Seehofer | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 28 October 2009 – 3 March 2011 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chancellor | Angela Merkel | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Wolfgang Schäuble | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Hans-Peter Friedrich | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minister of Defence | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 3 March 2011 – 17 December 2013 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chancellor | Angela Merkel | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Ursula von der Leyen | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Head of the Chancellery Minister for Special Affairs | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 22 November 2005 – 27 October 2009 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chancellor | Angela Merkel | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Frank-Walter Steinmeier(asSecretary of State) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Ronald Pofalla | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Member of theBundestag forMeißen | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 27 October 2009 – 26 October 2021 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Constituency established | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Barbara Lenk | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | Karl Ernst Thomas de Maizière (1954-01-21)21 January 1954 (age 71) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Political party | Christian Democratic Union | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | Martina de Maizière | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Children | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Parent |
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| Relatives | Lothar de Maizière (cousin) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Signature |  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Military service | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Allegiance |  West Germany | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Branch/service |  Bundeswehr | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Years of service | 1972–1974 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rank | Oberleutnant | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Unit |  Army (Heer) / Panzerbrigade 34 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Karl Ernst Thomas de Maizière (German pronunciation:[dəmɛˈzi̯ɛːɐ̯]; born 21 January 1954) is a German politician of theChristian Democratic Union (CDU) who served asFederal Minister of the Interior from 2009 to 2011 and 2013 to 2018, as well asFederal Minister of Defence from 2011 to 2013. He previously served asHead of the Chancellery andFederal Minister for Special Affairs in theFirst Merkel cabinet from 2005 to 2009. Since 2009, he has been amember of the Bundestag forMeißen.
Along withUrsula von der Leyen andWolfgang Schäuble, De Maizière was one of only three ministers to have continuously served inChancellorAngela Merkel's cabinets from 2005 until 2018.[1] Together with von der Leyen, he was widely looked on as a possible future successor to Merkel.[2] Before his appointment to the federal cabinet, he served as a minister in the state government ofSaxony, including as chief of staff to theMinister-President, State Minister of Finance and State Minister of Justice.
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Maizière was born inBonn to the laterInspector general of theBundeswehr,Ulrich de Maizière. He graduated at theAloisiuskolleg in Bonn and studied law and history at theWestfälische Wilhelms-Universität inMünster and theUniversity of Freiburg. He passed his first state examination in law in 1979 and his second 1982, earning hisDoctor of law (Dr. jur.) in 1986.[3]
He belongs to a noble family originally fromMaizières-lès-Metz[4] who, asHuguenots, had fled France for asylum inPrussia in the late 17th century.[5] TheMaizière family still attended French-language schools and Huguenot churches in Berlin until the beginning of the 20th century. His cousinLothar de Maizière is also a CDU politician and was the last, and only democratically elected,Premier of theGerman Democratic Republic, who later served as Federal Minister of Special Affairs in the government ofHelmut Kohl until his resignation following the discovery of his affiliation with theGDR secret service.[5]
Maizière worked for the governing mayor (prime minister) ofWest Berlin (BaronRichard von Weizsäcker andEberhard Diepgen),[6] before becoming a member of the West German team in the negotiations onGerman reunification. After 1990 he worked with re-establishing democratic structures in states that were part of the formerGerman Democratic Republic. He became secretary of state at the ministry of culture of the state ofMecklenburg-Vorpommern in November 1990. From December 1994 to 1998 he was chief of staff of the Chancellery of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.[citation needed]
He served as the chief of theSaxon Chancellery from 1999 to 2001, with the rank of cabinet minister. As chief of staff toKurt Biedenkopf, he helped negotiate the special Solidarity Pact designed to finance the reconstruction of the former East Germany.[6] From 2001 to 2002 he served as the minister of finance of Saxony, from 2002 to 2004minister of justice, and from 2004 to 2005 as minister of the interior.[7]
On 17 October 2005, Maizière was nominated as a member of theFederal Government as chief of the Chancellor's office and as federal minister for special affairs in thefirst Merkel cabinet.[7] He took office on 22 November 2005, after Merkel's election as Chancellor by theBundestag. In his capacity as chief of staff of the chancellery, he also functioned as deputy president of theGerman Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik).
Between 2007 and 2009, Maizière was one of 32 members of theSecond Commission on the modernization of the federal state, which was established to reform the division of powers between federal and state authorities in Germany.
He was elected inMeißen. In the negotiations to form acoalition government following the2009 federal elections, Maizière led the CDU/CSU delegation in the working group on taxes, national budget, and financial policy; withHermann Otto Solms of theFDP as joint chairman. Following the formation of theSecond Merkel cabinet, he took office asFederal Minister of the Interior.
As Interior Minister, Maizière long played down security worries, but he abruptly changed course late in 2010, giving warnings that there were serious indications of terror attacks being prepared in Europe and the United States.[8] In July 2010, he outlawed theInternationale Humanitäre Hilfsorganisation (IHH), a charity registered inFrankfurt, because of its alleged links to the militant Palestinian organizationHamas, arguing that "the IHH has, under the cover of humanitarian aid, supportedGaza Strip-based so-called social associations which are attributable to Hamas, for a long period of time and to a considerable financial extent."[9] That same month, Maizière announced that Germany would take over and release two prisoners of theGuantanamo Bay detention camp.[10]
In October 2010, Maizière and Transport MinisterPeter Ramsauer banned arrivals of all air cargo fromYemen, after the German authorities had been tipped off by a foreign intelligence service that there were explosives inside a U.S.-bound parcel trans-shipped atCologne Bonn Airport.[11]
On 2 March 2011, Merkel announced that Maizière was to take over fromKarl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the federal defence minister who had resigned from office the previous day.[12] On 3 March, he was formally appointed to this post.[13] He held the defence ministry portfolio until 17 December 2013.
Signaling one of the biggest shake-ups in decades for the German military, in 2011 Maizière unveiled plans to reduce troop numbers, cut bureaucracy, and eliminate duplication inside theFederal Ministry of Defence. Under these proposals, the army was to be turned into a wholly professional force.[14]
On the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of thediplomatic relations between German andIndia, Maizière participated in the first joint cabinet meeting of the two countries' governments inDelhi in May 2011.[15] On 7 June 2011, he attended thestate dinner hosted by PresidentBarack Obama in honor ofChancellorAngela Merkel at theWhite House.[16]
Speaking to the German newspaperFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in February 2012, Maizière said that anIsrael Defense Forces strike on Iran's nuclear facilities was "highly unlikely" to succeed, and noted that such a strike would cause "obvious political damage."[17] During a meeting in Berlin in March 2012, he warnedIsrael'sDefense MinisterEhud Barak against an attack onIran, joining other Western countries which were applying heavy international pressure on Israel to prevent it from attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.[18][19]
In 2012, Maizière told a gathering of army reservists that he considered the U.S. strategy of usingdrones fortargeted killings a "strategic mistake". According to the online news edition of the German public television broadcasterARD, Maizière had said he thought it was unwise to have U.S. commanders direct such attacks from their bases in the United States.[20]
In the negotiations to form a government following the2013 federal elections, Maizière led the CDU/CSU members in the working group on foreign affairs, defense, and development cooperation; his co-chair from the SPD wasFrank-Walter Steinmeier. On 17 December 2013, he was appointed as Federal Minister of the Interior for a second time.[21] In addition, he co-chairs theEPP Justice and Home Affairs Ministers Meeting, alongsideEsteban González Pons.[22]
On 23 February 2014,Bild am Sonntag reported that Maizière and other members of the government, as well as leading figures in business, were underNSA surveillance. The newspaper report, quoting an unnamed NSA official, said the U.S. was particularly interested in the interior minister "because he is a close aide of Merkel, who seeks his advice on many issues and was rumored to be promoting his candidacy for the post ofNATO secretary-general."[23][24] From the beginning of 2015, the left-wing opposition and media commentators have repeatedly criticized de Maizière over his record as chief of staff in 2005–09, and over what he knew about Germany'sFederal Intelligence Service (BND) helping U.S. agencies to spy on European firms such as the defence manufacturerAirbus.[25]
In late 2014, Maizière proposed a law according to which the government would have the power to withdraw theidentity cards of potential foreign fighters and replace them with another form of identification; this was meant to allow government agencies to prevent Germans from leaving the country to join groups such asIslamic State in Iraq and Syria.[26] In May 2015, he bannedYuruyus, a leftist-terrorist newspaper published by the Turkish extremist groupDHKP-C, and had his ministry order raids across the country in connection with this ban.[27]
By late 2015, amid theEuropean migrant crisis, de Maizière urged that Europe should set a limit on the number of refugees it takes in and seek out those most clearly entitled to protection.[28] His critics say he failed to fight for more staff and budget for the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), which falls under his ministry, despite years of warnings from German states that the agency was being overwhelmed with asylum applications.[29] In an effort to better detect the identities of migrants arriving from Syria, Afghanistan and other trouble spots, de Maizière later spearheaded the introduction of an identity card for refugees.[30]
In 2016, Maizière banned the neo-Nazi group "White Wolves Terror Crew" (WWT) following raids on 15 properties across the country as worries were growing about a rise in right-wing sentiment after the influx of more than a million migrants the previous year.[31]
In January 2016, Maizière participated in the first joint cabinet meeting of the governments of Germany andTurkey in Berlin.[32]
After leaving government in 2018, Maizère served on the Committee on Finance. In addition to his work in parliament, he taughtconstitutional law at theUniversity of Leipzig.[33]
Ahead of the Christian Democrats'leadership election in 2018, de Maizière publicly endorsedAnnegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to succeed Angela Merkel as the party’s chair.[34]
Since 2019, de Maizière has been serving as chairman of theDeutsche Telekom Foundation.[35] Also in 2019, he was appointed by theFederal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community to serve on the committee that oversaw the preparations for the 30th anniversary ofGerman reunification.[36]
In 2020, de Maizière was appointed byNATO Secretary GeneralJens Stoltenberg to co-chair (alongsideA. Wess Mitchell) a group of experts to support his work in a reflection process to further strengthen NATO’s political dimension.[37]
In May 2020, de Maizière announced that he would not stand in the2021 federal elections but instead resign from active politics by the end of the parliamentary term.[38]
In 2023, de Maizière and Heide Pfarr served as unpaid arbitrators for negotiations between German railway operatorDeutsche Bahn and theRailway and Transport Union (EVG).[39]
Maizière is married to Martina de Maizière, with whom he has three children. He is aProtestant.
In April 2023, de Maizière was one of the 22 guests at the ceremony in which Angela Merkel was decorated with theGrand Cross of the Order of Merit for special achievement byPresidentFrank-Walter Steinmeier atSchloss Bellevue in Berlin.[42]
Media related toThomas de Maizière at Wikimedia Commons
Quotations related toThomas de Maizière at Wikiquote| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Chief of the Chancellery 2005–2009 | Succeeded by |
| Vacant Title last held by Bodo Hombach | Minister for Special Affairs 2005–2009 | |
| Preceded by | Minister of the Interior 2009–2011 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of Defence 2011–2013 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of the Interior 2013–2018 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
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| Academics | |
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| Other | |
