Klaus-Peter Willsch | |
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| Member of theBundestag forRheingau-Taunus – Limburg | |
| Assumed office 27 September 1998 | |
| Preceded by | Michael Jung |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1961-02-28)28 February 1961 (age 64) |
| Citizenship | German |
| Party | Christian Democratic Union (since 1979) |
| Children | 5 |
| Alma mater | Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz |
Klaus-Peter Willsch (born 28 February 1961 inBad Schwalbach) is a German politician of theCDU and member of theBundestag, representingRheingau-Taunus – Limburg since 1998.
From 1980 until 1986, Willsch attended theUniversity of Mainz and received amaster's degree inEconomics andPolitical science. The following year, he completed hismandatory military service and left service as anOberstleutnant of the reserve.
Following his military service, he worked atFlughafen Frankfurt/Main AG (now Fraport) until 1994.
Willsch joined the CDU in 1979. In November 1993, he was elected mayor ofSchlangenbad, staying in the position until joining the Bundestag four years later. Ever since joining politics, Willsch has been active in the CDU ofHesse and in his home district.
Sincethe 1998 elections he has been a member of theBundestag. In parliament, he first served on the Finance Committee from 1998 until 2002. Following that, he was a member of the Budget Committee between until 2013. Since 2014, he has been serving on the Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy. In this capacity, he is his parliamentary group'srapporteur on aviation and arms exports.
In addition to his committee assignments, Willsch chaired the German-Croatian Parliamentary Friendship Group between 2006 and 2010; he has been serving as deputy chairman ever since. Since 2014, he has been chairing the Berlin-Taipei Parliamentary Circle of Friends.
From 1985 to 2011 and again since 2016, he is a member of theKreistag of theRheingau-Taunus-Kreis, an honorary governing body of the district. Until 2021, he was the chairman of the council.
In February 2019, theFu Jen Catholic University of Taipei awarded him anhonorary doctorate.
Within his party, Willsch is widely regarded a critic of chairwoman andChancellorAngela Merkel.[2][3] On 17 July 2015 he voted against the government's proposal to negotiate a third bailout forGreece.[4] In June 2017, he voted against Germany's introduction ofsame-sex marriage.[5] On 16 March 2018, he was one of three CDU members who broke ranks with their parliamentary group in not voting against a motion of theAlternative for Germany; instead they decided to abstain from the vote.[6]
Ahead of the Christian Democrats’leadership election in 2018, Willsch publicly endorsedFriedrich Merz to succeed Angela Merkel as the party's chair.[7] In early 2020, he co-founded an informal cross-party group of MPs from the CDU, CSU andFDP parties who opposed a potential coalition government between CDU/CSU and theGreen Party.[8]
On 10 May 2025, he gave an interview to the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme in which he stated that "Ukraine is fighting our war" against Russia.
Willsch is married and has five children.[9] The family resides in Holzhausen (which is called Holdesse in the local dialect), a town inRheingau-Taunus-Kreis.
On 28 February 2021, on his 60th birthday,while the country was under COVID-19 restrictions, Willsch celebrated among his family, when, according to him, friends showed up "unannounced". This raised the number of people present at the home to at least twelve. While technically this was not in violation ofthe country's measures against the pandemic,[10] he acknowledged that he did not "fulfill [his] role model function". The then-leader of the Hesse wing of theSocial Democratic Party has called Willsch's actions "brazen and instinctless". A video of the event was published byDer Spiegel.[11]
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