Thomas de Maizière

Karl Ernst Thomas de Maizière (German pronunciation: [də mɛˈzi̯ɛːɐ̯]; born 21 January 1954) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as Federal Minister of the Interior from 2009 to 2011 and 2013 to 2018, as well as Federal Minister of Defence from 2011 to 2013. He previously served as Head of the Chancellery and Federal Minister for Special Affairs in the First Merkel cabinet from 2005 to 2009. Since 2009, he has been a member of the Bundestag for Meißen.

Thomas de Maizière
De Maizière in 2017
Federal Minister of the Interior
In office
17 December 2013 – 14 March 2018
ChancellorAngela Merkel
Preceded byHans-Peter Friedrich
Succeeded byHorst Seehofer
In office
28 October 2009 – 3 March 2011
ChancellorAngela Merkel
Preceded byWolfgang Schäuble
Succeeded byHans-Peter Friedrich
Federal Minister of Defence
In office
3 March 2011 – 17 December 2013
ChancellorAngela Merkel
Preceded byKarl-Theodor zu Guttenberg
Succeeded byUrsula von der Leyen
Federal Minister for Special Affairs and Chief of the Federal Chancellery
In office
22 November 2005 – 27 October 2009
ChancellorAngela Merkel
Preceded byFrank-Walter Steinmeier
Succeeded byRonald Pofalla
Member of the Bundestag
for Meißen
Assumed office
27 September 2009
Preceded byConstituency established
Personal details
Born
Karl Ernst Thomas de Maizière

(1954-01-21) 21 January 1954
Bonn, West Germany (now Germany)
Political partyChristian Democratic Union
Spouse(s)Martina de Maizière
Children3
FatherUlrich de Maizière
RelativesLothar de Maizière (cousin)
Military service
Allegiance West Germany
Branch/service Bundeswehr
Years of service1972–1974
RankOberleutnant
UnitArmy (Heer) / Panzerbrigade 34

Along with Ursula von der Leyen and Wolfgang Schäuble, De Maizière was one of only three ministers to have continuously served in Chancellor Angela 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 of Saxony, including as chief of staff to the Minister-President, State Minister of Finance and State Minister of Justice.

Early life and education

Maizière was born in Bonn to the later Inspector general of the Bundeswehr, Ulrich de Maizière. He graduated at the Aloisiuskolleg in Bonn and studied law and history at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster and the University of Freiburg. He passed his first state examination in law in 1979 and his second 1982, earning his Doctor of law (Dr. jur.) in 1986.[3]

He belongs to a noble family originally from Maizières-lès-Metz[4] who, as Huguenots, had fled France for asylum in Prussia in the late 17th century.[5] The Maizière family still attended French-language schools and Huguenot churches in Berlin until the beginning of the 20th century. His cousin Lothar de Maizière is also a CDU politician and was the last, and only democratically elected, Premier of the German Democratic Republic, who later served as Federal Minister of Special Affairs in the Kohl government.[5]

Political career

Early career in state politics

Maizière worked for the governing mayor (prime minister) of West Berlin (Baron Richard von Weizsäcker and Eberhard Diepgen),[6] before becoming a member of the West German team in the negotiations on German reunification. After 1990 he worked with re-establishing democratic structures in states that were part of the former German Democratic Republic. He became secretary of state at the ministry of culture of the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in November 1990. From December 1994 to 1998 he was chief of staff of the Chancellery of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

He served as the chief of the Saxon Chancellery from 1999 to 2001, with the rank of cabinet minister. As chief of staff to Kurt 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 2004 minister of justice, and from 2004 to 2005 as minister of the interior.[7]

Chief of Staff at the Federal Chancellery (2005–2009)

On 17 October 2005, Maizière was nominated as a member of the Federal Government as chief of the Chancellor's office and as federal minister for special affairs in the first Merkel cabinet.[7] He took office on 22 November 2005, after Merkel's election as Chancellor by the Bundestag. In his capacity as chief of staff of the chancellery, he also functioned as deputy president of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik).

Between 2007 and 2009, Maizière was one of 32 members of the Second Commission on the modernization of the federal state, which was established to reform the division of powers between federal and state authorities in Germany.

Federal Minister of the Interior (2009–2011)

In the negotiations to form a coalition government following the 2009 federal elections, Maizière led the CDU/CSU delegation in the working group on taxes, national budget, and financial policy; with Hermann Otto Solms of the FDP as joint chairman. Following the formation of the Second Merkel cabinet, he took office as Federal 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 the Internationale Humanitäre Hilfsorganisation (IHH), a charity registered in Frankfurt, because of its alleged links to the militant Palestinian organization Hamas, arguing that "the IHH has, under the cover of humanitarian aid, supported Gaza 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 the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.[10]

In October 2010, Maizière and Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer banned arrivals of all air cargo from Yemen, 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 at Cologne Bonn Airport.[11]

Minister of Defence (2011–2013)
De Maizière as Minister of Defence at a news conference in 2012

On 2 March 2011, Merkel announced that Maizière was to take over from Karl-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 the Federal 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 the diplomatic relations between German and India, Maizière participated in the first joint cabinet meeting of the two countries’ governments in Delhi in May 2011.[15] On 7 June 2011, he attended the state dinner hosted by President Barack Obama in honor of Chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House.[16]

Speaking to the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in February 2012, Maizière said that an Israel 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 warned Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak against an attack on Iran, 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 using drones for targeted killings a "strategic mistake". According to the online news edition of the German public television broadcaster ARD, Maizière had said he thought it was unwise to have U.S. commanders direct such attacks from their bases in the United States.[20]

Second appointment as Federal Minister of the Interior (2013–2018)
Thomas de Maizière with his Italian counterpart Marco Minniti, 2017

In the negotiations to form a government following the 2013 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 was Frank-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 the EPP Justice and Home Affairs Ministers Meeting, alongside Esteban 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 under NSA 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 of NATO 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's Federal Intelligence Service (BND) helping U.S. agencies to spy on European firms such as the defence manufacturer Airbus.[25]

In late 2014, Maizière proposed a law according to which the government would have the power to withdraw the identity 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 as Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.[26] In May 2015, he banned Yuruyus, a leftist-terrorist newspaper published by the Turkish extremist group DHKP-C, and had his ministry order raids across the country in connection with this ban.[27]

By late 2015, amid the European 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 and Turkey in Berlin.[32]

Later career

Since leaving government in 2018, Maizère has been serving on the Committee on Finance. In addition to his work in parliament, he has been teaching constitutional law at the University of Leipzig.[33]

Ahead of the Christian Democrats’ leadership election in 2018, de Maizière publicly endorsed Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to succeed Angela Merkel as the party’s chair.[34]

Since 2019, de Maizière has been serving as chairman of the Deutsche Telekom Foundation.[35] Also in 2019, he was appointed by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community to serve on the committee that oversaw the preparations for the 30th anniversary of German reunification.[36]

In 2020, de Maizière was appointed by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to co-chair (alongside A. 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 the 2021 federal elections but instead resign from active politics by the end of the parliamentary term.[38]

Other activities

Recognition

Personal life

Maizière is married to Martina de Maizière, with whom he has three children. He is protestant.

gollark: Assuming you can type fast enough.
gollark: With some simple use of pulseaudio or whatever you prefer and espeak, you don't need a microphone.
gollark: You can use espeak like me, then.
gollark: It would hypothetically be fairly safe to only talk about it in meta-level hypotheticals.
gollark: If it was hypothetically secret, then hypothetically, telling you information about it could hypothetically permit cryptanalysis.

References
  1. Arne Delfs (22 January 2014), Merkel Succession Beckons After von der Leyen’s Defense Posting Businessweek.
  2. Arne Delfs (17 July 2014), Merkel at 60 Says No Rest on Laurels as Power Uncontested Bloomberg.
  3. "Thomas de Maizière (CDU)". Federal Government. Archived from the original on 5 August 2011. Retrieved 18 August 2011.
  4. "Die Familie de Maizière, eine deutsche Dynastie" (in German). Welt. 6 March 2011. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  5. Dempsey, Judy (2 March 2011). "Merkel Is Quick to Fill Open Cabinet Position". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
  6. Judy Dempsey (18 October 2005), Merkel shares history with aide International Herald Tribune.
  7. Judy Dempsey (2 March 2011), Merkel Is Quick to Fill Open Cabinet Position International Herald Tribune.
  8. Erik Kirschbaum and Eric Kelsey (2 March 2011), German ministers in cabinet reshuffle Reuters.
  9. Germany outlaws charity over alleged Hamas links Haaretz, 12 July 2010.
  10. Prisoner Plans: Germany Agrees to Take Two Inmates from Guantanamo Spiegel Online, 7 July 2010.
  11. Germany tipped off Britain about mail bomb, minister says Haaretz, 31 October 2010.
  12. Pidd, Helen (2 March 2011). "Angela Merkel appoints her closest adviser as defence minister". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 July 2013.
  13. "Neue Minister ernannt" [New ministers appointed]. Cabinet of Germany (in German). 3 March 2011. Retrieved 3 March 2011.
  14. Judy Dempsey (18 May 2011), Germany Plans Deep Cuts to Its Armed Forces International Herald Tribune.
  15. Günther Bannas (30 May 2011), Hoffnung auf „Eurofighter"-Geschäft: Erste deutsch-indische Regierungskonsultationen Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
  16. Expected Attendees at Tonight's State Dinner Office of the First Lady of the United States, press release of 7 June 2011.
  17. Germany: Israeli military strike on Iran unlikely to succeed Haaretz, 12 February 2012.
  18. Ofer Aderet (27 March 2012), Germany official: Meeting with Israel's Barak left me 'more concerned' of war with Iran Haaretz.
  19. Barak Ravid (31 March 2012), Australia joins list of countries warning against Israeli strike on Iran Haaretz.
  20. Judy Dempsey (11 June 2012), Europe Stays Quiet Despite Unease About Drones International Herald Tribune.
  21. "Minister". Federal Ministry of the Interior. Archived from the original on 6 February 2014. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  22. Council of the EU and Ministerial meetings European People’s Party (EPP).
  23. "U.S. now bugging German ministers in place of Merkel: report". Reuters. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  24. "Merkel's aides now on NSA radar, claims Dutch news report". Germany News.Net. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  25. Erik Kirschbaum (29 April 2015), Close Merkel ally de Maiziere rejects charges he lied Reuters.
  26. Rainer Buergin and Arne Delfs (17 October 2014), Germany Clamps Down on Flow of Fighters to Islamic State Bloomberg News.
  27. Germany Bans Extremist Turkish Paper, Conducts Raids New York Times, 6 May 2015.
  28. Francois Murphy (26 November 2015), German interior minister calls for European refugee cap: newspaper Reuters.
  29. Noah Barkin (17 September 2015), Loyal Merkel ally in firing line over refugee crisis Reuters.
  30. Caroline Copley (9 December 2015), German cabinet approves identity card for refugees Reuters.
  31. Madeline Chambers (16 March 2016), Germany bans neo-Nazi group as fears of far-right grow Reuters.
  32. Erste Deutsch-Türkische Regierungskonsultationen in Berlin Federal Government of Germany, press release of 15 January 2016.
  33. Neuer Job: Thomas de Maizière lehrt Jura an der Leipziger Uni Leipziger Volkszeitung, June 8, 2018.
  34. Christian Rothenberg (December 5, 2018), So groß sind die Lager der Unterstützer für Merz, Spahn und Kramp-Karrenbauer Handelsblatt.
  35. Change in leadership: Thomas de Maizière to be the new Chairman Deutsche Telekom Foundation.
  36. 30 Jahre Friedliche Revolution und Deutsche Einheit Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community, press release of April 3, 2019.
  37. Secretary General appoints group as part of NATO reflection process NATO, press release of 31 March 2020.
  38. Markus Langner (May 12, 2020), Ex-Bundesinnenminister De Maizière macht Schluss mit Bundestag BILD.
  39. Dana Heide, Daniel Delhaes, Silke Kersting and Stephan Scheuer (September 6, 2018), Thomas de Maizière hat sechs neue Jobs – auch einen bei der Telekom Handelsblatt.
  40. Speech given at the ceremony honoring Thomas de Maizière on June 7, 2019 President of Germany.

Publications
Political offices
Preceded by
Frank-Walter Steinmeier		 Chief of the Chancellery
2005–2009		 Succeeded by
Ronald Pofalla
Vacant
Title last held by
Bodo Hombach		 Minister for Special Affairs
2005–2009
Preceded by
Wolfgang Schäuble		 Minister of the Interior
2009–2011		 Succeeded by
Hans-Peter Friedrich
Preceded by
Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg		 Minister of Defence
2011–2013		 Succeeded by
Ursula von der Leyen
Preceded by
Hans-Peter Friedrich		 Minister of the Interior
2013–2018		 Succeeded by
Horst Seehofer
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