Before returning to politics, won a national election and became the first potential chancellor of modern German history not to have won the post during the first ballot in Parliament, Friedrich Merz accepted an invitation to a rally of the French foreign legion in Corsica.
At the last moment, the organizers asked him to arrive on the parade ground not by road or rail, but by parachute. Mr. Merz, then a business lawyer, had never jumped from an airplane. But a participating colleague recently recalled that Mr. Merz had not hesitated. He made the jump – successfully, but with a little raw landing.
It is not yet known what are the long -term implications of the more recent gross landing of Mr. Merz – his attempt to become the next Chancellor of Germany.
After demanding two voting cycles in Parliament, he will become the next chief of Germany. But he will do so at a pivotal time for the economy, security and the role of the country in Europe, and with new questions swirling around him.
The inability to obtain enough votes on Tuesday to become a chancellor during the first vote comes because he needs to spread the legislators to face crises in the country and abroad, while retaining a push from the extreme right alternative for Germany or AFD.
Mr. Merz is a sauerland product in the West rich in Germany, a region that defines its policy and its personality. During his campaign, he ran on the slogan “More Sauerland for Germany”, evoking the image of the region as the heart of the country.
Supporters call him an agile politician with the potential to achieve the big questions that are worried about the German public: growth, defense, immigration.
“I think he is extremely well prepared and very deep and thoughtful,” said John P. Schmitz, an assistant White House advisor under George HW Bush. Schmitz helped hire Mr. Merz to work in the German offices of the law firm in Chicago Mayer Brown and jumped from the plane in Corsica with Mr. Merz around 2005.
But others say that Mr. Merz has trouble planning more than one step ahead, leading him to break the promises – and leaving him vulnerable to surprise backhand as the vote on Tuesday.
His invoices on expenses and migration have alienated many of the conservative voters of his base. And Mr. Merz and his party have sagged in the ballot boxes from the elections, allowing AFD to draw even with them in certain surveys. Even before his parliament trips on Tuesday, he had one of the lowest approval notes of all German leader in the modern era.
“There is this old saying:” Whatever you do, act judiciously and consider the end “,” said Ruprecht Polenz, former secretary general of Mr. Merz’s party. “This thought,” he added, “I think it’s not his main strength.”
Learn more about Mr. Merz, his history and his approach to politics Our profile of him.