Potential Chancellor’s wives: Merz, Paluch or Ernst: Who will be the next chancellor?

Charlotte Merz, Britta Ernst or Andrea Paluch – who will be the next chancellor? After the surveys on the Bundestag election, Union Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) has the best chances of becoming head of government. This would result in Charlotte Merz as a chancellor’s wife. But also the partner of the still head of government and SPD candidate for chancellor Olaf Scholz – again Britta Ernst – or the wife of the Greens’ applicant Robert Habeck – Andrea Paluch – could also go to this role.

Charlotte Merz knows the political parquet

The lawyer Charlotte Merz knows the stage and flash of lightning from the Sauerland. She has experience with the political parquet – as well as with the dance floor. Charlotte Merz presents himself confidently and confidently at the side of her husband during joint appearances. It comes to party events as well as gala rounds. Show photos in the dirndl or at a carnival session – in Bellevue Castle, she shook her hand France President Emmanuel Macron.

The Merz couple lives in Arnsberg, the city is also the place of work of the judge. Professionally successful, mother of triple, multiple grandma, a versatile and independent partner – this also has an outdoor effect that should not be underestimated in the election campaign. Possibly helpful for Friedrich Merz, his popularity values ​​in the female electorate are considered rather poor.

Charlotte Merz comes from a legal family

In 1961, Charlotte Merz, who was still called a last name at the time, was born in Saarland. She comes from a family of lawyers, also studying Jura – in Bonn. There she meets Friedrich Merz in 1980, and a year later is married. Charlotte Merz is the director of the Arnsberg District Court. The couple supports training and educational work in Arnsberg with their own foundation, Charlotte Merz is also the chair of a foundation for church music.

Does she want to restrict her legal work in the event of a new role as a chancellor? The “Westfalenpost” she says at the beginning of February that she would continue professionally as before and wants to continue her life in the Sauerland as usual. And does not give praise that her husband has always supported her professional commitment and found it correctly, both of you organized family and married life on an equal footing.

In May 2024, her intervention at the CDU party conference in Berlin triggered a lot of vertebrae in front of running cameras. When satire reporter Lutz van der Horst wanted to get a statement by Friedrich Merz on the subject of leading culture for the “Today Show” (ZDF), he failed because of his wife: she took his arm with the mic Down and said: “First of all, leading culture means whether you want to give an answer.” There were expresses of respect for the resolute lady, but also ruffle, the German Association of Journalists spoke of an “outrageousness”.

Britta Ernst – consultant and great love by Olaf Scholz

Born in Hamburg, Britta Ernst is not just a wife and consultant for SPD Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz. She means “everything” for him, as he once said. Both have been married since 1998. Ernst accompanies her husband on appointments, but does not just want to be seen as a chancellor’s wife: “I have my own life,” she told the “time” at the beginning of the year. There was always the deal in the interest of her partnership never to work in the same field. Since 2023 it has not been in active politics.

Ernst has several honorary offices: in the Presidium of the Special Olympics and on the board of trustees of the International Youth Meeting Center in Oświęcim/Auschwitz. As a politician, she gained experience for years. From 1997 to 2011 she belonged to the Hamburg Citizenship and had to withdraw as the first mayor after her husband took office. She initially worked in the management of the SPD parliamentary group. In 2014 she became an education minister in Schleswig-Holstein, after the state election in 2017, when her department fell to the CDU, she went to Brandenburg as Minister of Education. She is regularly active on Instagram and prefers to post gloves on the side of the path (#handschuheamwegesrand).

Ernst resigned as a minister in 2023

The childless couple has been living in Potsdam since 2018, now in the immediate vicinity of the state parliament. It can be to meet seriously in the city. As Minister of Education, she showed herself northern German cautiously, pragmatic and calm. During the Corona pandemic, she was the President of the Conference of Ministers of Education in 2021 and had a difficult state because of the measures at schools.

Surprisingly, she resigned as a minister in 2023 and, as a reason, gave mainly lack of support in the SPD parliamentary group when it came to the search for teachers. In the same year, Scholz and Ernst Silber wedding celebrated – during a break of budget negotiations. Her husband did everything in the “Zeit” podcast “?” At the end of January a declaration of love when it came to the question of how he reacted to permanent criticism as a chancellor: “Love is the most important thing and that helps – always.”

Andrea Paluch is often in Berlin, but rarely to see public

Unlike Charlotte Merz or Britta Ernst, the wife of Federal Minister of Economics and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, Andrea Paluch, from (Berlin) politics and the cameras in the capital keeps away – even if she is there regularly. Current common pictures of her and her husband in public are rare. In principle, she does not express her questions that affect her husband’s professional field, the writer of the dpa said.

Also whether the 54 -year -old in the case of her husband’s chancellorship will be seen more often on the side of Habeck on official occasions or she will accompany him while traveling. Paluch does not want to be perceived as a “woman of” and prefer to talk about her own work rather than that of her husband.

Paluch and Habeck have been a couple for decades

In the past, she wrote books together with Habeck, whom she met during his studies and married in 1996. First they translated English poetry together, later they wrote their own books. When Habeck then went into politics, Paluch continued to write alone. “It was a very big change. So, it got boring, you can say,” she said in 2022 of the dpa.

Paluch writes for children and adults – often at the same time. That was quite good, she said in 2022: “If you take care of the same page all day, it is somehow quite grueling. And if you have another task in between, it’s quite good.”

The doctorate Paluch in the Hanover region grew up in a conservative parents’ house. Among other things, she studied in Freiburg and in the Danish Roskilde. The Paluch/Habeck family later lived in a village near Flensburg before moving to Flensburg. The couple shared the upbringing of their four now adult sons.