GERMAN CHANCELLOR - FRIEDRICH MERZ

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Commander John Storm just wants to be left alone to complete his DNA collection, and explore the uncharted regions on planet earth. But he always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz is taken hostage.

Joachim-Friedrich Martin Josef Merz was born on the 11th of November 1955. He is a German politician serving as Chancellor of Germany since 6 May 2025. He has also served as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) since January 2022, leading the CDU/CSU (Union) parliamentary group as Leader of the Opposition in the Bundestag from February 2022 to May 2025.

Merz was born in Brilon in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in West Germany. He joined the Young Union in 1972. After finishing law school in 1985, Merz worked as a judge and corporate lawyer before entering full-time politics in 1989 when he was elected to the European Parliament. After serving one term he was elected to the Bundestag, where he established himself as the leading financial policy expert in the CDU. He was elected chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in 2000, the same year as Angela Merkel was elected chairwoman of the CDU, and at the time they were chief rivals for the leadership of the party, which led the opposition together with CSU.

After the 2002 federal election, Merkel claimed the parliamentary group chairmanship for herself, while Merz was elected deputy parliamentary group leader. In December 2004, he resigned from this office, thereby giving up the years-long power struggle with Merkel and gradually withdrew from politics, focusing on his legal career and leaving parliament entirely in 2009, until his return to parliament in 2021. In 2004, he became a senior counsel with Mayer Brown, where he has focused on mergers and acquisitions, banking and finance, and compliance. He has served on the boards of numerous companies, including BlackRock Germany.

A corporate lawyer and reputed multimillionaire, Merz is also a licensed private pilot and owns two aeroplanes. In 2018, he announced his return to politics. He was elected CDU leader in December 2021, assuming the office in January 2022. He had failed to win the position in two previous leadership elections in 2018, and January 2021. In September 2024, he became the Union's candidate for Chancellor of Germany ahead of the 2025 German federal election. The CDU/CSU subsequently reached an agreement to form a coalition with the SPD. Merz was elected chancellor on 6 May 2025 in a second round of voting, after unexpectedly failing to garner the required absolute majority of parliamentary votes in the first round of voting – a first in German history.

As a young politician in the 1970s and 1980s, Merz was a staunch supporter of anti-communism, the dominant political doctrine of West Germany and a core tenet of the CDU. He is seen as a representative of the traditional establishment conservative and pro-business wings of the CDU. His book Mehr Kapitalismus wagen (Venturing More Capitalism) advocates economic liberalism. Prior to the second presidency of Donald Trump, he was frequently described as being "exceptionally pro-American", and was once the chairman of the Atlantik-Brücke association which promotes German-American friendship and Atlanticism. He is a staunch supporter of the European Union, NATO, and the liberal international order, having described himself as "a truly convinced European, a convinced Transatlanticist, and a German open to the world". Merz advocates a closer union and "an army for Europe".

DEFENCE SPENDING

On 5 March 2025, Merz proposed a significant increase in defence spending. He stated at the press conference: "Germany and Europe must quickly strengthen their defence capabilities. The CDU, CSU and SPD will table a motion to amend the Basic Law so that defence spending above 1% of GDP is exempt from the debt brake". This would allow Germany to increase its debt without limits in order to finance its military and provide military assistance to Ukraine. Economists have warned that Merz's plan could trigger inflation and increase Germany's government debt. Germany would pay approximately €71 billion in interest annually from 2035. During negotiations for the next German cabinet, Merz and outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz reached an agreement to reform the debt brake by amending Paragraphs 109, 115 and 143h of the Basic Law to exempt defence spending exceeding 1% of GDP.

Next to the defence spending Merz agreed to create a special fund of €500 billion for "investments in infrastructure and for additional investments to achieve climate neutrality by 2045". On 18 March 2025, German lawmakers approved the amendment to the Basic Law. The change will allow the Merz government to spend €500 billion on infrastructure and green energy within 10 years and to have defence spending above 1% of GDP to be exempted from the debt brake; this allows an unlimited debt-based financing of defence spending. Merz, who had promised to not touch the debt brake rule prior to the German federal election, justified the increase in defence spending by the threat from Russia, citing Putin's "war of aggression against Europe". He called the decision "the first major step towards a new European defence community." He also planned to increase military aid to Ukraine. The trillion-euro spending package was approved before the 21st Bundestag was constituted on 25 March 2025, where The Left and AfD would have the ability to block it. A two-thirds majority was needed to change the constitution. The plan was supported by the CDU, CSU, SPD, and the Greens. Merz's fiscal package was welcomed by French President Emmanuel Macron, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

FOREIGN POLICY

Merz is a staunch supporter of the European Union, NATO and the liberal international order. In 2018, he described himself as "a truly convinced European, a convinced transatlanticist, and a German open to the world" and said that "I stand for a cosmopolitan Germany whose roots lie in Christian ethics and the European Enlightenment and whose most important political allies are the democracies of the West. I gladly use this expression again: The democracies of the West". He advocates a closer union and especially closer relations between Germany and France. In 2018, he co-authored an article in defence of the European project, which among other things called for "an army for Europe".

Merz is known for hawkish stances on authoritarian countries, in particular Russia and China. In 2023, Merz called for Germany to involve key allies, especially France, in negotiations with China as part of a rethinking of ties with the country that reflected a global "paradigm shift" in security and foreign policy. He called China "an increasing threat to [German] security", and criticized Scholz's decision to allow China's COSCO to take a stake in the port of Hamburg.

In February 2025, Merz said that Germany would negotiate with France and the United Kingdom about extending their nuclear umbrella to Germany. Merz said, "We need to have discussions with both the British and the French—the two European nuclear powers—about whether nuclear sharing, or at least nuclear security from the U.K. and France, could also apply to us". The move to reconvene the old Bundestag were criticized. Merz received international support for the financial package from NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

UNITED STATES

Long considered one of the most pro-American politicians in Germany and "exceptionally pro-American for a European leader", he has been the chairman of the Atlantik-Brücke association which promotes German-American friendship and Atlanticism. He counts former US President Ronald Reagan as one of his role models and has travelled to the US over 100 times.

Merz has criticized Donald Trump more harshly than Angela Merkel did and has especially criticized Trump's trade war against Europe. In fall of 2024, he said with regards to relations to the US and Russia, he would try to make himself "a little more independent from the US", as the US would be "in election mode" and "not the regulatory power that we were actually used to". When polls during the 2024 German government crisis predicted that Merz would be the most likely to become the next chancellor, he said that Germany "must go from being a sleeping middle power to becoming a leading middle power again". Germany "never really articulated and enforced its interests well enough [...] The aim is not to benefit only one side, but to make arrangements that are good for both sides. Trump would call it a deal". In January 2025 he said regarding the United States, "We Europeans must be united [...] and those who travel to Washington must not only represent their own interests but the interests of the whole European Union".

In February 2025, Merz said Europe urgently strengthen its defences and potentially even find a replacement for NATO, within months. Merz has criticized the Trump-led United States for alleged election interference after American government officials tried to bolster the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, regarded as extremist by Germany's domestic intelligence agency, comparing it to Russian election interference.]

A week after the beginning of his chancellorship, Merz said at the summit of the European Political Community that Europe has to "undertake all efforts to keep the Americans on our side" and "can't substitute or replace what the Americans still do for us."

RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE

Following the start of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Merz adopted strong pro-Ukrainian and anti-Russian positions, urging Chancellor Olaf Scholz to supply Ukraine with weapons and personally travelling to Kyiv in May to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

While Merz, as opposition leader, had demanded that the German government of Scholz deliver German Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine, he himself said that he would not necessarily deliver Taurus cruise missiles if he were chancellor. As chancellor, he would provide them if Russia or Vladimir Putin did not comply with Germany's and other European countries' request to stop attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and on the condition that France and Great Britain, for their part, lift the range limitation on the weapons they delivered to Ukraine. Merz said he would, as chancellor, try to bring about a European decision on the matter of the question of whether to allow Ukraine to strike against targets deep within Russian territory with Western weapons. He said he would also signal Putin his willingness to talk beforehand. In December 2024 he said that Germany is letting Ukraine fight with one arm strapped on its back. Germany should instead give Ukraine the possibility to defend itself effectively with weapons from Germany. In 2025, Merz supported purchasing long-range missiles from Ukraine, adding that there were "no more range limitations for weapons delivered to Ukraine" from Germany; this change was seen by Politico as allowing Taurus missiles to be delivered to Ukraine in the future. He added that "Ukraine has the right to use the weapons it receives, even beyond its own borders, against military targets on Russian territory".

CYBER WW3III CAST:

  OLAF SCHOLTZ IS THE GERMAN SDP CHANCELLOR - IN THIS FICTIONAL POLITICAL THRILLER WHERE EXTREMIST PLOT TO EXTERMINATE ALL LIFE ON EARTH VIA A NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST - THE RISE AGAIN FROM THE ASHES TO RULE THE PLANET

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