Merz appoints Franziska Hoppermann as new CDU General Secretary, succeeds Linnemann

Franziska Hoppermann from Hamburg is the new CDU General Secretary. She is assigned to the liberal wing. But she is not quite that liberal.

Updated: 27 July 2026, 11:10 Uhr

Franziska Hoppermann is to be promoted from the party's treasurer to general secretary. Photo: Soeren Stache/dpa

By Gernot Knödler

Now it has finally happened with the position of CDU General Secretary. The Hamburg member of the Bundestag, Franziska Hoppermann, had already applied for the office once before, in 2021 on a team with foreign policy expert Norbert Röttgen. Röttgen ran against Friedrich Merz and Armin Laschet for the CDU chairmanship at the time – with Hoppermann in tow.

The current CDU chairman and Federal Chancellor Merz does not seem to be bothered by this and is promoting the previous party treasurer to general secretary. Apparently, he shares Röttgen's assessment, who praised Hoppermann at the time as intellectual, organizationally talented, and communicative – all qualities needed for this job.

That she is not intellectually naive is already indicated by the fact that she was supported by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation during her business administration studies in Hamburg. At times, she worked concurrently as a research assistant for a Hamburg state parliament member, alongside her mandate in the Hamburg-Wandsbek district assembly.

After her studies, she entered the higher administrative service of the Hanseatic city, where she most recently headed the central office of the Authority for Justice and Consumer Protection. According to her own statement, she was closely involved in the city-state's crisis management at the authority. Not least for this reason, she was elected chair of the Bundestag's Corona Enquete Commission.

The "Experiential Feminist"

Hoppermann, previously the CDU's federal treasurer, belongs to the party's employee wing and is assigned to its liberal spectrum. During her presentation with Röttgen in 2021, she announced that she wanted to modernize the party:

• Members should be granted more participation.
• The party should become more digital.
• The party should turn to the major future issues.

However, the woman who grew up in a large Catholic family is not quite that liberal:

• She criticized the migration policy of the traffic light coalition.
• She considers the legalization of cannabis wrong.
• She also opposes the lifting of the "advertising ban" for abortion.
• In 2018, she spoke out in favor of a headscarf ban for girls under 14.

"I want to live in a country where community spirit and patriotism are central," she said during her application five years ago. Her role model is her grandfather Carl Damm, who sat in the Bundestag for the CDU for 15 years until 1980. In her view, contemporary conservatism is "above all the assurance that the state works."

Since 2017, Hoppermann has been chair of the Hamburg Women's Union. She describes herself as an "experiential feminist" and believes that the Union needs more visible women to make the party more attractive to women. With this, she has moved a step further.

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