Bernd Althusmann (; born 3 December 1966) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as Deputy Minister-President and State Minister for Economic Affairs in the government of Minister-President

Stephan Weil Stephan Weil (born 15 December 1958) is a German politician and the leader of the Social Democratic Party in Lower Saxony. On 20 January 2013, the SPD and the Green party won the 2013 Lower Saxony state election by one seat. On 19 February 2013 ...

from 2017 to 2022.

Career

From 1994 to 2009, Althusmann was Member of the

Landtag of Lower Saxony The Lower Saxon Landtag () or the Parliament of Lower Saxony is the state diet of the German state of Lower Saxony. It convenes in Hanover and currently consists of 146 members, consisting of four parties. Since 2022 the majority is a coalition ...

. He served as State Minister of Education in the cabinets Wulff II and McAllister from 27 April 2010 until 19 February 2013. In July 2011 it was reported that Althusmann had taken over texts or literal texts in several places in his dissertation. The University of Potsdam has not confirmed the plagiarism allegations, despite deficiencies. Between 2013 and 2016, Althusmann headed the

Konrad Adenauer Foundation The Konrad Adenauer Foundation (german: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, KAS) is a German political party foundation associated with but independent of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The foundation's headquarters are located in Sa ...

's office in

Windhoek Windhoek (, , ) is the capital and largest city of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around above sea level, almost exactly at the country's geographical centre. The population of Windhoek in 20 ...

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and e ...

. Althusmann was the CDU's leading candidate for the 2017 Lower Saxon state election. On the national level, Althusmann served as a CDU delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the

President of Germany The president of Germany, officially the Federal President of the Federal Republic of Germany (german: link=no, Bundespräsident der Bundesrepublik Deutschland),The official title within Germany is ', with ' being added in international corres ...

in 2010, 2012,

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

and

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretariat; The global monkeyp ...

. In the negotiations to form a coalition government under the leadership of

Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...

Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German former politician and scientist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she previously served as Leader of the Op ...

following the 2017 federal elections, he co-chaired the working group on urban development; his counterparts were

Kurt Gribl Kurt Gribl (born 29 August 1964 Augsburg, Germany) is a former Mayor of Augsburg, Bavaria, an office he held from 1 May 2008 to 30 April 2020. He is a member of the Christian Social Union of Bavaria. Early career Gribl has been practicing law sin ...

and

Natascha Kohnen Natascha Kohnen (born 27 October 1967) is a German politician of the SPD who has been a member of the Landtag of Bavaria since 2009. From 2017 until 2021, she served as chairwoman of the SPD Bavaria. Political career Kohnen has been a member ...

. Together with

Monika Grütters Monika Grütters (born 9 January 1962) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2013-2021. She has ...

Daniel Günther Daniel Günther (born 24 July 1973) is a German politician who is a member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU). Since 28 June 2017, he has served as the Minister President of Schleswig-Holstein. From 1 November 2018 to 31 October ...

Michael Kretschmer Michael Kretschmer (born 7 May 1975) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as Minister President of Saxony since 13 December 2017. Since 2022, he has been one of four deputy chairs of the CDU, under ...

and

Armin Laschet Armin Laschet (; born 18 February 1961) is a German politician who served as Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia from 27 June 2017 to 26 October 2021. He served as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 22 January 2021 to ...

, Althusmann co-chaired the CDU’s national convention in Berlin in February 2018. Since 2022, Althusmann has been chairing – alongside

Gitta Connemann Gitta Connemann (born 10 May 1964) is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as a member of the German Parliament since 2002. Since 2021, she has been serving as the chairwoman of MIT, the pro ...

– a working group charged with drafting the CDU’s positions on energy policy.

Other activities

Regulatory agencies

* Federal Network Agency for Electricity, Gas, Telecommunications, Post and Railway (BNetzA), Alternate Member of the Advisory Board

Corporate boards

Volkswagen Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a global brand post ...

, Ex-Officio Member of the Supervisory Board (since 2017) *

Deutsche Messe AG Deutsche Messe AG (german: German Trade Fair Limited, links=no) is the operating company for the Hanover Fairground, based in the city of Hanover, Germany. It is the largest trade fair operator in Germany and was founded in 1947. One of the main ...

, Ex-Officio Chairman of the Supervisory Board (since 2017) *

JadeWeserPort JadeWeserPort () is Germany's largest harbour project. It is supported by the states of Lower Saxony (50.1% stake) and Bremen (49.9% stake). This new container port is located at Wilhelmshaven at the Jade Bight, a bay on the North Sea coas ...

, Ex-Officio Chairman of the Supervisory Board (since 2017) * Niedersachsen Ports GmbH & Co. KG (NPorts), Ex-Officio Chairman of the Supervisory Board (since 2017)

Political positions

During his election campaign, Althusmann publicly favored someone from outside the auto industry to succeed VW chief executive Matthias Müller and wanted to cede one of the state’s two board seats to a non-political expert. But when his party lost the 2017 state elections to the SPD, he claimed the economy minister’s right to join VW’s supervisory board alongside Minister-President Weil. Ahead of the Christian Democrats’

leadership election A leadership election is a political contest held in various countries by which the members of a political party determine who will be the leader of their party. Generally, any political party can determine its own rules governing how and when a l ...

in 2021, Althusmann publicly endorsed

to succeed

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (; Kramp; born 9 August 1962), sometimes referred to by her initials of AKK, is a retired German politician who served as Minister of Defence from 2019 to 2021 and as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) fro ...

as the party’s chair. For the 2021 national elections, he later also endorsed Laschet as the Christian Democrats' joint candidate to succeed

.Kristina Dunz (April 13, 2021)
Althusmann fordert Laschet und Söder zu schneller Lösung auf
''

RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland The (RND) () is the Hanover-based joint corporate newsroom of German . The biggest limited partner A limited partnership (LP) is a form of partnership similar to a general partnership except that while a general partnership must have at leas ...

''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Althusmann, Bernd Ministers of the Lower Saxony State Government 1966 births Christian Democratic Union of Germany politicians Living people