Klaus-Dieter Fritsche (born 16 May 1953 in

Bamberg Bamberg (, , ; East Franconian German, East Franconian: ''Bambärch'') is a town in Upper Franconia district in Bavaria, Germany, on the river Regnitz close to its confluence with the river Main (river), Main. Bamberg had 79,000 inhabitants in ...

) is a former German civil servant who served as State Secretary and Commissioner for the Intelligence Services in the government of

Chancellor Chancellor () is a title of various official positions in the governments of many countries. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the (lattice work screens) of a basilica (court hall), which separa ...

Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German retired politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. She is the only woman to have held the office. She was Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and Leade ...

from 2014 until 2018. He is a member of the

Christian Social Union of Bavaria The Christian Social Union in Bavaria (German language, German: , CSU) is a Christian democracy, Christian democratic and Conservatism in Germany, conservative List of political parties in Germany, political party in Germany. Having a regionali ...

(CSU).

Early life and education

Fritsche studied law at the

University of Erlangen A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

Career

Fritsche became a

judge A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...

in 1981. From 1988 he worked for the CSU parliamentary group at the German

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet (assembly), Diet") is the lower house of the Germany, German Federalism in Germany, federal parliament. It is the only constitutional body of the federation directly elected by the German people. The Bundestag wa ...

, then based in Bonn. In 1991 he joined the Bavarian representation in Bonn. He returned to Bavaria in 1993 as chief of staff to Hermann Regensburger and, from 1995, Günther Beckstein, at the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior, in the government of Minister-President

Edmund Stoiber Edmund Rüdiger Stoiber (born 28 September 1941) is a German politician who served as the 16th minister-president of the state of Bavaria between 1993 and 2007 and chairman of the Christian Social Union (CSU) between 1999 and 2007. In 2002, he ...

. From October 1996 Fritsche served as Vice President of the

Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution ( or BfV, often ''Bundesverfassungsschutz'') is Germany's federal domestic intelligence agency. Together with the Landesämter für Verfassungsschutz (LfV) at the state level, the fed ...

. In Chancellor Merkel's first term, Fritsche served as Federal Intelligence Service coordinator at the

German Chancellery The Federal Chancellery (, ) is a Germany, German Federal agency (Germany), federal agency serving the executive office of the chancellor of Germany, the head of the Government of Germany, federal government, currently Friedrich Merz. The Chancel ...

from December 2005 on. In November 2009 he was appointed deputy minister () at the

Federal Ministry of the Interior An interior ministry or ministry of the interior (also called ministry of home affairs or ministry of internal affairs) is a government department that is responsible for domestic policy, public security and law enforcement. In some states, the i ...

under the leadership of minister

Thomas de Maizière Karl Ernst Thomas de Maizière (; born 21 January 1954) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as Federal Minister of the Interior from 2009 to 2011 and 2013 to 2018, as well as Federal Minister of Defence f ...

, succeeding August Hanning.

Later career

From 2019 until 2020, Fritsche worked as external advisor to Austrian

Minister of the Interior An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...

Herbert Kickl Herbert Kickl (born 19 October 1968) is an Austrian politician who has been leader of the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) since June 2021. He previously served as Ministry of the Interior (Austria), minister of the interior from 2017 t ...

in the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

Sebastian Kurz Sebastian Kurz (; born 27 August 1986) is an Austrian former politician who served twice as Chancellor of Austria, first from 2017 to 2019 and then again from 2020 to 2021. Kurz was born and raised in Meidling, Vienna. He entered politics by ...

. Amid the

Wirecard scandal The Wirecard scandal (German: ''Wirecard-Skandal'') was a series of corrupt business practices and fraudulent financial reporting that led to the insolvency of Wirecard, a payment processor and financial services provider, headquartered in Munic ...

, media reports revealed that Fritsche helped set up a meeting with

Lars-Hendrik Röller Lars-Hendrik Röller (born in Frankfurt am Main on July 19, 1958) is a German economist who served as the Director General for Economic and Financial Policy at the German Chancellery from 2011 to 2022, a position that made him Chancellor Angela Me ...

, Merkel's senior economic adviser, and senior Wirecard executives in September 2019. In 2020, Fritsche was appointed as member of German

defense Defense or defence may refer to: Tactical, martial, and political acts or groups * Defense (military), forces primarily intended for warfare * Civil defense, the organizing of civilians to deal with emergencies or enemy attacks * Defense industr ...

manufacturing

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether Natural person, natural, Juridical person, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members ...

Heckler & Koch Heckler & Koch GmbH (HK or H&K; ) is a German firearms manufacturer that produces handguns, rifles, submachine guns, and grenade launchers. The company is located in Oberndorf am Neckar, Baden-Württemberg and also has subsidiaries in the United ...

's supervisory board; however, the Chancellery later vetoed the appointment.Peter Carstens (24 October 2020)
Kanzleramt verbot früherem Geheimdienstler Tätigkeit bei Heckler & Koch
''

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung The (; ''FAZ''; "Frankfurt General Newspaper") is a German newspaper founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt and is considered a newspaper of record for Germany. Its Sunday edition is the ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung'' ( ...

''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fritsche, Klaus Christian Social Union in Bavaria politicians 1953 births Living people

Early life and education

Career

Later career

See also

References