Stephan Ernst Johann Mayer (born 15 December 1973) is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Social Union (CSU) who has been a member of 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 ...

since 2002. In 2022, he briefly served as the Secretary General of the CSU, under the leadership of the party's chairman

Markus Söder Markus Thomas Theodor Söder (born 5 January 1967) is a German politician from Bavaria, Germany serving as List of Ministers-President of Bavaria, Minister-President of Bavaria since 2018 and Leader of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, lead ...

Early life

Mayer was born in Burghausen (

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

). In 1993, after leaving school, he attended

Ludwig-Maximilian University The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke Ludwig IX of Bav ...

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

to study law. He graduated in 1997 after passing the first state examination in Law. In 2000 he passed the second state examination and since 2009 has worked as a lawyer for the Nachmann Vilgertshofer Scharf Barfuß Rechtsanwalts GmbH in Munich.

Political career

From 1994 to 2003, Mayer was chairman of the Regional Association of the youth organisation

Junge Union The Junge Union Deutschlands (English: Young Union of Germany) or JU is the joint youth organisation of the CDU/CSU coalition in Germany. Membership is limited to individuals between 14 and 35 years of age. The Junge Union claims to be the large ...

Altötting Altötting (, , in contrast to "Neuötting, New Ötting"; , ) is a Town#Germany, town in Bavaria, capital of the Altötting (district), district Altötting of Germany. For 500 years it has been the scene of religious pilgrimages by Catholics in ...

. Since 1997 he has been a deputy chairman of the CSU district association Altötting and to the council of the CSU Upper Bavaria district, led by

Ilse Aigner Ilse Aigner (born 7 December 1964) is a German politician and member of the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU). Aigner was born in Feldkirchen-Westerham, Bavaria, and entered Angela Merkel's grand coalition cabinet as Federal Minister o ...

. Since 2006, Mayer has been a Deputy Regional Chairman of the Union of Expellees (Union der Vertriebenen (UdV)), and since 2009 a member of the CSU leadership under party chairman

Horst Seehofer Horst Lorenz Seehofer (born 4 July 1949) is a German politician who served as Minister for the Interior, Building and Community under Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2018 to 2021. A member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), he served as the ...

Member of Parliament, 2002–present

Since the

2002 elections The following elections occurred in the year 2002. * 2002 Bahraini parliamentary election * 2002 Comorian presidential election * 2002 East Timorese presidential election * 2002 Fijian municipal election * 2002 Hong Kong Chief Executive election * ...

, Mayer has been a member of the

. In the 2009 elections, he received 60.7 percent of the primary votes and thus achieved the third best result in Germany. In the Bundestag, Mayer was a full member of the Committee on Internal Affairs and of the Sports Committee. In that capacity, he was his parliamentary group's

rapporteur A rapporteur is a person who is appointed by an organization to report on the proceedings of its meetings. The term is a French-derived word. For example, Dick Marty was appointed ''rapporteur'' by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Eur ...

privacy law Privacy law is a set of regulations that govern the collection, storage, and utilization of personal information from healthcare, governments, companies, public or private entities, or individuals. Privacy laws are examined in relation to an ind ...

. He was a member of the Parliamentary Oversight Panel (PKGr) that provides parliamentary oversight of Germany's intelligence services. He chairs the so-called G10 Commission, which takes decisions on the necessity and admissibility of restrictions on the privacy of correspondence, posts and telecommunications pursuant to Article 10 of the

Basic Law A basic law is either a codified constitution, or in countries with uncodified constitutions, a law designed to have the effect of a constitution. The term ''basic law'' is used in some places as an alternative to "constitution" and may be inte ...

. He was an alternate member of the Committee on Transport, Building and Urban Development and of the NSA Investigation Committee. Within the group of CSU parliamentarians, Mayer chaired the Working Group for Internal Affairs, law, sport, voluntary work, culture and media of the CSU. In addition to his committee assignments, Mayer served as chairman of the German-British Parliamentary Friendship Group. In the negotiations to form a

coalition government A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a government by political parties that enter into a power-sharing arrangement of the executive. Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an ...

of the Christian Democrats (CDU together with the Bavarian

CSU CSU may refer to: Universities and university systems United States * Columbia Southern University, in Orange Beach, Alabama * California State University system * Colorado State University, in Fort Collins, Colorado * Connecticut State Univers ...

) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) following the 2009 federal elections, Mayer was part of the CDU/CSU delegation in the working group on internal and legal affairs, led by

Wolfgang Schäuble Wolfgang Schäuble (; 18 September 1942 – 26 December 2023) was a German politician whose political career spanned more than five decades. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he was the longest-serving member of any democratic G ...

and

Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger ( Leutheusser; born 26 July 1951) is a German politician of the liberal Free Democratic Party and a prominent advocate of human rights in Germany and Europe. Within the FDP, she is a leading figure of the soci ...

. Later, in the negotiations to form a ''

Grand Coalition A grand coalition is an arrangement in a multi-party parliamentary system in which the two largest political party, political parties of opposing political spectrum, political ideologies unite in a coalition government. Causes of a grand coali ...

'' of the Christian Democrats and the

Social Democrats Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, s ...

(SPD) following the 2013 federal elections, he was part of the CDU/CSU delegation in the working group on integration and migration, led by

Maria Böhmer Maria Böhmer (born 23 April 1950) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Under the leadership of successive ministers Frank-Walter Steinmeier (2013-2017) and Sigmar Gabriel (2017), she served as Minister of State in t ...

and

Aydan Özoğuz Aydan Özoğuz (; ; born 31 May 1967) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who has been a member of the Bundestag since 2009 and as its Vice-president of the German Bundestag from 2021 to 2025. In addition to her parlia ...

. In February 2016, Mayer accompanied the president of the German Bundestag

Norbert Lammert Norbert Lammert (born 16 November 1948) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He served as the 12th president of the Bundestag from 2005 to 2017. Early life and education The son of a baker, Lammert attended gymnasium ...

on a visit to the Zaatari refugee camp in

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

to learn more about the plight of

Syrians Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine Arabic, Levantine and Mesopotamian Arabic, Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The culture of Syria, cultural ...

fleeing the Syrian civil war. In the fourth government under

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 ...

, Mayer served as Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior under

from 2018 to 2021. Since the 2021 elections, Mayer has been serving as his parliamentary group's spokesperson for sports. In November 2021, a search committee under the leadership of former

President of Germany The president of Germany, officially titled the Federal President of the Federal Republic of Germany (),The official title within Germany is ', with ' being added in international correspondence; the official English title is President of the F ...

Christian Wulff Christian Wilhelm Walter Wulff (; born 1959) is a retired German politician and lawyer who served as President of Germany from 2010 to 2012. A member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he previously ...

recommended Mayer as candidate to succeed

Alfons Hörmann Alfons Hörmann (born 6 September 1960) is a German businessman and sports official. Since 7 December 2013, he has been the President of the Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund. He had previously served as president of the German Ski Association f ...

as president of the

German Olympic Sports Confederation The German Olympic Sports Confederation (, DOSB) was founded on 20 May 2006 by a merger of the ''Deutscher Sportbund'' (DSB), and the ''Nationales Olympisches Komitee für Deutschland'' (NOK) which dates back to 1895, the year it was founded a ...

(DOSB); instead Mayer later announced his candidacy as vice-president under the leadership of

Thomas Weikert Thomas Weikert (born Hadamar 24 March 1953) is a German sports official. He was the president of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) from 31 May Events Pre-1600 * 455 – Emperor Petronius Maximus is stoned to death by a ...

but had to resign shortly after when it was found that the role was incompatible with the German government's cooling-off period for former cabinet members.

Other activities

German Football Association The German Football Association ( ; DFB ) is the governing body of Association football, football, futsal, and beach soccer in Germany. A founding member of both FIFA and UEFA, the DFB has jurisdiction for the German football league system and ...

(DFB), Egidius Braun Foundation, Member of the Board of Trustees *

Federation of Expellees The Federation of Expellees (; BdV) is a non-profit organization formed in West Germany on 27 October 1957 to represent the interests of German nationals of all ethnicities and foreign ethnic Germans and their families (usually naturalised as Ge ...

(BdV), vice president * Kuratorium Sport & Natur, deputy chairman of the board (since 2015) * Association of German Foundations, Member of the Parliamentary Advisory Board (since 2009) * Foundation Flight, Expulsion, Reconciliation, Member of the board of trustees (since 2005) * Foundation for Data Protection, Member of the advisory board *

German Historical Museum The German Historical Museum (), known by the acronym DHM, is a museum in Berlin, Germany devoted to German history. It describes itself as a place of "enlightenment and understanding of the shared history of Germans and Europeans". It is ofte ...

(DHM), Member of the board of trustees (since 2005) *

Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future" The Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (German: Stiftung Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft; acronym EVZ), is a German Federal organisation with the purpose of making financial compensation available "to former forced laborers and ...

, alternate member of the board of trustees (since 2005) * German-Hungarian Youth Office, Member of the board of trustees * Foundation Archives of Parties and Mass Organisations of the GDR in the Federal Archives (SAPMO), Member of the board of trustees (2009–2013) From 2010 until 2018, Mayer served as the president of the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (Technisches Hilfswerk-Bundesvereinigung e.V.) and president of the Federal Civil Defence and Protection against disasters in Federal Republic of Germany.

Political positions

Following the

2016 Munich shooting On 22 July 2016, a mass shooting occurred in the vicinity of the Olympia shopping mall in the Moosach district of Munich, Germany. An 18-year-old Iranian-German, David Sonboly, opened fire on fellow teenagers at a McDonald's restaurant before ...

, Mayer called for a review of Germany's gun laws and for stricter enforcement, arguing that "I support stricter regulations on the weapons trade and the creation of a European weapons registry modeled on the German national registry." In early 2017, Mayer and his colleague

Armin Schuster Armin Schuster (born 20 May 1961) is a German politician. A member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Schuster has been serving as State Minister of Internal Affairs in the Second Kretschmer cabinet, go ...

of the CDU presented a joint proposal for a flexible target for how many asylum seekers Germany should accept each year as a compromise to end a row between CDU and CSU over immigration. In a letter to the two parties’ chairpersons,

and Minister-President

, they called for Germany to set a new target each year based on the humanitarian situation in crisis zones worldwide and on Germany's ability to absorb newcomers. In June 2017, Mayer voted against Germany's introduction of

same-sex marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same legal Legal sex and gender, sex. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 38 countries, with a total population of 1.5 ...

.Diese Unionsabgeordneten stimmten für die Ehe für alle
''

Die Welt (, ) is a German national daily newspaper, published as a broadsheet by Axel Springer SE. is the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer publishing group and it is considered a newspaper of record in Germany. Its leading competitors are the ...

'', June 30, 2017.

References