Daniela Ludwig

Daniela Ludwig (née Raab; born 7 July 1975 in Munich) is a German politician of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU). She has been a member of the Bundestag since 2002 and holds the direct mandate for Rosenheim in Upper Bavaria, listed by parliament as constituency 221. In the 2025 federal election the Federal Returning Officer recorded her with 40.9 percent of the first votes (82,023), ahead of Leyla Bilge of the Alternative for Germany on 18.3 percent, in a constituency where turnout was 84.4 percent. Parliament also lists her as Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Interior.

She took her Abitur in 1995 at the Ignaz-Günther-Gymnasium in Rosenheim and studied law at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, which the Bundestag biography records as a Diplom-Juristin degree. Her home town is Kolbermoor, in the Rosenheim district. On 22 September 2002, aged 27 and still a law student who had just sat the first state examination, she was elected from 32nd place on the CSU list in Bavaria after the party took nearly 59 percent of the vote there, and Der Spiegel described her as one of the youngest members of the new Bundestag. She had joined the CSU branch in Kolbermoor in 1994, the Frauen-Union in 1996 and the Junge Union in 1997. She sat on Kolbermoor town council from 2002 to 2008, has been a district councillor in Landkreis Rosenheim since 2008, and is a member of the CSU presidium and party executive.

By September 2019 she was the transport and digital-infrastructure spokesperson of the Bundestag group of the Christian Democratic Union and the CSU. On 18 September 2019 the federal cabinet, on a proposal from Health Minister Jens Spahn, appointed her the government's drug commissioner in succession to Marlene Mortler. Spahn said she would bring a fresh approach to an office that cut across several policy fields; Ludwig said addiction affected many people and that she would look at the subject without preconceptions. The health ministry's account of the job stressed prevention and the development of policy aimed at avoiding or easing health, social and psychological harm, together with representing the government in public and abroad. Deutsches Ärzteblatt reported that the ministry itself conceded she had no explicit drug-policy expertise, and quoted Die Linke drugs specialist Niema Movassat as saying that nothing in her transport brief qualified her for the post and that he expected her to continue Mortler's restrictive line on cannabis. The Bundestag biography places the commissionership in the 19th electoral term.

The same biography lists her as chair of the Committee on Election Scrutiny, Immunity and Rules of Procedure, as the CDU/CSU group's commissioner for Jewish life in Germany and for relations with Israel, and as a member of the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment, the group's women's caucus and its small-business circle. In September 2019 Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble presented her with the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany on ribbon, citing voluntary work for children, disabled people, people in need of care, and the protection of unborn life. She is Roman Catholic, married, and has two children.

Early life and education

Childhood and family background

Daniela Ludwig was born on 7 July 1975 in Munich. Before her marriage she was known as Daniela Raab, the name under which she entered parliament in 2002; she later took her husband’s surname. She grew up in Kolbermoor, in the district of Rosenheim in Upper Bavaria, which a later Bundestag profile calls her home municipality. The chamber’s official biography lists her as Roman Catholic.

In October 2002 she told Der Spiegel that her parents ran a medium-sized business in Kolbermoor. She said the household leaned toward the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), but that her father and mother had never been politically active and had not pressed her to join the party. A Bundestag interview profile of May 2015 gives a similar account: party politics was not a subject at home, although her parents were politically interested. In the eighth grade, aged 14, she told them she would join the CSU at 18 because she might want to become a politician. She also said that, as a teenager, she had been struck by Franz Josef Strauß, whom she described as a politician who said what he thought. In January 2003 she told Welt am Sonntag that she had admired Strauß since childhood and was 13 when he died.

She joined the CSU association in Kolbermoor in 1994, before the Abitur. Welt am Sonntag reported that she was then 19. The branch elected her secretary at her first meeting. In 2002 Der Spiegel called that post the office typically given to women; in 2015 she herself said it was almost always held by women because men did not want it. The 2015 profile adds that she was the only pupil in her year to join a party.

Schooling and legal studies

In 1995 she passed the Abitur at the Ignaz-Günther-Gymnasium in Rosenheim, a state Gymnasium.

She then studied at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Her Bundestag biography records law studies there and the degree Diplom-Juristin (Univ.). A chronology published by the Hanns Seidel Foundation for its history of the CSU gives a fuller sequence: political science and American studies at the university from 1995, law from 1997, and the first state examination in law in 2002. The Bundestag profile of May 2015, by contrast, says she began law at the university in 1996 and does not mention the other subjects.

Her occupation before she entered the Bundestag is recorded as that of a student at the Munich university. On 20 October 2002 Der Spiegel reported that she had just sat the examinations for the first state law exam and was still waiting for the result. She had expected to start the Referendariat, the legal traineeship that leads to the second state examination, and to keep commuting between Munich and Kolbermoor. On election day, 22 September 2002, she instead flew to Lanzarote. Late that evening a telephone call from the Rosenheim constituency told her she had been elected from 32nd place on the CSU state list, an outcome she had not expected. She told Der Spiegel that she would seek release from the traineeship, because more than 20 sitting weeks a year, together with constituency work, made it impractical to prepare for the second examination at the same time.

Local politics and the CSU

Council offices in Kolbermoor and Rosenheim

Ludwig joined the Christian Social Union in Bavaria in 1994 through its local association in Kolbermoor, in the rural district of Rosenheim. From 2002 to 2008 she was a town councillor (Stadträtin) there. Since 2008 she has been a district councillor (Kreisrätin) of Landkreis Rosenheim. The Bundestag lists that district-council seat among her honorary offices, held in parallel with her membership of the Bundestag.

Frauen-Union, Junge Union and the party executive

She joined the Frauen-Union in 1996 and the Junge Union in 1997. The CSU historical register lists her from 1997 as a board member of the Frauen-Union in the Rosenheim-Land district association and in its Upper Bavaria regional association, as recording secretary of the Bavarian state executive from 2001 to 2003, and as deputy state chair from 2003 to 2019. The same public biographies record Junge Union membership but no executive office in the youth organization.

She has been a member of the CSU party executive, the Parteivorstand, since 2009. Delegates re-elected her at the party congress in Munich in September 2023, and she remains among the elected members on the board the party publishes. On 4 November 2019, at its constitutive meeting, that executive elected her unanimously to the smaller presidium, which handles current business, the party's finances and urgent matters. The historical register dates the presidium seat to 2019–2023. She is not among the 21 people on the presidium list the CSU now publishes, although the Bundestag biography still names her as a presidium member.

Since 2020 she has chaired the Frauen-Union of Upper Bavaria. A delegates' assembly in Rosenheim in November 2021 returned her with just under 94 percent of the vote. The Oberbayerisches Volksblatt then described the association as about 6,700 women in 22 district branches and 152 local branches, and as the largest CSU organization in Upper Bavaria. In Freising in July 2025 she was re-elected with 100 percent of the votes; the paper reported 22 branches and 5,653 members at that assembly.

Deputy general secretary

On 5 March 2018 the party executive, meeting in Munich under chair Horst Seehofer, named Markus Blume secretary-general in succession to Andreas Scheuer and named Ludwig deputy secretary-general in succession to Blume. Scheuer was then expected to become federal transport minister. Seehofer had summoned Ludwig to the Bavarian state chancellery on the morning of 4 March. She said she would act as a link for the party between Bavaria and Berlin and would remain transport-policy spokesperson of the CDU/CSU Bundestag group, working with Scheuer.

Die Welt described the division of labour that followed the settlement between Seehofer and Markus Söder: Blume concentrated on Bavaria, including the 2018 state-election campaign, while Ludwig followed federal politics from Berlin. In the deputy's post she set up a commission, "Starke Frauen für die CSU," meant to reach local branches and bring more women into the party. The paper reported that women then made up about 20 to 22 percent of members and of office-holders below the top, where a 40 percent quota applied. Der Spiegel reported criticism that Seehofer had nominated no woman as a federal minister—the three prospective CSU ministers were men, with Dorothee Bär the only CSU woman in a government post, as a minister of state—and noted Ludwig's appointment as Blume's deputy.

The deputy secretary-generalship ended at Söder's first executive meeting as party chairman, on 28 January 2019. The board appointed Florian Hahn, the Bundestag member for Munich-Land, to succeed her as Blume's deputy. Söder called the change one made by agreement (im Einvernehmen), added that such a step was "never easy," and said other tasks for Ludwig would be discussed; Hahn was to bring a foreign-policy profile to the party headquarters. The Münchner Merkur described the switch as a surprise and wrote that Ludwig had to leave the office.

Bundestag and the Rosenheim constituency

Entry on the state list and direct mandates

In the 2002 federal election Daniela Raab, as she was then named, entered the Bundestag on the Bavaria state list of the Christian Social Union, not with a constituency seat. The biography for the 15th legislative period records her as elected via the Bavarian Landesliste. Der Spiegel reported that she was in 32nd place on that list and was returned, as one of the youngest candidates, because the CSU took nearly 59 percent of the Bavarian second vote; she heard of it on holiday in Lanzarote. Die Welt gave the same list place and described her as a law student from Kolbermoor.

The direct seat, constituency 224 Rosenheim, stayed with Wolfgang Zeitlmann, whom the Bundestag listed as directly elected there and as a member since 1987. In the Federal Returning Officer's final tables the CSU candidate received 110,328 first votes, 63.1 percent. Raab was the CSU constituency candidate in 2005. The directory of elected constituency candidates names "Raab, Daniela" (CSU) for constituency 224 with 60.3 percent of the first vote.

Election results since 2005

In the 2025 federal election the Federal Returning Officer recorded Ludwig, Daniela (CSU) as elected in constituency 221 with 82,023 first votes, 40.9 percent. The same page names Leyla Bilge of the Alternative for Germany as runner-up, with 36,813 votes (18.3 percent). On the second vote the CSU led with 75,533 votes (37.6 percent), ahead of the AfD on 19.6 percent.

Earlier mandates were won as Daniela Raab and then, in the Bundestag biographies, as Daniela Ludwig. In 2005, in constituency 224, she received 102,768 first votes (60.3 percent); the Social Democratic Party was second with 37,351 (21.9 percent). In 2009, constituency 223, the final tables give the CSU 82,305 first votes (51.5 percent), ahead of the SPD on 23,041 (14.4 percent). The Oberbayerisches Volksblatt named Daniela Raab as the winner of that direct mandate.

In 2013, still constituency 223, the CSU total was 93,964 first votes (58.1 percent); the results page lists the SPD second at 12.5 percent (20,229). The 18th-term biography lists Ludwig as directly elected in constituency 223 Rosenheim. In 2017, renumbered 222, the CSU figure was 84,981 first votes (45.9 percent), with the AfD second at 13.0 percent (23,988). The 19th-term biography records the direct mandate for 222. In 2021, again 222, the total was 68,670 first votes (36.1 percent), the lowest in this series; Alliance 90/The Greens were second with 26,183 (13.8 percent). The 20th-term biography again lists a direct mandate for constituency 222. The lead over the second-placed party was narrower in 2021 (22.3 points) and 2025 (22.6 points) than in 2005 or 2013.

Constituency representation

For 2013, 2017, 2021 and 2025 the Federal Returning Officer defines the constituency as the independent city of Rosenheim and the rural district of Rosenheim. The number was 224 in the 2002 and 2005 tables, 223 in 2009 and 2013, 222 in 2017 and 2021, and 221 in 2025. The Bundestag lists her constituency office at Klepperstraße 19, 83026 Rosenheim.

Local reporting has tied the seat to the A8, the Brenner rail approach and the district hospitals. In July 2025 Landrat Otto Lederer, Oberbürgermeister Andreas März and mayors from 14 municipalities wrote to the federal transport minister about A8 congestion and the traffic it diverted onto local roads; the Oberbayerisches Volksblatt reported that Lederer handed Ludwig the letter. In August 2026 the Bavarian transport minister restated the state's push for a six-lane widening between Rosenheim and Walserberg, linking it to noise protection. In February 2024 the same paper reported that, on Ludwig's initiative, the CDU/CSU group tabled a minor interpellation with 19 questions on the Brenner northern access, including the Inn crossing north of Rosenheim. On 2 July 2025 the district council replaced her on the supervisory board of RoMed, the city and district hospital company, with Kreisrat Stephan Schlier, citing her appointment as a parliamentary state secretary; Landrat Lederer thanked her for years on the board. The Bundestag interests register lists that honorary post as ending on 4 June 2025.

Tourism and transport policy

Tourism spokesperson

In the 18th Bundestag, Daniela Ludwig of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria became tourism-policy spokesperson of the CDU/CSU group. On 7 January 2014, at the CSU state group’s retreat in Wildbad Kreuth, she was nominated chair of the faction’s tourism working group, with the election set for the following Monday. She cited about 2.9 million tourism jobs and €97 billion in direct value added in 2012, mostly in rural Bavaria, and kept her transport-committee seat, linking the brief to the A 8, Inn-valley noise protection and the approaches to the Brenner Base Tunnel around Rosenheim.

On 2 October 2015 she spoke for the coalition motion on the Alpine Convention during Germany’s presidency. She said many resorts were reachable only by car and should be shifted toward public transport and long-distance rail, noting that 46 percent of alpine lodging businesses were in 5 percent of municipalities, and she backed building limits in glacier areas, renovation over new construction, and quality over quantity. She carried the dispute over holiday flats into the Alps, where the visitor economy and local residents had to be reconciled. Markus Tressel of the Greens said winter tourism was the greater burden and that unreliable snow required alternatives to skiing; Kerstin Kassner of the Left rejected snow cannons, a line the record shows Ludwig applauding.

On 29 January 2018 the group elected Paul Lehrieder chair of the tourism working group with 223 votes (99.6 percent), ending Ludwig’s tourism spokespersonship and moving her to transport.

Transport and digital infrastructure

The same sitting elected her chair of the working group on transport and digital infrastructure, with 203 votes (94.9 percent), making her the group’s spokesperson. At the January 2014 Kreuth retreat the CSU had nominated Ulrich Lange for that chair, pending confirmation by the full faction the following Monday. On 18 September 2019 the cabinet, on a proposal from Health Minister Jens Spahn, appointed her federal drug commissioner; the health ministry’s notice still described her as the CDU/CSU transport spokesperson. On 22 October 2019 the group elected Alois Rainer to succeed her, with 93.7 percent of the vote. On 25 July 2019 Deutschlandfunk introduced her as the Union’s lead member on the Bundestag transport committee, not as a member of the government.

In the 20 November 2018 budget debate she said the constraint was no longer money but getting it spent, citing a federal autobahn company and faster rail planning that kept public participation. She called broadband rollout uneven, credited a rule change pressed by her group with letting municipalities switch from copper to fibre—“fibre is the future, and nothing else”—and said the next 5G award should sacrifice some auction revenue for rural coverage. She also backed lower track-access charges to move freight from road to rail and waterways.

On 30 January 2019 she said nitrogen-dioxide limits were needed for health but were scientifically disputed, and that driving bans should not rest on doubtful limits or measurements.

The Bundesrechnungshof’s 2017 remarks found a six-lane widening of the Bundesautobahn 8 between the Chiemsee and the border uneconomic, with a possible saving of €110 million. In August 2018, given a congestion diary by FDP candidate Michael Linnerer, Ludwig said the ministry and the Union group still wanted six lanes from Rosenheim to Austria, called the pre-war alignment unsafe, and described cuts to noise protection as cynical.

After the European Court of Justice struck down the foreign-vehicle toll, she asked on 25 July 2019 for “fairness” for Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer. She said a little over €50 million had been spent, dismissed Cem Özdemir’s estimate of about €500 million in damages as speculation, defended cancelling the contracts, and preferred one European system of user charges. She also criticised Tyrolean governor Günther Platter for refusing to negotiate lorry block processing and driving bans that, she said, shifted Tyrol’s transit burden onto Rosenheim.

To a taxi driver on Abgeordnetenwatch who feared reform of the Passenger Transport Act would open the market to platforms such as Uber, she replied that the existing law should not be destroyed, but that new digital services had to be admitted on equal terms, with social, qualitative and ecological standards.

Drug and addiction policy

Appointment as drug commissioner

On 18 September 2019 the federal cabinet, acting on a proposal from Health Minister Jens Spahn of the Christian Democratic Union, appointed Daniela Ludwig of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria as Federal Government Commissioner for Drug and Addiction Policy. She succeeded Marlene Mortler, also of the CSU, who had moved to the European Parliament. Ludwig, then 44, had sat in the Bundestag since 2002 as the CDU/CSU transport spokesperson. The Federal Ministry of Health said she had no explicit drug-policy background. She said it was right to approach the subject without preconceptions, and that prevention, including everyday legal substances, must not be played down. Spahn said she would bring "fresh wind" and an open debate to a cross-cutting office. Niema Movassat of Die Linke said the transport post qualified her for "nothing" and feared she would continue Mortler's cannabis line, which critics had called repressive. Her term ended on 8 December 2021, when a new federal chancellor was elected; no successor had been named.

Prevention, consumption rooms and legal drugs

Her 2020 annual report treated prevention as the first of four pillars, with counseling and treatment, harm reduction, and supply reduction and enforcement. On 1 July 2020 in Berlin she and the Federal Centre for Health Education presented the 2019 drug-affinity survey of 12- to 25-year-olds. Smoking had fallen to 5.6 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds and 21.2 percent of 18- to 25-year-olds, the lowest rates since the 1970s, while weekly alcohol use at ages 12 to 17 had dropped from 21.2 percent in 2004 to 9.5 percent, though binge drinking remained common. Lifetime cannabis use had risen, to 10.4 percent at ages 12 to 17 and 46.4 percent at ages 18 to 25. Ludwig treated the smoking trend as evidence that prevention worked and said the same approach was required for cannabis; a campaign starting on social media and continuing in schools was to tell young people that use was not "cool" and could be harmful. The report listed that effort, "Mach dich schlau", in a school and youth package on early cannabis use.

On harm reduction, the report noted that eight Länder had used section 10a of the Narcotics Act (Betäubungsmittelgesetz) to permit drug-consumption rooms, and that a room opened in Bremen in September 2020 raised the total in Germany to 28. Ludwig called the rooms "extremely important contact points" for limiting harm to users and the public, and said she backed the model "without ifs or buts". After visiting a project in Innsbruck she called drug-checking a form of harm reduction worth examining where it warned young users; the 2020 report favored studying counseling-led "analysis-supported" checks, while noting that federal and state positions were still far apart. In August 2021 she accused the Länder of undermining addiction policy through online gambling, legal nationwide since the Interstate Treaty took effect on 1 July: advertising was ubiquitous, youth-protection rules were widely ignored, the planned regulator was not yet working, and she wanted daytime sports-betting ads limited at least as strictly as online-casino ads, which could air only after 9 p.m.

Cannabis policy and public debate

Ludwig opposed full legalization. In interviews published on 23 August 2021 she proposed that possession for personal use up to six grams become an administrative offense nationwide, so that only a fine, not prison, could follow. Six grams was defensible, she said, because a threshold would signal and shape use; cannabis was not as dangerous as cocaine or heroin; and policy should move to better sanctions and less burden on police and courts. Users should, as in Portugal, be able to choose a fine or counseling, and she urged the CDU/CSU to compromise with possible partners after the election. State ceilings for dropping a case ranged from six to 15 grams and were discretionary, not an exemption; the Narcotics Act still allowed up to five years' imprisonment.

Kirsten Kappert-Gonther, for Alliance 90/The Greens, said the plan "sounds good but does nothing at all" for youth and health protection and that criminalizing millions of people should give way to controlled supply. Movassat called a uniform six-gram line "window dressing" and a backward step where thresholds were already higher. Wieland Schinnenburg of the Free Democratic Party said only controlled supply to adults would address the black market, and told her to "finally get off the dead horse of prohibition". The Gewerkschaft der Polizei backed one national threshold, which deputy chair Dietmar Schilff said the union had wanted for about five years, while warning against trivialising cannabis or treating the idea as a start toward legalisation. The proposal was not enacted.

At that 1 July 2020 press conference, journalist Tilo Jung asked why cannabis remained banned if alcohol was more dangerous; the Oberbayerisches Volksblatt later quoted her reply that, because alcohol was dangerous, cannabis was not broccoli. The line spread as a slogan and an ironic name for cannabis. In the 2021 campaign, unknown people stuck broccoli stickers on her posters in Rosenheim. She called broccoli a healthy food but the stickers vandalism, and filed a complaint; police treated damaged posters as criminal damage.

On 23 February 2024 the Bundestag passed the cannabis law of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition: adults could hold up to 25 grams in public without punishment and grow up to three plants at home, with the Health Ministry stating that the act was to take effect on 1 April 2024. Ludwig called the legalization a trivialization and the coalition's course a "drug- and health-policy wrong turn", citing opposition from pediatricians, judges, the German Medical Association and police unions, and objecting to the amounts, controls, and open questions for roads and workplaces. She said Health Minister Karl Lauterbach was contradicting himself by warning against cannabis in a public campaign while introducing the law.

Election scrutiny and parliamentary procedure

Chair of the committee

Daniela Ludwig of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, sitting with the CDU/CSU, was elected unanimously, by secret ballot, on 15 December 2021 to chair the Bundestag's Committee on Election Scrutiny, Immunity and Rules of Procedure. Bärbel Bas opened the sitting. The Bundestag called the 19-member committee a referee of parliamentary business. The Bundestag had created it on 11 November 2021, before a coalition agreement.

On 27 January 2022 she was also elected unanimously to chair the separate nine-member electoral-scrutiny committee, with Esther Dilcher (SPD) as deputy; the Left had only an advisory seat. That committee prepares decisions under Article 41 of the Basic Law on objections to Bundestag and European elections. It took up about 2,100 objections to the 2021 German federal election, most from Berlin, where missing or wrong ballot papers, long queues and voting after 18:00 had been reported. The Federal Returning Officer had also objected.

On 10 November 2022 the Bundestag adopted the committee's recommendation on 1,713 objections, by 374 votes to 252 with 31 abstentions, and ordered both votes repeated in 431 Berlin districts: 327 with mandate-relevant errors and 104 linked postal districts. The Social Democratic Party of Germany, Alliance 90/The Greens and the Free Democratic Party prevailed over the CDU/CSU and Alternative for Germany. The CDU/CSU called a rerun in little more than 400 districts unequal to the failures and sought a wider repeat, including whole constituencies challenged by the Federal Returning Officer; the AfD sought a full repeat of both votes in six constituencies. On the CDU/CSU complaint (2 BvC 4/23), the Federal Constitutional Court held on 19 December 2023 that the decision was largely lawful, but that the Bundestag had not examined the polling-station records. It ordered a repeat in 455 of 2,256 Berlin districts and required both votes; an AfD complaint for a city-wide repeat (2 BvC 5/23) was inadmissible. The partial election was set for 11 February 2024.

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier dissolved the 20th Bundestag on 27 December 2024 and set the election for 23 February 2025; the 21st Bundestag met on 25 March 2025. On 6 May 2025 Ludwig was announced as a Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Interior. On 21 May 2025, at a sitting opened by President Julia Klöckner, the new 14-member committee elected Macit Karaahmetoğlu (SPD) by 11 votes with three abstentions. Ludwig was not a member. A biography whose data record a change on 7 October 2026 still listed the chairmanship, from members' own submissions, while the heading gives her post as Parliamentary State Secretary at the Interior.

Immunity and rules of procedure

The committee prepares decisions on immunity and on the rules of procedure. Immunity, in the Bundestag's account, limits unjustified prosecution so that parliament can function. Plenary votes often followed its recommendations without debate. On 10 February 2023 the Bundestag, against the AfD, refused to authorize criminal proceedings against Claudia Roth; on 10 October 2024 it authorized proceedings against AfD deputy Stephan Brandner, the AfD abstaining.

On the rules, the President asked on 27 September 2022 whether a group with one vice-presidential nomination could add candidates in a second ballot. On 20 October 2022 the committee, against the AfD, held competing, conditional or parallel nominations inadmissible: a group could replace its candidate but not add one, lest it force an election contrary to the free vote under Articles 38 and 40 of the Basic Law. The AfD said the wording was meant to let each group fill its post. Ludwig signed the report of 7 November 2022 as chair and rapporteur; the Bundestag adopted it on 10 November 2022 against the AfD.

Interior Ministry

Appointment in the Merz cabinet

On 6 May 2025, after Friedrich Merz was elected chancellor, Bundestag President Julia Klöckner announced the new government. Daniela Ludwig of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) and Christoph de Vries of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) were named parliamentary state secretaries at the Federal Ministry of the Interior, under Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU). The ministry's biography dates her tenure from that day. She remained a member of the Bundestag for Rosenheim, the city and the rural district.

The handover inside the ministry was a day later than planned, which Ludwig attributed to the failed first ballot for chancellor. On 7 May, after Nancy Faeser transferred the ministry to Dobrindt, he gave Ludwig and de Vries their certificates and they took the oath; Ludwig used the optional closing "So wahr mir Gott helfe". She said the coalition agreement meant protecting the borders, restoring internal security and changing migration and asylum policy at once, including more returns and deportations, among them to Syria and Afghanistan, and wider powers for the Federal Police. She said she would stay the constituency member for Rosenheim.

Portfolio and public positions

The ministry's organisation chart divides the departments between the two parliamentary state secretaries. Ludwig is assigned the central department; cyber and information security; migration, refugee and return policy; state, constitutional and administrative law; the public service, including the Federal Academy of Public Administration; staff for international and EU affairs; and Federal Police matters only for tasks carried out in Bavaria. De Vries wrote, after the oath, that his field was public security, the Federal Police, civil protection and crisis management, and the affairs of resettlers, expellees and German minorities. The chart places public security, civil defence, disaster relief and weapons law, and Federal Police work outside that Bavarian exception, with him.

In an Oberbayerisches Volksblatt interview of 30 May 2025 she said that, about an hour after staff were sent to new offices on the first day, Dobrindt told the press that border controls would be intensified and asylum seekers turned back. Before the summer recess, she said, the leadership still wanted the suspension of family reunification for people with subsidiary protection, withdrawal of three-year "turbo naturalisation", the return of "limitation" of migration as an aim of the Residence Act, and an end to mandatory legal counsel in detention pending deportation. The controls themselves, she said, were already in place. She did not think the pace was reckless, but said the Federal Police could not keep up intensified controls for years and that this was not the intention: neighbours should act as well, and the Common European Asylum System, then expected in the autumn, should be adapted with Italian and Austrian support. Germany, she said, had to stop taking in a majority of the refugees arriving in Europe. With the civil war in Syria over, deportations had to become faster, while carrying them out stayed mostly with the Länder.

On 28 May 2025 the cabinet adopted bills Dobrindt presented that morning: naturalisation after three years, introduced by the previous coalition, was to go without replacement, so that a passport would again require at least five years; he called the shorter route a pull factor. "Limitation" was to re-enter migration law, and family reunification for about 380,000 people with subsidiary protection, mostly Syrians, was to be suspended for two years. Churches, the Central Committee of German Catholics and the Paritätischer Gesamtverband criticised that suspension; the association called it a serious interference with fundamental and human rights. Green co-leader Felix Banaszak said nothing in migration policy was more orderly than family reunification. Before the Bundestag vote on accelerated naturalisation, Alliance 90/The Greens and Die Linke opposed the repeal. Banaszak called it the wrong signal; Left interior spokesperson Clara Bünger objected to the lack of a transitional rule for applications already filed. Spiegel reported that the three-year rule, in force since June 2024, had been little used. On 9 June 2026, on Bayern 2, Ludwig called agreement on the Common European Asylum System a central setting of course, but said GEAS alone did not yet make a good European migration policy and asked for more pressure on countries of origin.

Jewish life, Israel and other parliamentary work

Commissioner for Jewish life and relations with Israel

On 14 May 2024 Friedrich Merz, then chairman of the CDU/CSU group in the Bundestag, appointed Daniela Ludwig of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria commissioner for Jewish life in Germany and for relations with the State of Israel. Welt reported that the new post followed the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas, Israel's campaign in Gaza, and what the faction called more assaults on Jewish citizens in Germany. A faction notice said the Union wanted "a clear sign against antisemitism" and to stand with Israel; Ludwig called the office "a great honour and a heavy obligation". Both reports noted that she already sat on the advisory board of the German friends' association of Yad Vashem.

In a Jüdische Allgemeine interview of 20 June 2024 she said she was the group's contact for Jewish life in Germany and, on Israel, coordinated with its foreign and defence politicians rather than deciding foreign policy. She said coalition talks on an antisemitism package were stuck on detail, and that the group had just formed an internal Freundeskreis Israel under her chair. The Yad Vashem friends' association dated that Berlin meeting to 12 June 2024, Anne Frank's birthday, with Merz and Bavaria's commissioner Ludwig Spaenle present. Ludwig called the circle a sign of friendship with Israel and with Jews.

On 7 November 2024 the Bundestag adopted the non-statutory motion "Nie wieder ist jetzt – Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland schützen, bewahren und stärken" (Drucksache 20/13627), from the Social Democratic Party, the CDU/CSU, Alliance 90/The Greens and the Free Democratic Party. Those groups and the Alternative for Germany voted for it; the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht voted against and Die Linke abstained. It asks Länder and municipalities to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition, to withhold public money from projects that spread antisemitism, question Israel's right to exist or actively support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, and to look at a ban on BDS activity.

Ludwig spoke for the Union. In the CSU Landesgruppe's extract she said the group would have gone further in places, called the claim that the IHRA definition would curb free speech or criticism of the Israeli government a "bösartige Unterstellung" (malicious insinuation), and demanded order on campuses. The next week she and Green member Marlene Schönberger, called their groups' commissioners by the Jüdische Allgemeine, defended the text; Ludwig wrote that antisemitic projects had no right to funding. The Bundestag report noted an open letter from scholars and artists, cited by Konstantin Kuhle (FDP), warning of limits on opinion and science. Gregor Gysi (Die Linke) called the motion "not good" and said criticism of the Israeli government was not itself antisemitism; Sevim Dağdelen (BSW) called the definition an attack on the Basic Law and international law.

On 28 April 2025 CSU leader Markus Söder announced that Ludwig would become parliamentary state secretary to incoming interior minister Alexander Dobrindt, describing her as a lawyer and former drug commissioner who "has worked for Jewish life". Tagesschau listed her among the designated state secretaries at the Federal Ministry of the Interior. Her member-supplied Bundestag biography for the 21st term still lists the commissionership beside the interior state secretaryship. No successor to the commissionership was publicly named.

Education, research and parliamentary groups

In the 20th Bundestag her biography lists the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment, the CDU/CSU Gruppe der Frauen and the Parlamentskreis Mittelstand. In the 30 January 2024 budget debate she said the education and research chapter, up every year for two decades, was now falling sharply. She called Startchancen, the federal programme for disadvantaged schools, too late and too small, and said Länder and municipalities still had no follow-on to the Digital Pact for schools.

The Gruppe der Frauen comprises the women in the CDU/CSU Bundestag group. On 18 December 2013, when Karin Maag succeeded Rita Pawelski as chair, it confirmed Ludwig as first deputy. The Parlamentskreis Mittelstand, the faction circle on small and medium-sized firms, still listed her among its Bavarian members after the state-secretary appointment.

Civic engagement and honors

Local voluntary offices

The Bundestag page for Daniela Ludwig, the Christian Social Union in Bavaria member for Rosenheim, separates self-reported honorary offices from the mandatory side-activity disclosure (stand 21 October 2026). Both list her as unpaid chair of the Rosenheim district association of the Bavarian Red Cross. Members elected her on 23 January 2021 to succeed Karl-Heinrich Zeuner, whose first deputy she had been since 2005. She opened the 26 April 2025 assembly in Raubling as chair, and the association's report grouped her with the newly elected or re-elected board.

The disclosure records an unpaid supervisory-board seat at RoMed Kliniken until 4 June 2025. On 2 July 2025 the county council named Stephan Schlier her successor for the CSU group; Landrat Otto Lederer said her appointment as parliamentary state secretary required the change under the rules on members of the government. The county-council membership behind that seat is a political mandate, not one of these voluntary offices.

Also disclosed are unpaid roles on the board of FortSchritt Rosenheim e.V. and on the Kuratorium of the Emmy Schuster-Holzammer-Stiftung, spelled Holzhammer in the biography. The foundation lists her on the Kuratorium as Red Cross district chair. Only the self-reported Ehrenämter add patronage of the Bundesverband Konduktive Förderung, the Rosenheim children's-clinic support association, the Petö kindergarten Sonnenschein in Rosenheim-Oberwöhr, and the Pflege-Stiftung Meltl, which calls her its patron. They also name her treasurer of the FC Bayern Munich fan club in the Bundestag. A December 2024 report on a gift from the club called her a founding member and long-serving treasurer.

Beyond the constituency, the disclosure lists unpaid membership of the Beirat of Freundeskreis Yad Vashem; the association's profile calls her a Kuratorium member since 2020. In March 2022 the Oberbayerisches Volksblatt reported a two-year appointment to the Kuratorium of the Stiftung Haus der kleinen Forscher; under the name Stiftung Kinder forschen, the disclosure ends that seat on 14 May 2025. From 13 October 2025 she is listed on the Stiftungsrat of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, and the institute's organ list includes her as an Interior Ministry parliamentary state secretary. From 11 November 2025 she sits, unpaid and by virtue of office, on the supervisory board of the Zentrum für Internationale Friedenseinsätze, as that day's constitutive meeting recorded. From 17 March 2026 the disclosure adds the Stiftungsrat of the Stiftung Orte der deutschen Demokratiegeschichte in Frankfurt am Main.

Order of Merit

In September 2019 Ludwig received the Cross of Merit on ribbon (Verdienstkreuz am Bande) of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Oberbayerisches Volksblatt reported on 24 September 2019 that Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble presented it at a ceremony in the Reichstag building. The paper quoted him as citing honorary work, alongside her political offices, for the protection of children and of disabled, care-dependent and otherwise dependent people, and for the protection of unborn life. It added that she held board posts and patronages in charitable and integrative institutions.

Personal life

Marriage and children

The Bundestag biography, based on her own statement, lists Ludwig as Roman Catholic, married, and the mother of two children. On 17 December 2010, still known as Daniela Raab, she married Florian Ludwig at a small civil ceremony in the Kleiner Sitzungssaal of Rosenheim town hall, conducted by mayor Gabriele Bauer before family and close friends. Florian Ludwig, then 31, was a CSU city councillor in Rosenheim and a mathematics and physics teacher at the Karolinen-Gymnasium; she was 35. She took his surname, telling the Oberbayerisches Volksblatt that she disliked hyphenated names and wanted the marriage to be outwardly visible. A larger church wedding was planned for the new year.

Their twins, Anna and Constantin, were born on 13 May 2011 at Klinikum Rosenheim, twelve weeks early, after a viral pneumonia had induced labor. Ludwig and the infants spent the first days in intensive care; the children remained on the premature-baby ward, and she took maternity leave. The family lives in Kolbermoor, where she has said she still commutes to Berlin, and in September 2018 both parents took Anna and Constantin to their first day at the Mangfallschule there. As of October 2024 Florian Ludwig remained a CSU city councillor and a mathematics and physics teacher on the leadership of the Karolinen-Gymnasium.

Public profile

On 18 December 2010 the Oberbayerisches Volksblatt treated the change of name as immediate, writing that the Bundestag member “Daniela Raab” was now history and headlining the report “Daniela Raab jetzt ‚Frau Ludwig‘”.

On 14 May 2018 Die Welt published Peter Issig’s profile under the headline “CSU: Daniela Ludwig – Seehofers Frau für die Frauen”. It presented the 42-year-old lawyer from Kolbermoor as still little known beyond her constituency, and described her March 2018 appointment as deputy CSU secretary-general—Horst Seehofer offered her the post in person—as a response to the party’s weak appeal among women. Issig noted mockery that she had been chosen to make the CSU look younger and more female, which she rejected by citing her qualifications. The article recalled the 2010 marriage and the twins’ birth a year later, wrote that family mattered to her, “above all the traditional family image”, and recorded that she had voted against same-sex marriage.