# Hans-Peter Friedrich

# Hans-Peter Friedrich

Hans-Peter Friedrich (born 10 March 1957 in Naila, Upper Franconia) is a German lawyer and politician of the [Christian Social Union in Bavaria](/organizations/christian-social-union-in-bavaria) (CSU). He was a member of the Bundestag from 1998 through the 20th legislative period (2021–2025), directly elected for the Hof constituency in Bavaria, and in July 2024 told his constituency conference that he would not stand again after 26 years in parliament. In the governments of Chancellor [Angela Merkel](/people/angela-merkel) he served as Federal Minister of the Interior from March 2011 to December 2013 and as Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture from December 2013 until he resigned on 14 February 2014.

He passed the Abitur at the Gymnasium in Naila, completed 15 months of military service, and studied law in Munich and at the University of Augsburg, taking the second state examination in law in 1986. Parallel economics studies produced a Vordiplom in Augsburg in 1986 and continued at the FernUniversität Hagen. In 1988 he received a doctorate in law for a dissertation titled *Die Testamentsvollstreckung an Kommanditanteilen* (testamentary execution of limited-partnership shares). That year he entered the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs as a civil servant in the industry department; about two years later he moved to the economic section of the German embassy in Washington, D.C., and from 1991 to 1998 he worked for the CDU/CSU Bundestag group, from 1993 as personal assistant to CSU Landesgruppe chairman Michael Glos.

Friedrich joined the CSU in 1974. Inside the Union group he was a deputy chairman from 2005 to 2009, responsible for transport, building, urban development, tourism and local government, and chairman of the CSU Landesgruppe from September 2009 until he became interior minister in March 2011. On 3 March 2011, at the start of that term, he said that the claim “Islam belongs to Germany” was “a fact that cannot be substantiated from history anywhere,” while adding that Muslim citizens belonged to the country; the [Social Democrats](/organizations/social-democrats) and [the Greens](/organizations/the-greens) called the remark polarising.

In October 2013, during negotiations on Merkel’s third coalition, he told Social Democratic chairman Sigmar Gabriel that the SPD deputy Sebastian Edathy was under suspicion in a child-pornography inquiry tied to the Canadian investigation Operation Spade. After that conversation became public, Friedrich resigned as agriculture minister on 14 February 2014, saying he remained convinced he had acted correctly in both the political and the legal sense; Merkel accepted the resignation with “great respect and great regret.” Berlin prosecutors investigated him for betrayal of official secrets and, on 6 October 2014, dropped the case, citing a low degree of possible guilt and the absence of self-interest.

He returned as a deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU group from February 2014 to October 2017. The Bundestag elected him one of its vice presidents on 24 October 2017, and he held the office until October 2021. Since July 2011 he has been district chairman of the CSU in Upper Franconia.

## Early life and education

### Family and schooling

Hans-Peter Friedrich was born on 10 March 1957 in Naila, in the district of Hof in Upper Franconia, Bavaria. Parliamentary biographies list him as Evangelical Lutheran. The Munzinger archive describes him as the son of a public-administration employee, with four siblings, and places the family in a small town near the former border with East Germany. Naila lay in the Zonenrandgebiet along the inner German border. A *Spiegel* profile from his appointment as interior minister in 2011 said he had grown up "in the shadow of the Wall," and *[Die Welt](/organizations/die-welt)* likewise located his home town on that border strip.

*Aerial view of Naila, the Upper Franconian town where Hans-Peter Friedrich was born and attended Gymnasium.*

At the Gymnasium in Naila he took part in the Protestant youth organization, the Evangelische Jugend, and in the student council. In 1973 he joined the Junge Union, the youth organization of the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union; a Bundestag biography also lists him as a deputy district chairman of that organization. He has dated the start of his political work to the founding of a Schüler-Union group in Naila that year. Munzinger calls him founding chairman of the Schüler-Union of Upper Franconia, and *Spiegel* described the group as one of the first in the region, formed partly as a stand against socialism. He later said that his first speeches, given at 16 in the Schüler-Union, were written out in full for a meeting with the mayor. In 1974 he joined the CSU in the Naila local branch and the Hof-Land district association. He passed the Abitur at the Naila Gymnasium in 1978 and then completed 15 months of military service before starting university in 1979.

### Legal and economics studies

From 1979 to 1983 Friedrich studied law in Munich and Augsburg. A Bundestag biography from the 15th electoral term records that he passed the first state examination in law in 1983, trained as a Rechtsreferendar, and passed the second state examination in 1986.

From 1984 to 1986 he also studied economics (Wirtschaftswissenschaften) at the University of Augsburg and in 1986 took the Vordiplom toward the degree of Diplom-Ökonom. He then continued with economics at the distance-learning FernUniversität in Hagen. A later Bundestag note dates that course from 1984 to 1988, at Augsburg until 1986 and thereafter at Hagen. The published curricula record the intermediate examination and the further study at Hagen, but not a completed economics degree.

In 1988 the University of Augsburg awarded him a doctorate in law for the dissertation *Die Testamentsvollstreckung an Kommanditanteilen* ("The execution of a will over limited-partnership shares"). The German National Library catalogues it as an Augsburg dissertation of that year, a volume of 218 pages. The table of contents treats the overlap of inheritance law and partnership law: substitutes for an executor, such as a power of attorney, a trust and a usufruct; whether a share in a Kommanditgesellschaft falls into the estate; the clash between the executor's liability, limited to the estate, and the liability of a partner; and the membership rights an executor might exercise, including consent to extraordinary business and to changes in the partnership agreement. In the same year he entered the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs as a Regierungsrat in its industry department.

## Civil service and party work

### Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs

In 1988 Friedrich entered the federal civil service as a *Regierungsrat* in the industry department of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs, the Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft, then based in Bonn. Bundestag biographies, which the parliament notes are taken from members' own statements, record that his last rank in that service was *Ministerialrat*; they do not date the promotion.

The appointment came after more than a decade in local party politics in Upper Franconia. In 1973, at 16, he joined the Junge Union, the youth organization of the [Christian Democratic Union](/organizations/christian-democratic-union-of-germany) and the Christian Social Union; an archived biography from his first Bundestag term lists him as a deputy district chairman of the Junge Union. He has dated the start of that work to the same year and to the founding of a Schüler-Union group in Naila. *[Der Spiegel](/organizations/der-spiegel)*, profiling him in 2011, called the group one of the first in Upper Franconia and wrote that, having grown up near the inner-German border, he also understood the step as opposition to socialism. In 1974 he joined the CSU in the Naila local branch and in the Kreisverband Hof/Land.

### Embassy posting and Bundestag staff

From 1990 to 1991 he worked in the economic section of the German Embassy in Washington, D.C., a posting an archived Bundestag biography dates to those two years and a later parliamentary profile places two years after he joined the ministry in Bonn. His own curriculum vitae calls the Washington assignment a secondment (*Abordnung*) and the period from 1991 to 1998 leave of absence (*Beurlaubung*) from the ministry to the parliamentary group.

On his return in 1991 he became a staff member of the CDU/CSU Bundestag group and a *Referent* of the CSU *Landesgruppe* in its working group on the economy, transport and agriculture. A later Bundestag account also lists post and telecommunications among that working group's fields. Reporting his 2024 decision not to stand again, the *Frankenpost* wrote that, before entering parliament, he had spent ten years in the economics ministry and as a *Referent* of the CDU/CSU group in Bonn.

From 1993 until 1998 he was personal assistant (*persönlicher Referent*) to Michael Glos, chairman of the CSU *Landesgruppe*. Glos had taken that chair on 22 January 1993, succeeding Wolfgang Bötsch, who left it on becoming federal minister for posts and telecommunications; *Der Spiegel* that February already described Glos as the *Landesgruppe*'s new leader in Bonn.

## Bundestag career, 1998–2011

### Elections in Hof

Friedrich entered the Bundestag at the federal election of 27 September 1998 on the state list in Bavaria of the Christian Social Union (CSU), after losing the direct mandate in Wahlkreis 225 Hof, in Upper Franconia. Petra Ernstberger of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) was elected there with 49.5 percent of the first votes (75,773). The CSU, whose candidate was Friedrich, took 42.9 percent (65,643), 7.5 percentage points below its 1994 share, on a turnout of 79.6 percent.

He won the constituency at each of the next three elections. On 22 September 2002, in the renumbered Wahlkreis 240 Hof, he received 80,450 first votes, or 53.6 percent, against 38.9 percent for the SPD; turnout was 79.8 percent. In 2005, still in Wahlkreis 240, his share was 50.1 percent (69,788 votes) to the SPD’s 37.1 percent, with turnout at 75.8 percent. In 2009 the seat was numbered 239 and he was returned with 46.5 percent (57,632 votes). The SPD fell to 27.2 percent and turnout to 69.8 percent of 180,735 eligible voters. Wahlkreis 239 comprised the independent city of Hof and the districts of Hof and Wunsiedel im Fichtelgebirge.

### Committees, inquiries and group offices

In the 14th Bundestag he was deputy chairman of the first committee of inquiry of that term, the party-donations inquiry established on 2 December 1999. During the committee’s examination of former chancellor [Helmut Kohl](/people/helmut-kohl), he described the inquiry as a body of politicians rather than judges and said that objectivity was absent on every side.

From 2002 to 2005 he was legal adviser (Justitiar) of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, then led by Angela Merkel. In the same term he was deputy chairman of the inquiry into alleged electoral deception (“Wahlbetrug”), with Klaus Uwe Benneter of the SPD as chairman. The committee examined whether [Gerhard Schröder](/people/gerhard-schroder)’s government had, before the 2002 election, misinformed parliament and the public about the federal budget, the finances of the social-insurance funds and compliance with the European stability criteria. The SPD and the Greens extended the remit to earlier practice with forecasts and to campaign statements by Union minister-presidents; Friedrich accused the SPD of using delay against the minority’s constitutional rights.

He was also a Bundestag member of the joint commissions with the Bundesrat on German federalism. The Bundesrat lists him among the CDU/CSU members from the Bundestag on the commission to modernize the federal order, and in 2007 the Bundestag named him to the commission on financial relations between the federation and the Länder.

On 29 November 2005 the CSU state group in the Bundestag (Landesgruppe) nominated him as a deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU group, responsible for transport, building and urban development, tourism and local government. The full group confirmed that leadership the same day under chairman Volker Kauder; Friedrich took building and transport. That deputy chairmanship, not a government office, was his role through the 16th Bundestag.

After the 2009 election the CSU members, on the evening of 28 October, elected him chairman of the Landesgruppe with 38 of 42 votes. He succeeded [Peter Ramsauer](/people/peter-ramsauer), who had just been sworn in as federal minister of transport, and stood at the proposal of party chairman Horst Seehofer. As Landesgruppe chairman he was first deputy to Kauder. When the group re-elected Kauder in 2010, one year into the legislative term, Friedrich did not have to stand again. He left both offices on 3 March 2011, when Federal President Christian Wulff appointed him Federal Minister of the Interior. He had initially preferred to remain chairman of the Landesgruppe.

## Federal Minister of the Interior

### Appointment and portfolio

Hans-Peter Friedrich became federal minister of the interior on 3 March 2011 in Angela Merkel's second cabinet. Defence minister [Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg](/people/karl-theodor-zu-guttenberg) had resigned on 1 March over plagiarism in his doctoral thesis, and Merkel and Christian Social Union chairman Horst Seehofer agreed that interior minister Thomas de Maizière (Christian Democratic Union) would move to defence while Friedrich, chairman of the CSU group in the Bundestag, took the interior post. President [Christian Wulff](/people/christian-wulff) was to appoint him that day; he took the parliamentary oath on 16 March. Merkel said the post covered policing and counter-terrorism but also religious dialogue, integration and demography, including supervision of the federal police, domestic intelligence, migration and information security. After the September 2013 election he stayed on as caretaker until the next government was sworn in on 17 December 2013.

### Extremism, the NSU and internal security

In November 2011 the neo-Nazi National Socialist Underground was uncovered after years of murders, most of them of people with a migrant background, plus bombings and robberies that police and intelligence agencies had not treated as right-wing terrorism.

Responsible for the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Friedrich promised an examination and then consequences. On 16 December 2011 he opened a Joint Defence Centre against Right-Wing Extremism to pool the federal criminal police, the domestic service and state authorities. On 21 September, before the cell was exposed, he banned the Hilfsorganisation für nationale politische Gefangene und deren Angehörige, described as the largest nationwide neo-Nazi association, with about 600 members, for glorifying National Socialism and keeping prisoners in the extremist milieu—something he called "no longer acceptable." Green MP Monika Lazar welcomed the ban but criticized planned cuts to federal anti-extremism programmes.

Days after the NSU was found, a section head shredded dossiers on far-right informants, the "confetti affair," and service president Heinz Fromm resigned. A ministry decree of 14 November 2011 also ordered deletion of six G-10 wiretap files, which officials called a routine expiry of storage limits with no NSU leads and a coincidence of timing. Friedrich still called the episode the service's worst crisis and promised a full examination.

He was more cautious than the Länder on the [National Democratic Party](/organizations/national-democratic-party) of Germany. In December 2012 the state interior ministers recommended a fresh ban. He treated a ban as an ultima ratio, said the party was on a "downward path," and warned that a case could revive it; the federal government did not join the states' application.

### Data retention, surveillance and cyber policy

Within a day of taking office Friedrich said he shared de Maizière's view that suspicion-independent retention of telephone and internet traffic data should return quickly as a tool against terrorism. The Federal [Constitutional Court](/organizations/constitutional-court) had struck the previous regime down in March 2010. Justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger of the Free Democratic Party replied that data should be kept only where suspicion existed and that a cascade of new security laws was over.

In August 2011, after Anders Behring Breivik's attacks in Norway, Friedrich said bloggers should argue "with an open visor" and anonymous writers should identify themselves, because the legal order had to apply online. The ministry then called this an appeal to civil society, not a bill, and he conceded that anonymity made sense in some forums. SPD chairman Sigmar Gabriel doubted the idea was workable and wanted more police online; Green MP [Konstantin von Notz](/people/konstantin-von-notz) said anonymity should be strengthened, not abolished.

In October 2011 the [Chaos Computer Club](/organizations/chaos-computer-club) analysed malware used for source telecommunications surveillance and said a reload function could push it toward an online search limited by a 2008 constitutional ruling. The ministry said the federal criminal police had not used that version. Friedrich told the *Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung* that the Länder had stayed inside the law and that reloading was needed for updates; he also mocked the club, while Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger defended the experts.

On 16 June 2011 he opened the National Cyber Defence Centre in Bonn-Mehlem, begun as an April pilot under the Federal Office for Information Security and then joined by federal police, the criminal police, foreign intelligence, the armed forces and customs. He called protection of information infrastructure an existential question of the century; reporting at the time called that mix of agencies controversial.

### Islam, migration and integration

On his first day Friedrich said: "That Islam belongs to Germany is a fact that cannot be substantiated anywhere in history." Muslims living in Germany belonged as citizens, he said, but the *Leitkultur* was Christian-Jewish-Western, "not the Islamic one," even as he promised the German Islam Conference priority. That contradicted Wulff, who in October 2010 had said Islam by now also belonged to Germany. Green co-leader [Renate Künast](/people/renate-kunast) accused him of smashing porcelain on day one, and [Cem Özdemir](/people/cem-ozdemir) called the outlook crude. Aiman Mazyek of the Central Council of Muslims accused him of denying historical ties between Europe and the Islamic world, and Lamya Kaddor of the Liberal-Islamic Federation called the remarks a "slap in the face of Muslims."

In October 2012, as asylum applications from Serbia and Macedonia jumped after visa-free travel—from 78 in 2010 to 2,435 in September 2012 alone—Friedrich spoke of "unacceptable and growing abuse of asylum" and demanded faster procedures, removals and an EU suspension of visa-free entry. Pro Asyl's Marei Pelzer called that scaremongering that could tip into racism, recalling the 1992 Rostock-Lichtenhagen riots, and pointed to poverty and discrimination facing Roma applicants.

In June 2013, after the Association of German Cities warned that arrivals from Romania and Bulgaria, many of them Roma, endangered social peace, Friedrich said people found working illegally could be "thrown out without much fuss" and barred from returning the next day.

### Intelligence cooperation and the NSA disclosures

After [Edward Snowden](/people/edward-snowden)'s disclosures about the [National Security Agency](/organizations/national-security-agency), Friedrich met Attorney General [Eric Holder](/people/eric-holder) and counter-terrorism adviser Lisa Monaco in Washington on 12 July 2013. He said Germany could not accept NSA breaches of German law, but he put that in the conditional and looked to U.S. declassification rather than to Snowden's papers; Berlin officials called the trip symbolic. On 16 July he told the Bundestag control committee that security was a "super-fundamental right" and that he had not known of programmes such as Prism. Green MP [Hans-Christian Ströbele](/people/hans-christian-strobele) said the decisive questions were still open.

On 16 August, after chancellery minister Ronald Pofalla had called the charge of total surveillance "off the table," Friedrich told the *Rheinische Post* that "all the suspicions that were raised have been cleared up" and had "dissolved into thin air." SPD parliamentary leader [Frank-Walter Steinmeier](/people/frank-walter-steinmeier) said the debate was only beginning. *Der Spiegel* had reported that German foreign intelligence was passing up to 500 million communications records a month to the NSA.

The line shifted on 24 October, after reports that Merkel's phone may have been a U.S. target for years. Friedrich told the *Leipziger Volkszeitung* that an American apology was "overdue" and that eavesdropping on friends was unacceptable between allies. A day earlier his spokesman had still called the affair mainly "media excitement" and said cooperation had been assumed to be legally sound.

## Agriculture ministry and the Edathy affair

### Appointment in the third Merkel cabinet

On 17 December 2013, after the Bundestag re-elected Angela Merkel, Federal President [Joachim Gauck](/people/joachim-gauck) appointed the ministers of her third cabinet at Schloss Bellevue; they were sworn in in parliament the same day. The government was a grand coalition of the Christian Democratic Union, the Christian Social Union and the Social Democratic Party. Hans-Peter Friedrich, until then federal minister of the interior, became federal minister of food and agriculture, one of three CSU posts alongside transport and development cooperation.

The portfolio was narrower than the one [Ilse Aigner](/people/ilse-aigner) had held. In the 18th legislative period consumer policy moved to the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection under Heiko Maas. The Bundestag data handbook records that Aigner left on 30 September 2013 and that Friedrich, still interior minister, was from that date charged with conducting the ministry's business. It lists him as minister in the new cabinet only until 17 February 2014, the date of his formal dismissal.

### Disclosure to the SPD leadership

The dispute that ended the appointment began in October 2013, during the coalition talks, while Friedrich was still interior minister. His spokesman said a state secretary had told him that the Federal Criminal Police Office had reported the name of SPD Bundestag member Sebastian Edathy in international investigations. Friedrich later called the information not relevant in criminal law, but he gave it to SPD chairman Sigmar Gabriel. Gabriel informed Frank-Walter Steinmeier, then leader of the SPD parliamentary group, and Thomas Oppermann, then its parliamentary business manager.

*Der Spiegel* reported that Edathy appeared on a customer list of the Toronto firm Azov Films, examined in the Canadian police operation known as Operation Spade, as a customer from 2005 to 2010 with nine orders totalling 31 products. The firm had sold films of underage boys presented as naturist material. On 14 February 2014 the Hanover public prosecutor's office said it was investigating suspected possession of images of unclothed boys aged nine to 14, material it called on the borderline of child pornography: posing images showing genitals but not sexual acts. Edathy denied possessing child-pornographic writings. Prosecutors said that before the searches they had no clear sign he held images illegal in Germany, but that ordering borderline material from abroad could support opening a case.

Edathy told the Bundestag president on 7 February 2014 that he was resigning his seat at once for health reasons. He had chaired the parliamentary inquiry into the National Socialist Underground. From 10 February Hanover prosecutors investigated him. Police searched homes in Berlin and Rehburg and an SPD office in Stadthagen; the Bundestag press office said there had been no search inside parliament, and Edathy was not found. *Der Spiegel* reported that the searches produced hardly any usable material.

Oppermann had telephoned BKA president Jörg Ziercke to assess the tip. He later said Ziercke gave no details and did not comment, which left the impression that an investigation was not ruled out. On 13 February, the day before Friedrich resigned, Oppermann made the October conversation public. He said he had cleared the statement with Friedrich, who had seen the text in advance and raised no objection; Friedrich later called it a move to protect Oppermann's own position. Oppermann said he had not contacted Edathy about the matter and was sure no one in the SPD leadership had warned him. Edathy denied receiving a tip. Hanover prosecutors said a lawyer had asked them in late November about a proceeding "to do with child pornography," and the head of the office, Jörg Fröhlich, said he was deeply shaken that so much of the case had become public. Investigators spoke of obstruction of a prosecution. The lawyers Ulrich Battis and Christoph Degenhart told *Der Spiegel* that the disclosure breached official secrecy; other jurists disagreed.

### Resignation and the closed investigation

On 14 February 2014 Friedrich resigned. He said he still believed he had acted correctly in both the political and the legal sense, but that the pressure of the previous hours made it impossible to continue with the necessary concentration, calm and political support. He closed with "Auf Wiedersehen. Ich komme wieder" ("Goodbye—I'm coming back"). Earlier that day, after speaking to Merkel, he had said he would go if prosecutors opened a case for breach of official secrecy. Opposition demands that he resign had started, and Merkel withheld her backing.

Merkel said she accepted the resignation "with great respect and great regret," and that by stepping down he had taken political responsibility whatever the legal judgment. She left the choice of a successor to CSU chairman Horst Seehofer. On 17 February Gauck dismissed Friedrich and appointed [Christian Schmidt](/people/christian-schmidt), a state secretary in the development ministry and Seehofer's nominee. Gauck cited Friedrich's interior-ministry reforms after the NSU murders and called the resignation an ordinary acceptance of responsibility, while noting that jurists differed about the disclosure.

Berlin prosecutors then investigated Friedrich for violation of official secrets under section 353b of the Criminal Code, which requires authorization from the interior minister, by then Thomas de Maizière. A closing note reported on 7 September 2014 said the disclosure had been unlawful and intentional, but that his guilt was slight: he had not acted for personal gain, but to keep Edathy from being considered for a senior post in the government being formed. His defence agreed on 21 August to a discontinuation under section 153 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, still subject to the interior minister and the court. On 6 October 2014 the Berlin public prosecutor's office dropped the case. A spokesman said guilt was low enough to waive further prosecution, because Friedrich had harmed himself by having to resign and had acted unselfishly for the coalition talks.

Edathy's prosecution ended the next year without a conviction. On 2 March 2015 the Landgericht Verden discontinued it in return for €5,000 to be paid to the Kinderschutzbund in Lower Saxony. His lawyer said the accusations were correct and that Edathy had downloaded videos and pictures of naked boys onto an official laptop; prosecutors had alleged downloads in autumn 2013. Edathy confirmed that the statement had been agreed with him, then wrote that it was not a confession and that the court had made no finding of guilt. The discontinuation left him without a criminal conviction.

## Later parliamentary offices

### Deputy chairman for European affairs

Friedrich left the federal cabinet on 14 February 2014, when he resigned as minister of food and agriculture. Three days later the Landesgruppe of the Christian Social Union elected him unanimously a deputy chairman of the joint CDU/CSU group in the Bundestag, the seat vacated by [Thomas Silberhorn](/people/thomas-silberhorn), who was becoming a parliamentary state secretary at the development ministry; Christian Schmidt took the agriculture portfolio. The Bundestag’s archived biography for the 20th electoral term dates that deputy chairmanship from February 2014 to October 2017.

The CDU/CSU group’s 2014 activity report assigned him European policy and European coordination, cooperation among national parliaments in Europe, and the group’s liaison office in Brussels. Interior policy, legal affairs and consumer protection were not on that list: the same report gave them to Thomas Strobl. The division was unchanged in January 2017, when the CSU Landesgruppe still presented him as deputy chairman for European policy. Before a Bundestag debate on the [European Commission](/organizations/european-commission)’s 2017 work programme he said the European Union should confine itself to questions that could only be settled at European level—defence, internal security and counter-terrorism, migration, an energy union and digitalisation—and that subsidiarity required other decisions to be taken nationally or regionally.

### Vice President of the Bundestag

On 24 October 2017, at the constitutive sitting of the 19th Bundestag, the house elected Friedrich a vice president. President Wolfgang Schäuble announced that, of 703 votes cast, 507 were in favour, 112 against and 82 abstentions, with two invalid; the majority required was 355. Friedrich accepted the election. On the same ballot Thomas Oppermann, [Wolfgang Kubicki](/people/wolfgang-kubicki), [Petra Pau](/people/petra-pau) and [Claudia Roth](/people/claudia-roth) were elected, while the AfD candidate Albrecht Glaser, with 115 votes in favour, was not.

The archived biography places the vice-presidency from October 2017 to October 2021, and the Bundestag’s profile of the office records the election of 24 October 2017. In that office the vice presidents deputised for the president in the chamber; the parliament’s image archive shows Friedrich at the lectern in the Reichstag plenary. The term ended at the constitutive sitting of the 20th Bundestag on 26 October 2021, which Schäuble opened as Alterspräsident. Newly elected president [Bärbel Bas](/people/barbel-bas) thanked the outgoing vice president, and the CDU/CSU seat passed to Yvonne Magwas, elected with 600 votes in favour, 62 against and 60 abstentions.

### Final term and departure

Friedrich remained the directly elected member for constituency 239, Hof, throughout the 20th Bundestag (2021–2025). The archived biography lists him as a full member of the Committee on Climate Protection and Energy and a deputy member of the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union.

In the same term he chaired the German-Chinese Parliamentary Group. The Bundestag’s list of group boards names Dagmar Schmidt (SPD), Boris Mijatovic (Greens), Gyde Jensen (FDP) and [Peter Felser](/people/peter-felser) (AfD) as deputy chairs. He told the Bundestag’s youth editorial office that the group had been constituted only in May 2022—the interview was given while a meeting on the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations with China was still being prepared—and he tied the chairmanship to that interest and to the association China-Brücke. Early sessions, he said, were briefings by the Foreign Office, with economic relations a first focus. From 13 to 18 July 2024 he led a delegation to Beijing, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The stated purpose was parliamentary exchange with the National People’s Congress, including its Chinese-German friendship group, together with the economic and social situation in China, bilateral economic relations and Chinese environmental policy.

On 11 July 2024, at a meeting of the CSU’s constituency conference for Hof/Wunsiedel, he said he would not stand at the next federal election. He had then represented the constituency for 26 years and, since July 2011, chaired the CSU in Upper Franconia. He told the *Frankenpost* that after more than 25 years the moment had come to take on new challenges, and that a political transition he expected in Germany should be shaped by the next generation. He set the nomination of a successor candidate for 28 September 2024, citing the possibility of an early dissolution.

He was not a candidate at the federal election of 23 February 2025. In Hof, now constituency 238, the CSU direct mandate went to [Heiko Hain](/people/heiko-hain), with 40.4 per cent of the first votes (51,926) on the official final result; Oliver Koller of the AfD was second with 23.8 per cent. The 21st Bundestag held its constitutive sitting on 25 March 2025, which closed the 20th electoral term and Friedrich’s mandate.

He also gave up the Upper Franconian party chair. At the district conference in Naila on 28 June 2025 he did not stand again, after 14 years in the post. Martin Schöffel defeated [Emmi Zeulner](/people/emmi-zeulner) by 73 votes to 59 among 132 valid delegate votes, and the district association lists Schöffel as chairman after that election.

## China engagement

### German-Chinese parliamentary group

In the Bundestag's 20th electoral period, Friedrich, of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, chaired the German-Chinese parliamentary group, its forum for contact with the [National People's Congress of China](/organizations/national-people-s-congress-of-china). In the 19th period the chair was Dagmar Schmidt of the [Social Democratic Party of Germany](/organizations/social-democratic-party-of-germany). On 28 April 2022 *Der Tagesspiegel* reported that he had taken the post and, the previous evening, had opened a meeting of the group in the Jakob-Kaiser-Haus, while still heading China-Brücke, which the paper called a lobby association. A list of group boards dated 12 July 2024 still named him chair for the CDU/CSU, with Schmidt, Boris Mijatovic of Alliance 90/The Greens, Gyde Jensen of the Free Democratic Party and Peter Felser of [the Alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) for Germany as deputies.

From 13 to 18 July 2024 he led a delegation to Beijing, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The Bundestag quoted him that, for prosperity, climate policy and other global questions, "an der Zusammenarbeit mit China führt kein Weg vorbei." The programme included the NPC's Chinese-German friendship group, firms in Shenzhen, and, in Hong Kong, the situation after the 2021 electoral changes and the national-security law. He later called the European Union's duties on Chinese electric cars an unsuitable answer to subsidies, noting Germany had opposed them and been outvoted.

### China-Brücke

China-Brücke e.V. was founded by ten men and one woman in an office building on Berlin's Kurfürstendamm on a Thursday in October 2019; LobbyControl's Lobbypedia dates the meeting to 24 October. Friedrich was elected chairman. The statute, modelled on the Atlantik-Brücke, was to promote understanding between Germany, the European Union and China. Michael Schumann of the BWA business association became first deputy and FDP deputy Alexander Kulitz treasurer. The board also included former SPD deputy Johannes Pflug and Carsten Senz, then head of corporate communications at Huawei Germany, with managers from SAP and Alibaba. About 30 members, including politicians from nearly every Bundestag group, were to stay unnamed.

He told *Handelsblatt* the network was not a lobby and would avoid day-to-day disputes, including Huawei and 5G, Hong Kong and internment camps in Xinjiang: "Wir betreiben keine Nebenaußenpolitik." Sigmar Gabriel, then Atlantik-Brücke chairman, said bridges to China mattered but the comparison failed, because that association rested on freedom, democracy and the rule of law. Kulitz said Chinese-company donations were viewed critically, though Huawei and Alibaba subsidiaries sat on the board.

In June 2020 Ulrich Delius of the Society for Threatened Peoples warned the federal human-rights commissioner of "chinesischen Verhältnissen in der Lobbyarbeit" if the membership stayed secret. That October the society said a video in which Friedrich congratulated the People's Republic on its 71st anniversary repeated official poverty-reduction claims and omitted internment of Uyghurs and Kazakhs and repression in Tibet. Didi Kirsten Tatlow of the German Council on Foreign Relations said such a dialogue could not be kept free of the party-state and might become a channel of influence. The 2021 report of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution did not name the association, but said China sought active and former German politicians as "Lobbyisten" and pressed critics.

The chairs overlapped until December 2022. Lobbypedia, citing *Tagesspiegel*, recorded Hartmut Bäumer of Transparency Deutschland calling that a possible conflict of interest, and reported that a second post—first chairman of the Committee on German-Chinese Relations e.V.—had not been disclosed until the paper's June 2023 investigation. The Bundestag register lists him as chairman of China-Brücke e.V. in Potsdam until 6 December 2022 and of that Committee, in Berlin, until 8 December 2022. In April 2024 *Die Zeit* called him founding head of the "pekingfreundlichen" China-Brücke and quoted him saying "China ist keine Diktatur."

On 29 June 2023 Tongji University in Shanghai made him an honorary professor. Its account tied the appointment to China-Brücke and the parliamentary group and noted his lecture on European climate policy. A guest-scholar page of the Institute of SCO Studies at Shandong University in Qingdao, dated 3 June 2024, lists him as Tongji's honorary professor and as founding chairman of China-Brücke, not as a Shandong honorary professor.

## Political positions

### Security, civil liberties and integration

In March 2011 Friedrich backed suspicion-independent retention of telecommunications data—annulled by the Federal Constitutional Court in 2010—as his predecessor Thomas de Maizière had, calling it an “efficient instrument” against terrorism. The Free Democratic Party wanted data stored only after a concrete suspicion. That November, citing deleted data in a far-right murder investigation, he offered an EU cut from six to four months, with access limited to serious crime; FDP specialist Hartfrid Wolff and Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger refused.

On 7 August 2011, after the [2011 Norway attacks](/facts/2011-norway-attacks), he told *Der Spiegel* that offenders such as Anders Behring Breivik found “radicalised, undifferentiated theses” online and asked why bloggers such as “Fjordman” stayed anonymous. Argument in a democracy, he said, was conducted “with an open visor.” SPD specialist Dieter Wiefelspütz called that “incredibly naive.” [Pirate Party](/organizations/pirate-party-germany) chairman Sebastian Nerz said anonymity underpinned free opinion; Malte Spitz of Alliance 90/The Greens called the idea dangerous to free expression; and Jan Korte of [Die Linke](/organizations/die-linke) spoke of “totalitarian” control fantasies. The next day he said there would be no law, only “an appeal to civil society,” and SPD chairman Sigmar Gabriel called a real-name rule unworkable.

On 3 March 2011 he said that the claim Islam belongs to Germany “cannot be demonstrated anywhere from history,” while Muslims “of course belong to this country as citizens,” and—repeating a line from his time as CSU state-group leader—that Germany’s *Leitkultur* was “Christian-Jewish-Western,” not Islamic. That contradicted President Christian Wulff, who in October 2010 had said Islam “now also belongs to Germany.” Green leader Renate Künast, Cem Özdemir, Central Council of Muslims chairman Aiman Mazyek and Berlin’s SPD mayor [Klaus Wowereit](/people/klaus-wowereit) criticised the distinction. Inside the CDU, Wolfgang Bosbach likewise denied Islam a place in national identity, while Ruprecht Polenz objected to excluding a world religion.

### Europe, the Union parties and the AfD

On 26 February 2012 he told *Spiegel* that Greece’s chances were “certainly greater” outside the monetary union, and that Athens should be offered exit incentives “they can’t pass up”—the first such call from Angela Merkel’s cabinet. The chancellery said it wanted Greece stabilised inside the eurozone, and Horst Seehofer treated an exit only as a last resort; Friedrich then said he did not doubt Merkel and would back the second rescue package.

On 3 July 2015, as deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU group for European policy, he told *Die Welt* that the European Union was in a “critical condition” and that plans associated with [Jean-Claude Juncker](/people/jean-claude-juncker) and [Martin Schulz](/people/martin-schulz) resembled “a planned economy from Eastern-bloc times.” The CSU, he said, would resist further transfers of sovereignty, and Greece had to “leave the euro” rather than have others finance “the chaos of the communists.”

On 30 June 2018, after objects were thrown at Augsburg mayor Kurt Gribl at protests against an [Alternative for Germany](/organizations/alternative-for-germany) congress, Bundestag vice president Friedrich tweeted: “How could he believe that the #Linksfaschisten are democrats?” *Die Welt* reported users accusing him of using “the vocabulary of neo-Nazis” against a crowd police described as largely peaceful.

On 24 September 2026 he told *Bild* that excluding the AfD “was a mistake” and that the “Brandmauer” had sealed the party’s internal conflicts “airtight, instead of letting them ferment.” He blamed a Merkel-era habit of “cuddling up to the left-green camp while demarcating itself on the right,” and a “frightening loss of control” in refugee policy. On 16 October Chancellor [Friedrich Merz](/people/friedrich-merz) said that if there was a firewall, “we are the firewall,” and again ruled out cooperation with the AfD.

## Personal life

### Family

Hans-Peter Friedrich was born on 10 March 1957 in Naila, in Upper Franconia. *Die Welt* describes him as the son of a public-administration employee who grew up with four siblings. The Bundestag biography for the 20th electoral term, drawn from his own statements, lists him as evangelical Lutheran, married, and the father of five children. An English curriculum vitae on his website in 2021 likewise records that he was married with five children.

Profiles from his years in government counted three children and identified his wife as a judge. In a *[Cicero](/people/cicero)* portrait of 17 June 2011 he recalled that she, then the mother of those three children, had told him to accept the interior ministry only if he could be enthusiastic about the office. A news photograph of the Bayreuth Festival opening on 25 July 2013 captions her as his wife, Annette Friedrich. The *Rheinische Post* of 14 February 2014 again described him as married with three children. Later official biographies raised the figure to five while still listing him as married. On 19 March 2018 the *Frankenpost* reported that he attended a Christian Social Union assembly in Marktredwitz with his partner, Diana Troglauer.

### Affiliations

Alongside the mandate he practised as a lawyer in Berlin. Disclosures for the 20th term recorded gross fees from that work of €2,380 in 2023 from an association and, in 2024, €23,000 from a services-sector client and €9,520 from a commercial client. The same filings listed a seat on the supervisory board of Münchener Verein Krankenversicherung a.G. in Munich, remunerated at €14,000 gross in each of 2022, 2023 and 2024, and membership of the advisory board of Friedrich-Baur-GmbH in Altenkunstadt, paid €4,300 a month through 31 December 2021 and €3,680 a month from 1 January 2022.

Other declared posts included the board of trustees of the Stiftung Familienunternehmen in Stuttgart and, from 17 October 2024, of Stiftung Familienunternehmen und Politik, plus the political advisory board of the Bundesverband mittelständische Wirtschaft, the board of trustees of the German-Hungarian Youth Office, and the deputy chair of the Stiftung Martinsberg in Naila. The same disclosure recorded chairmanships, ended in late 2022, of Wirtschaftsregion Hochfranken, China-Brücke, and the Committee on German-Chinese Relations. The *Rheinische Post* reported in 2014 that he belonged to the Catholic student fraternity K.St.V. Ludovicia in Augsburg. His name is among the signatories of *A Message from Germany*, issued in the name of members and friends of the Atlantik-Brücke. A 2010 register of the journal of the German Council on Foreign Relations placed him on the council’s full presidium. A *Rotary Magazin* column of 15 April 2014 identified him as a member of Rotary Club Hof-Bayerisches Vogtland within [Rotary International](/organizations/rotary-international).

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/hans-peter-friedrich