Heiko Hain

Heiko Hain (born 26 March 1982 in Münchberg) is a German politician of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria and a member of the Bundestag for constituency 238, Hof, in Bavaria. He has sat in the 21st Bundestag since its constitutive session on 25 March 2025, holding that constituency’s direct mandate. The Bundestag lists his profession as Verwaltungsfachwirt.

Hain finished Realschule in Helmbrechts in 1998 and trained as a Bürokaufmann from 1998 to 2002. He then did basic military service in 2002 and 2003 with Radarführungsabteilung 24 in Freising. Since 2003 he has been an administrative employee of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria. From 2008 to 2010 he qualified as a Verwaltungsfachwirt, and from 2011 to 2016 he studied political science, administrative science and sociology at the FernUniversität in Hagen, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts. Since 2015 he has been deputy head of the church-tax office in Bayreuth; the Bundestag’s register of members’ interests records a right to return to that employment and protection against dismissal.

He joined the CSU in 1999 and is district chairman of its Kommunalpolitische Vereinigung. From 2014 until 30 April 2026 he was first mayor of Weißdorf, in the district of Hof in Upper Franconia, and he has sat on the Hof district council since 2020. The Bundestag’s register of outside activities lists mayoral pay of 3,789.53 euro gross a month until 30 April 2026.

At the federal election of 23 February 2025 he took the seat with 51,926 first votes, 40.4 percent, ahead of Oliver Koller of the Alternative for Germany on 23.8 percent and the Social Democratic Party of Germany on 17.8 percent. Turnout was 82.0 percent among 157,915 eligible voters. The constituency comprises the city of Hof, the district of Wunsiedel im Fichtelgebirge and most of the district of Hof, including Weißdorf in the Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Sparneck.

In the 21st Bundestag he is an ordinary member of the Finance Committee, the Interior Committee, the Petitions Committee, the Parliamentary Control Panel and the committee under Article 13(6) of the Basic Law, and a deputy member of the Kuratorium of the Federal Agency for Civic Education.

Early life, education and professional career

Schooling and apprenticeship

Heiko Hain was born on 26 March 1982 in Münchberg. His website states that he attended the Volksschule, the local state school, in Weißdorf from 1988 to 1994 and the Realschule, a secondary school, in Helmbrechts from 1994 to 1998. The Bundestag biography records that he finished the Realschule in Helmbrechts in 1998 and notes that members' biographical entries rest on their own statements.

That biography gives an apprenticeship as a Bürokaufmann, an office clerk, from 1998 to 2002. His website instead dates the apprenticeship to 1998–2001. Bürokaufmann was a nationally regulated training occupation under the Vocational Training Act, normally lasting three years in industry, commerce or the crafts, with instruction divided between the training firm and a vocational school. Trainees learned to organise office work, keep accounts, handle orders and invoices, process personnel records and use office information systems. The occupation was abolished on 1 August 2014 and replaced by Kaufmann/-frau für Büromanagement.

Military service and further education

The Bundestag biography states that Hain performed basic military service (Grundwehrdienst) from 2002 to 2003 with Radarführungsabteilung 24 in Freising. His website dates the Bundeswehr service to 2001–2002 and places it in Bayreuth as well as Freising. Where the two self-reports differ, the dates and the unit named in the parliamentary biography are followed here.

From 2008 to 2010 he completed further training as a Verwaltungsfachwirt, the occupation under which the Bundestag lists him. He identifies the provider as the Bayerische Verwaltungsschule, the training school for public administration in Bavaria. The title is not a university degree. Under the school's statute, a candidate who passes Fachprüfung II, the second professional examination for salaried public employees, may use the designation Verwaltungsfachwirt or Verwaltungsfachwirtin. That examination is the "second examination" which the collective agreement for the municipal public service presupposes before certain duties are assigned, and it tests whether candidates have the general and specialist knowledge those duties require. The preparatory Beschäftigtenlehrgang II normally lasts two years and comprises at most 760 teaching hours, as part-time local instruction or full-time teaching. The school admits employees of the Free State, municipalities and other public-law bodies, and describes the course as preparation for posts whose demands are comparable to the third qualification level for civil servants. The statute applying to courses begun after 1 May 2023 lists, for this second course, public and civil law, municipal law, social and personnel law, public construction and public-order law, economics, local public finance, tax law, leadership and administrative organisation.

From 2011 to 2016 Hain studied political science, administrative science and sociology at the University of Hagen (FernUniversität in Hagen) and received a Bachelor of Arts. The university offers that combination as a distance-learning degree that can be taken full time, part time or alongside employment. It is a Bachelor of Arts of 180 ECTS credits, with a standard full-time length of six semesters; after a common introduction to society, politics and administration, students specialise in one of the three disciplines. The biography does not record which specialisation he took or whether he was enrolled full time.

Church administration

Hain has been a salaried administrative employee (Verwaltungsangestellter) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria since 2003, and since 2015 deputy head of its church-tax office in Bayreuth. In the Bundestag register of members' prior employment, the employer is given as the church in Munich and the post as deputy head of office (Stellv. Amtsleiter), with a right to return and protection against dismissal.

Churches that are corporations under public law may levy church taxes in Bavaria. Church income tax, church wage tax and church tax on capital income are charged at a single rate, which the tax-raising bodies set jointly and which may not exceed 10 per cent of the income, wage or capital-income tax on which it is calculated. The Evangelical Lutheran Church's own levy statute sets that rate at 8 per cent. State finance offices collect church wage tax by deduction from pay. Where the churches keep the administration, it is carried out by church-tax offices they establish, and the finance offices must continuously supply those offices with the assessment data needed for church income tax. The Landeskirche maintains three such offices, in Bayreuth, Nuremberg and Augsburg-Munich. Wage church tax collected by the finance offices is passed to them to administer, and the offices also assess and collect church income tax, church land tax, the besonderes Kirchgeld and church tax on capital income. The Bayreuth office, of which Hain became deputy head, is at Sophienstraße 29.

Municipal office in Weißdorf and the district of Hof

Council and mayoralty

Weißdorf is a municipality in the rural district of Hof, in Upper Franconia, Bavaria. On 31 December 2024 it covered 2,191 hectares and had 1,211 inhabitants. The main village and the parts Albertsreuth, Bärlas, Benk, Bug, Oppenroth and Wulmersreuth make up the municipality. The council consists of the first mayor and the councillors; a municipality of this size has twelve honorary councillors. Heiko Hain, a member of the Christian Social Union, states that he has been a Weißdorf councillor since 2005, standing locally for the Überparteiliche Freie Wählergemeinschaft (ÜFWG) rather than on a CSU list.

The Bavarian statistical office records his election as first mayor on 16 March 2014 for the ÜFWG, and his re-election on 15 March 2020 on the same nomination. In 2014 he defeated Herbert Gebhardt of Pro Weißdorf, mayor for the previous six years. The Frankenpost called it a surprise win: Pro Weißdorf kept five council seats, while the ÜFWG reached seven and, with the mayor's vote, a majority from May. Council turnout was 75.2 per cent of 1,002 eligible voters in 2014 and 71.7 per cent of 965 in 2020. The published tables group mayoral votes by type of list and do not give his personal share. His Bundestag disclosure dates the end of the mayoralty to 30 April 2026, twelve years after the first term began in May 2014.

In a municipality of up to 2,500 inhabitants the first mayor is an honorary electoral official unless the council provides otherwise by by-law at least 90 days before the election. The compensation is a monthly sum, paid in advance, which the council sets inside statutory bands. The Bundestag return lists 3,789.53 euros gross a month until 30 April 2026, then 1,277.15 euros gross a month from 1 May 2026. Abgeordnetenwatch records his statement that the later sum is bridging assistance under the law on municipal electoral officials, which provides that payment when an honorary first mayor leaves office and is not re-elected. From 1 May 2026 the same return lists him as a Weißdorf councillor, with no payment.

After his election to the Bundestag on 23 February 2025, he told the council that rumours were circulating about an immediate resignation. The Frankenpost reported that he had considered stepping down at once even though both offices could be held together; residents had urged him to stay, and both council groups had agreed that he would continue until the regular election in March 2026, also because an early election would have been costly for the municipality. At the last citizens' assembly he chaired as mayor, on 19 November 2025, with 35 people present, he put the population at a stable 1,223 and municipal debt at 950,195.60 euros, 30,823.25 euros lower than a year earlier, and said the groups had worked together on local decisions.

Inter-municipal bodies

Weißdorf shares an administration with the market municipality of Sparneck. The Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Sparneck is a public-law corporation of neighbouring municipalities that remain legally separate; it may employ civil servants, and its role is to strengthen their administrative capacity. The state BayernPortal gives its seat as Marktplatz 4 in Sparneck, its members as Markt Sparneck and Weißdorf, and its population as 2,704 on 31 March 2026. It carries out the members' transferred state tasks, except by-laws and ordinances, and it prepares and executes their decisions and routine business. The assembly, drawn from the first mayors and other councillors, elects its chair from among the first mayors for the length of that person's municipal office. Hain held the chair. The Bundestag return lists 546.25 euros gross a month for it and an end date of 8 June 2026, after the Weißdorf mayoralty.

A primary or middle school serving more than one municipality creates a school association unless another arrangement is made. The association is a public-law corporation, bears the school's material costs instead of the member municipalities, and includes their first mayors in its assembly. Hain was deputy chair of the associations Weißdorf–Sparneck and Zell im Fichtelgebirge, both until 30 April 2026 and both published without a payment. At the November 2025 assembly he said 41 children from Weißdorf attended the joint primary school with Sparneck pupils in the first four grades.

District council and declared side offices

The Kreistag represents a rural district's citizens, decides the important business of the district administration and supervises it. It consists of the Landrat and honorary district councillors; a district of more than 75,000 and up to 150,000 inhabitants has 60 councillors. Hof is in that band: the district administration records 94,574 inhabitants on 30 June 2022, in 27 municipalities and across 892.52 square kilometres. Hain's Bundestag biography, based on members' own statements, says he has belonged to the Hof Kreistag since 2020; the return names the membership and attaches no remuneration.

Disclosures under the Bundestag's code of conduct are due within three months of taking a seat, and changes within three months. Besides the municipal offices, the return lists membership of the advisory board "Stromversorgung Frankenwald" of Bayernwerk Netz GmbH in Bayreuth until 30 April 2026, with no payment figure. The paid amounts it publishes for this period are the Weißdorf mayoral compensation, the later bridging payment, and the chairmanship of the Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Sparneck.

Party roles in the CSU

Local and district offices

Hain's website states that he joined the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) in 1999, that he belonged to the Junge Union (JU) until he left on age grounds, and that he was a member of the Ring Christlich-Demokratischer Studenten (RCDS) during his studies. The CSU is organized in local, district and regional associations in Bavaria. Under its statute a Kreisverband normally covers a rural district, a district-free city, or a Landtag constituency in a large city; its organs are a members' or delegates' assembly and a district board, which represents the party in that area and conducts its ordinary business. In the Kreisverband Hof-Land, whose local branches are municipalities in the rural district of Hof, Kristan von Waldenfels, a member of the Bavarian Landtag, is chairman, and Hain is one of the deputy chairmen.

The Junge Union Deutschlands describes itself as an independent association of young people that seeks to represent their political interests in public and in the Union parties. Membership of the JU does not itself require membership of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) or the CSU. The CSU statute lists the Junge Union Bayern among the party's Arbeitsgemeinschaften and assigns it, as the party's youth organization, the task of drawing younger people into political life and into the party. Under the JU statute of 22 October 2023, membership ends on completion of the 35th year of life, or, if the member still holds a JU office then, when that office ends. The RCDS, founded in 1951, describes itself as an independent student association standing close to organizations with similar aims; its campus groups contest university elections and take part in student and academic self-government.

The Kreisverband Hof-Land lists Hain as chair of its Kommunalpolitische Vereinigung (KPV). The KPV is a CSU Arbeitsgemeinschaft. The party statute provides that CSU municipal mandate-holders form it, and that all such mandate-holders who belong to the CSU or to one of its associations are members. Its rules of procedure, last amended in November 2022, charge it with treating municipal-policy questions, advising CSU mandate-holders, carrying the concerns of municipalities, towns, districts, Bezirke and planning regions into the party, and encouraging exchange among local authorities. It is organized in district associations, regional associations and a Land association. A district association's organs are a general assembly and a board led by a Kreisvorsitzender.

Protestant Working Group and policy bodies

Hain states that he also sits on the board of the KPV in Upper Franconia and that he belongs to the Bundesfachausschuss Strukturpolitik of the CDU and the CSU. A regional KPV association is likewise run by an assembly and a board. At federal level, the Kommunalpolitische Vereinigung of the CDU and CSU is the umbrella of the two parties' municipal associations. Its statute assigns it the representation of CDU and CSU principles in municipal policy and a part in the parties' formation of policy, and it allows the federal board to appoint specialist committees, for its term of office, to advise it. The committee of that name is the KPV's Bundesfachausschuss Strukturpolitik. The published agenda of its meeting in June 2020 included the infrastructural consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for local government.

The CSU lists Hain as Bezirksvorsitzender of the Evangelischer Arbeitskreis (EAK) for Upper Franconia. The EAK was founded on 21 March 1953 in Ansbach. Unlike the fixed list of Arbeitsgemeinschaften, Arbeitskreise may be founded or dissolved by the CSU party executive. Their role is to prepare discussion inside the party of the policy fields, occupations or groups they cover, and to spread the party's ideas in those circles. The EAK describes itself as a bridge between politics and the church. It says it is open regardless of denomination, advises the party from a Protestant perspective, including on ethical questions, and takes part in work on the party programme. It maintains a Bezirksverband in each of the CSU's Bavarian regions.

Nomination and the 2025 federal election

Succession to Hans-Peter Friedrich

On 11 July 2024 Hans-Peter Friedrich told the Christian Social Union in Bavaria federal-constituency conference that he would not stand again for the Bundestag in the Hof/Wunsiedel seat. He had entered the Bundestag in 1998 and had represented that constituency for 26 years; since 2011 he had also been CSU chair in Upper Franconia. As chair of the constituency conference he set 28 September 2024 for the nomination of a successor, a date he described as early but necessary because a dissolution of the Bundestag and an early election were possible. He told the Frankenpost that after more than 25 years “the point had come to take on new challenges,” and that a political break he expected in Germany “should also be shaped by the next generation.” Asked about the succession, he said several people were already interested and that the CSU was not short of qualified figures.

Candidate selection

The Frankenpost reported on 26 September 2024 that delegates were expected to choose that Saturday among three contenders for the CSU direct candidacy in the Hof–Wunsiedel constituency. Heiko Hain, then mayor of Weißdorf, and Martina von Waldenfels of Arzberg each had the formal backing of CSU district associations. Caroline Jeschek, described as an entrepreneur from Hof standing for the Mittelstands-Union, had entered unexpectedly. Hain emerged as the CSU direct candidate. The Frankenpost later wrote that he had secured the nomination only very narrowly. The Bavarian Land returning officer’s register of admitted nominations lists him as the CSU candidate in constituency 238 and, separately, in 31st place on the CSU state list for Bavaria; Freifrau von Waldenfels stood 36th on that list and was not a constituency candidate.

Result on 23 February 2025

The election was brought forward after Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a vote of confidence on 16 December 2024. Of 717 members taking part, 207 expressed confidence, 394 voted against and 116 abstained; 367 votes would have been required. On 27 December 2024 Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier dissolved the 20th Bundestag under Article 68 of the Basic Law and set the election for 23 February 2025.

In constituency 238 the final result published by the federal returning officer shows 157,915 people eligible to vote and 129,424 ballots cast, a turnout of 82.0 percent, 5.0 points higher than in 2021. There were 128,662 valid first votes. The results table names Hain (CSU) as elected in the constituency with 51,926 votes, 40.4 percent, down 0.9 points from 2021, and names Oliver Koller of the Alternative for Germany as runner-up with 30,614 votes, 23.8 percent, a gain of 12.0 points.

The same table reports the other first-vote totals by party. The Social Democratic Party of Germany received 22,966 votes, 17.8 percent (−6.1 points); Alliance 90/The Greens 6,391, 5.0 percent (−1.4); the Free Voters 6,181, 4.8 percent (−1.0); Die Linke 5,789, 4.5 percent (+2.4); and the Free Democratic Party 3,160, 2.5 percent (−2.8). Volt took 997 votes (0.8 percent) and Bündnis Deutschland 638 (0.5 percent); 762 first votes, 0.6 percent, were invalid. The Land returning officer’s register names the direct candidates on those lines as Jörg Mathias Nürnberger (SPD), Dr Harald Jürgen Schmalfuß (Greens), Thomas Schinner (Free Voters), Janson Damasceno da Costa e Silva (Die Linke), Stefan Heindl (FDP), Manuel Jahn (Volt) and Michael Angles (Bündnis Deutschland).

Of 129,002 valid second votes, the CSU led with 48,966, or 38.0 percent, up 4.8 points, ahead of the AfD on 31,308 and 24.3 percent (+12.6). The SPD fell to 17,421 votes and 13.5 percent (−10.9). The Greens had 7,802 votes and 6.0 percent (−1.7), Die Linke 6,857 and 5.3 percent (+2.9), the Free Voters 4,773 and 3.7 percent (−2.7), the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht 4,640 and 3.6 percent, and the FDP 4,031 and 3.1 percent (−5.3). The federal returning officer lists Hain among those elected, returned from constituency 238 with 40.4 percent and also placed 31st on the Bavarian CSU list. The 21st Bundestag held its constitutive sitting on 25 March 2025; Hain, recorded as elected in constituency 238, was a member of that Bundestag.

The Hof constituency

Boundaries

Bundestag constituency 238, Hof, is the federal electoral district in north-eastern Upper Franconia that Heiko Hain represents. For the election of 23 February 2025 it comprised the independent city of Hof, the whole district of Wunsiedel im Fichtelgebirge, and every municipality of the district of Hof except Geroldsgrün, which the federal returning officer places in constituency 237, Coburg.

The same exception already applied in 2021, when Hof was numbered 239 and Coburg 238. The number, not the area, changed for 2025. Annex 2 to the Twenty-seventh Act amending the Federal Elections Act, in force from 14 March 2024, transferred one constituency from Saxony-Anhalt to Bavaria because of population change and renumbered existing constituencies 72 to 255, so the former 239 became 238. Hof was not among the 16 constituencies whose boundaries were redrawn.

The seat contained 44 municipalities and 1,541.3 square kilometres on 31 December 2023. Its eastern edge meets the Czech Republic. In September 2025 the Wunsiedel district held a civil-protection exercise around Selb, Aš and Libá with Bavarian, Saxon and Czech units, and the district fire chief described the Bavarian brigades taking part as those near the border, from Schirnding to Schönwald.

Population and economy

On 31 December 2023 the constituency had 207,500 inhabitants, 182,500 of them German nationals, a foreign share of 12.0 percent and a density of 134.6 people per square kilometre. In 2022–23 the balance of births and deaths was −8.9 per 1,000 inhabitants and net migration was +22.6. People under 18 were 15.4 percent of the population; 21.6 percent were aged 60 to 74 and 12.8 percent were 75 or older.

The Bavarian statistical office, on the same census basis, counted 46,484 people in the city of Hof, 92,675 in Landkreis Hof and 70,959 in Landkreis Wunsiedel im Fichtelgebirge; Geroldsgrün had 2,630. Outside Hof the larger towns were Marktredwitz (17,028) and Selb (14,816), while many of the other municipalities had fewer than 3,000 inhabitants. Settlement and transport covered 13.0 percent of the constituency at the end of 2022, and vegetation and water 87.0 percent.

Gross domestic product in 2021 was 39,170 euro per inhabitant, and disposable income of private households was 23,872 euro. Of socially insured jobs at the place of work on 30 June 2023, 38.1 percent were in manufacturing. The unemployment rate at the end of November 2024 was 5.0 percent. In establishments with 50 or more employees, manufacturing employment in 2023 was 2,741 in the city of Hof, down 7.2 percent from 2022, 12,569 in Landkreis Hof, unchanged, and 9,497 in Wunsiedel, up 1.5 percent. Glass and ceramics employed 10,612 people across Upper Franconia in 2023, 4.6 percent fewer than in 2013.

The city of Hof states that structural change has replaced textiles as its leading sector with water and environmental technology, logistics, and materials, including automotive supply, while technical textiles remain important but no longer dominant. Bayerischer Rundfunk has described the Fichtelgebirge and the Frankenwald as former centres of the German textile industry that nearly collapsed in the 1990s, with some firms in Hochfranken — the economic area of the Hof and Wunsiedel districts — continuing in specialised production. Porcelain in the Wunsiedel district has kept contracting: in December 2025 Bayerischer Rundfunk reported that BHS Tabletop, based in Selb, would end all production at its factory in Schönwald by the end of 2027 at the latest.

Voting patterns

Turnout on 23 February 2025 was 82.0 percent of 157,915 eligible voters, 5.0 points above the 77.0 percent of 2021, when 162,872 people had been eligible in the then constituency 239.

On second votes the Christian Social Union rose from 33.2 percent in 2021 to 38.0 percent. The Alternative for Germany rose from 11.7 to 24.3 percent, a gain of 12.6 points, and moved into second place. The Social Democratic Party fell from 24.4 to 13.5 percent. Alliance 90/The Greens declined from 7.7 to 6.0 percent and the Free Democratic Party from 8.5 to 3.1 percent. Die Linke rose from 2.4 to 5.3 percent, the Free Voters fell from 6.4 to 3.7 percent, and the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht, standing for the first time, took 3.6 percent.

First votes moved less for the largest party. The CSU took 40.4 percent, 0.9 points below its 41.2 percent in 2021, and its candidate won the direct mandate. The AfD rose from 11.8 to 23.8 percent and the SPD fell from 23.9 to 17.8 percent. Because the area had not been redrawn, those changes are measured against the 2021 result for constituency 239.

Committees and parliamentary oversight

In the 21st Bundestag, Heiko Hain of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, sitting with the CDU/CSU, is an ordinary member of the Petitions Committee, the Interior Committee and the Finance Committee, and of the panels under Article 45d and Article 13(6) of the Basic Law. The Bundestag biography, current to 27 October 2026, records no chair, deputy chair or group spokespersonship in any of them.

Petitions, interior and finance

Article 17 of the Basic Law gives everyone the right to address written requests or complaints, alone or together with others, to the competent bodies and to the popular representation. Article 45c requires the Bundestag to appoint a Petitions Committee to deal with the requests and complaints sent to it under Article 17, and leaves the committee's powers when examining complaints to a federal statute. The committee of the 21st electoral term held its constitutive sitting on 21 May 2025 with 26 ordinary members; Hain was named among the nine from the CDU/CSU.

The Interior Committee (Innenausschuss) constituted itself the same day, with 42 ordinary members, 14 of them from the CDU/CSU, including Hain. The Bundestag describes its work as running from policy on foreigners and asylum to civil protection and disaster relief, and as holding internal security together with individual rights. It scrutinises the Federal Ministry of the Interior and subordinate federal authorities, prepares bills for the plenary, and takes expert evidence at hearings.

Hain is listed as a CDU/CSU deputy member of the Kuratorium of the Federal Agency for Civic Education on the agency’s roll of deputy trustees dated 11 September 2025 (the list gives the given name as “Haiko”). The office does not appear on his Bundestag biography. The agency states that the trusteeship itself has 22 Bundestag members, filled by parliamentary-group strength, and oversees the agency for effectiveness and political balance.

The Finance Committee (Finanzausschuss) also constituted itself on 21 May 2025, with 42 ordinary members, and Hain was one of the 14 from the CDU/CSU. Its field, as the Bundestag states it, coincides with the responsibilities of the Federal Ministry of Finance except for budget policy. It considers items referred by the plenary and generally leads on financial-market regulation, covering banks, securities and insurance, and on customs and tax policy.

Parliamentary Control Panel

Article 45d provides for a Bundestag panel to control the Federation's intelligence activity, the details being left to federal law. Under the Kontrollgremiumgesetz, the Federal Government is subject to the Parliamentary Control Panel (Parlamentarisches Kontrollgremium, PKGr) for the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Military Counterintelligence Service and the Federal Intelligence Service. At the start of each electoral term the Bundestag chooses the members from its midst and fixes their number and the panel's composition; election requires the votes of a majority of Bundestag members. The government must inform the panel comprehensively about the services' general activity and about matters of particular importance, and must report on other matters on request. The panel may require files and data and may enter any premises of the three services. Once the government has been informed, it may question service members, members and staff of the government, and employees of other federal authorities.

Nominations before the plenary on 26 June 2025 named Hain, Marc Henrichmann and Alexander Throm for the CDU/CSU, with further names from the Alternative for Germany, the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Alliance 90/The Greens and Die Linke. On a CDU/CSU and SPD motion the House established a panel of nine — three CDU/CSU seats, two each for the AfD and the SPD, and one each for the Greens and the Left — and voted by ballot paper, the required majority of members being at least 316. Hain received 500 votes in favour, 36 against, 38 abstentions and 13 invalid votes. Also elected were Henrichmann (502 in favour) and Throm (477) for the CDU/CSU, Daniel Baldy (477) and Sonja Eichwede (486) for the SPD, and Konstantin von Notz (406) for the Greens. Martin Hess (121 in favour) and Gerold Otten (127) for the AfD, and Heidi Reichinnek (260) for the Left, were not elected, leaving six of nine seats filled.

The panel constituted itself the same day in a sitting chaired by Bundestag Vice-President Josephine Ortleb of the SPD. It elected Marc Henrichmann chair and Konstantin von Notz deputy chair. On 6 November 2025 a proposal to elect Clara Bünger of Die Linke drew 271 votes in favour, 285 against and 20 abstentions, short of 316. The official minutes of the 77th sitting, on 7 May 2026, record that Hess, with 162 votes in favour, and Otten, with 167, again fell short, as did Bünger on a separate Left proposal, with 250 in favour, 305 against and 31 abstentions.

The Article 13 committee

Article 13 of the Basic Law regulates when an interference with the inviolability of the home is permissible. Under paragraph 6, as the Bundestag states it, the Federal Government reports each year on the use of technical means for the acoustic surveillance of homes, and a panel elected by the Bundestag exercises parliamentary control of that use. On 9 October 2025 the plenary unanimously established a nine-member panel on a motion of the CDU/CSU and the SPD and then elected the members. For the CDU/CSU it elected Hain, Axel Müller and Carsten Müller, and it also elected Tobias Matthias Peterka and Ulrich von Zons for the AfD and Sebastian Fiedler and Mahmut Özdemir for the SPD; the Union, the AfD and the SPD voted for that proposal, while the Greens and the Left abstained. Lena Gumnior of the Greens and Clara Bünger of the Left were each elected unanimously.

Political positions

Tax and fiscal policy

On 26 June 2025, closing the Bundestag debate on the CDU/CSU–SPD tax investment bill (Drucksache 21/323), Hain said the economy needed support "jetzt und konkret" and called the text a signal that "Deutschland kann Reform, Deutschland will Wachstum." He listed declining-balance depreciation of at most 30 percent from mid-2025; a stepwise cut in the corporate-tax rate to 10 percent by 2032; a three-stage cut in the retention-tax rate for unincorporated firms; a research allowance with the ceiling raised to €12 million and flat-rate overheads; and a 75 percent first-year write-off for electric vehicles, with the company-car threshold raised to €100,000, which he called "Klimaschutz mit wirtschaftlicher Vernunft." He said constituency firms wanted reliability and that jobs and revenue would repay the cost to the Länder and municipalities. The CDU/CSU and SPD voted for the bill; Alliance 90/The Greens and Die Linke voted against, and the AfD abstained. Green member Karoline Otte called the corporate-tax cut a "finanzpolitische Zeitbombe" of €21 billion a year from 2028, nearly 70 percent of which she said would reach the richest one percent, with municipalities left to absorb the loss.

On 19 December 2025 he answered Left and Green motions on inheritance tax by calling their claims "volkswirtschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Unsinn" and a danger to craft shops, family firms and the Mittelstand. Quoting a Left proposal that tax debts might be settled in asset shares, he called that "Verstaatlichung über die Hintertür," and he cited a government answer and an April 2025 Bundesbank study for the claim that wealth inequality had eased slightly since 2010/11. On 26 February 2026, against an AfD motion to abolish the property tax, he spoke as a twelve-year mayor and called abolition without replacement a frontal attack on municipalities, putting their 2024 property-tax revenue at €15.6 billion. Asked by Green member Karl Bär why Bavaria had no Grundsteuer C, he said mayors could mobilise building land without it. On 8 October 2026 he called a bundle of Green motions on property taxation and other "Gerechtigkeitslücken" a "Sammelwerk" whose recipe was "mehr Steuern," said higher tax on asset-managing property companies would build no extra housing, and argued for a lower burden so young families could buy homes, citing a drinks manufacturer and a long-serving worker in the constituency.

Migration and internal affairs

On 4 June 2025, on an AfD motion on departure custody and deportation detention, Hain said "Die Migrationswende ist in vollem Gange, und sie wirkt," citing 7,916 first-time asylum applications in May, the lowest figure since the coronavirus years, and crediting border checks and refusals of entry. He said the coalition agreement covered departure custody, deportation detention and powers for the Federal Police to carry out removals, that serious offenders must expect their stay to end, and, after a visit to officers at Selb, that the motion only divided society. A Left interjection said the courts saw the policy differently.

On 11 September 2025, against an AfD motion to turn back every asylum seeker, he said the previous month's applications were 60 percent lower than a year earlier and that Germany was no longer Europe's main destination, which he presented as support for Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt. He put prevented unauthorised entries at about 12,000, said individual decisions remained individual, and called a demand to bar older people, children, the sick and pregnant women as well "zynisch" and "menschenverachtend." AfD speakers answered that the speech broke Union campaign promises and that asylum applicants were not among those turned back. In a statement Der Neue Wiesentbote published on 8 October 2026, after the arrest of former Federal Intelligence Service president August Hanning and his former office head, Hain, CDU/CSU Obmann on the Parliamentary Control Panel, said the panel viewed allegations of attempted treason and further offences "mit größter Besorgnis," had been briefed by the government, and had ordered an ad-hoc review.

Hospitals, rail and energy in the constituency

On 31 October 2025 the Frankenpost reported that Hain had made adequate financing of rural hospitals his concern after protest letters from Klinikum Fichtelgebirge about a planned cap on hospital budgets.

After the April 2025 coalition agreement, which the Frankenpost reported as his expectation of "starke Effekte" for the Hof area, his statement said hospital reform would continue but that the Länder could use exceptions and cooperation to secure basic and emergency care "besonders im ländlichen Raum." It also said the electricity tax would fall to the European minimum, levies and grid charges would be reduced, an industrial electricity price would cover energy-intensive firms including regional ceramics, porcelain and textiles, and the gas-storage levy would go, and treated faster links toward Poland and the Czech Republic as "ein entscheidender Vorteil" for electrifying the Franken-Sachsen-Magistrale.

On 6 March 2026 the Frankenpost and the Nordbayerischer Kurier headlined his reply to Green warnings of a setback for that scheme as criticism of "Panikmache" shortly before an election. He said a setback "kann so nicht geteilt werden"; that talks between the transport ministry and the railway on planning and funds were continuing; that prioritising projects was not a refusal of the Upper Franconian line; and that a 2026 budget-committee proviso still required the planning to proceed.

The 2026 municipal election and later local role

Withdrawal from the mayoral race

After his election to the Bundestag in the spring of 2025, Heiko Hain did not seek another term as first mayor of Weißdorf, in the district of Hof in Upper Franconia, Bavaria. The Frankenpost reported on 29 August 2025, from a press release of the Überparteiliche Freie Wählergemeinschaft (ÜFWG), that Hain, a member of the Christian Social Union, would not stand again after twelve years, and that the group would send Sonja Ramming into the 2026 campaign to succeed him. Ramming, then third mayor, was described as a 42-year-old librarian from the village of Benk. A report on the ÜFWG nomination meeting in the citizens' hall of the town hall again gave his election to the Bundestag as the reason he would not run. He remained first mayor until the end of April 2026.

At the last citizens' assembly he chaired, in November 2025, Hain spoke to 35 residents about 2024, 2025 and his twelve years in office. The Frankenpost reported a population of 1,223, unchanged on the year, in Weißdorf and the villages of Albertsreuth, Bärlas, Benk, Bug, Oppenroth and Wulmersreuth. Municipal debt was 950,195.60 euro, 30,823.25 euro lower than a year earlier. He listed a kitchen in the gymnasium, refurbished school toilets and the Weißdorflädla, a container shop run by direct marketers, and named for 2026 a renovation and extension of the kindergarten and a check on the rock cellars in Kornbergstraße.

Council result and successor

Municipal elections in Bavaria were held on 8 March 2026. The preliminary result for Weißdorf, proclaimed by the municipal returning officer on 9 March and still subject to confirmation by the election committee, gave Thomas Seiler of Pro Weißdorf, a tax auditor, 444 votes (57.7 percent) and Sonja Ramming of the ÜFWG 325 votes (42.3 percent). Of 1,020 people entitled to vote, 781 voted; 769 ballots were valid and 12 invalid. The Frankenpost called Seiler's majority unexpected and reported that he heard the figures by telephone from Hain.

The same proclamation distributed 12 council seats evenly. The ÜFWG received 4,297 votes and six seats, and Pro Weißdorf 4,657 votes and six seats, from 8,954 valid votes and 15 invalid ballot papers, with the same 781 of 1,020 voters taking part. On the candidate count published by the Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Sparneck, which matches those list totals, Hain stood as number two on the ÜFWG ballot and finished third with 533 votes, behind Alexander Liebs (650) and Ramming (551). He was marked elected, as were six candidates on each list. The Frankenpost reported that the ÜFWG had lost seats and Pro Weißdorf had gained them, leaving the council level.

At the constituent sitting reported by the Frankenpost on 20 May 2026, Thomas Seiler was sworn in as first mayor. His son Peter Seiler, also of Pro Weißdorf, was elected second mayor by 7 votes to 5 against Ramming. The paper named Matthias Kruppa, Fabian Stölzel, Thomas Roßner and Peter Seiler among the councillors sworn in as new members.

The Bundestag's register of outside activities lists Hain as first mayor of Weißdorf until 30 April 2026 at 3,789.53 euro gross a month, and records a further 1,277.15 euro gross a month from 1 May 2026, with membership of the municipal council from that date. Abgeordnetenwatch, citing a note from the member, identifies the lower sum as transitional assistance under Article 58 of the KWBG and does not show a separate payment for the council seat. It also lists him as joint chair of the Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Sparneck until 8 June 2026, at 546.25 euro gross a month.