Lukas Krieger

Lukas Albrecht Krieger (born 11 November 1987 in Weingarten, Baden-Württemberg) is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He has sat in the Bundestag since the 21st legislative term opened on 25 March 2025, holding the direct mandate for Berlin-Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf (constituency 79). In mid-July 2026 the Berlin CDU named him general secretary, in succession to Ottilie Klein, to organise the campaign of Stefan Evers for the 20 September election to the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin, after Evers replaced Kai Wegner as lead candidate and state chair.

Krieger took his Abitur in 2007 at the Arndt-Gymnasium Dahlem in Berlin. From 2007 to 2014 he studied law at the Free University of Berlin, specialising in commercial, corporate and tax law, and passed the first state examination in 2014. His traineeship from 2015 to 2017, in the district of the Kammergericht, included periods at an international commercial law firm and in the Berlin Senate Department for Justice. He passed the second state examination and was admitted as a lawyer in 2017, then completed a part-time master's degree in corporate and tax law at the University of Potsdam between 2018 and 2022. He was an employed lawyer at a boutique firm until 2022 and, from 2023, has practised on his own account while working as in-house counsel and project manager at Krieger Projektentwicklung GmbH in Schönefeld.

He joined the CDU in 2004 and was federal chairman of the Schüler Union Deutschlands from 2006 to 2008. A recording from a 2005 Schüler Union trip to Riga, published by Bild and described by the Berliner Zeitung in April 2016, showed him with other young CDU politicians, among them Danny Freymark and Christoph Brzezinski, in a scene that included a swastika badge and far-right slogans. nd later quoted him on the tape saying that Germany should remain recognisably German and that "jüdischen Bolschewismus" should be opposed, and reported that the recording, already circulating inside the party, led him to leave the CDU for about four years. The Bundestag biography lists his subsequent offices in the Young Union: federal treasurer from 2014 to 2018, federal legal adviser from 2018 to 2020, and presiding judge of the organisation's federal arbitration court from 2020 to 2022. He is a member of the Berlin CDU state executive and of the district executive in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, which 2026 reporting described him as chairing.

At the federal election of 23 February 2025 he won constituency 79 with 42,273 first votes (26.3 percent), ahead of Elisabeth Maria Paus of Alliance 90/The Greens on 24.0 percent and the Social Democratic Party on 23.7 percent. Contemporary reporting identified those opponents as the then federal minister Lisa Paus and the former governing mayor Michael Müller. He was also sixth on the Berlin CDU state list. In the CDU/CSU group he is a full member of the Finance Committee, which was constituted on 21 May 2025, and of the federal financing body and the subcommittee on European Union affairs. He is a deputy member of the Budget Committee, the Committee on Culture and Media, and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Consumer Protection, and deputy chair of the parliamentary group for Central Africa.

The same official biography records that he is a Roman Catholic, married, and the father of one son. The 2005 recording returned to the press when he was named general secretary: nd reported that in 2016 the CDU politician Stefanie Bung had accused him of showing no remorse, while the Berliner Zeitung noted that he, like Freymark, had taken up work with the friends' association of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The state election committee's final count of 12 October 2026 allotted the CDU 33 of 153 seats in the new Abgeordnetenhaus, behind Die Linke with 45.

Early life and education

Childhood and move to Berlin

Lukas Krieger was born on 11 November 1987 in Weingarten, the Große Kreisstadt of that name in the Bodensee-Oberschwaben region of Baden-Württemberg, beside the city of Ravensburg. On his website he states that he was the eldest of five siblings, that the family lived in the Ravensburg district, and that in the summer of 2002 the whole family moved from Ravensburg to Berlin, to the locality of Westend in the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, which he calls his home from that year. He gives that first address as Lyckallee and says he moved there with his parents and four siblings; he writes that he was confirmed at the parish of St. Ludwig by Ludwigkirchplatz and still marks the main feasts there, and that he now lives with his wife near Rüdesheimer Platz in Wilmersdorf.

The Bundestag biography, drawn from the member's own information, lists him as Roman Catholic.

Secondary school and university

In 2007 Krieger passed the Abitur at the Arndt-Gymnasium Dahlem, a Gymnasium in Dahlem, in the borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf. The schoolhouse at Königin-Luise-Straße 80–84 is a listed building, erected in 1907–1909 by the architects Friedrich and Wilhelm Hennings. Berlin's monument register describes the long classroom block and its clock tower as a landmark of what was then the villa suburb of Dahlem.

From 2007 to 2014 he studied law at the Free University of Berlin, concentrating on economic, corporate and tax law, and in 2014 passed the first state examination in law. In Berlin that examination closes the university stage of legal training. The preparatory service that follows, the Referendariat, normally lasts 24 months and is required before the second state examination.

From 2015 to 2017 Krieger was a Rechtsreferendar in the district of the Kammergericht, Berlin's higher regional court, which administers the city's preparatory service. Among the placements he reports were an international commercial-law firm and the Berlin Senate Department for Justice. In 2017 he passed the second state examination and was admitted as a lawyer. The Kammergericht describes that examination as conferring the qualification for judicial office.

Alongside later employment he took, from 2018 to 2022, a part-time master's course in corporate and tax law at the University of Potsdam, graduating as a Master of Laws. The university's law faculty offers the programme "Unternehmens- und Steuerrecht" as a continuing-education LL.M.

Legal and business career

Training and private practice

The Bundestag biography, drawn from the member’s own information, places Krieger’s legal training in Berlin. From 2007 to 2014 he studied law at the Free University of Berlin, concentrating on business, corporate and tax law, and in 2014 passed the first state examination. From 2015 to 2017 he was a trainee lawyer (Rechtsreferendar) in the district of the Kammergericht; the biography names stations in an international business-law firm and in the Berlin Senate Department of Justice. In 2017 he passed the second state examination and was admitted as a Rechtsanwalt. From 2018 to 2022, alongside work, he took a part-time master’s degree in corporate and tax law, an LL.M., at the University of Potsdam.

From 2017 to 2022 that biography describes him as an employed lawyer at a boutique firm, working mainly in corporate and tax law, and states that since 2023 he has practised in his own firm. The disclosures published with it list “Rechtsanwalt, Berlin” both as an occupation before membership and as a paid activity alongside the mandate. The client is not named: the side-activity entry is marked “Mandant 1,” and no euro amount is printed. Bundestag guidance of 23 June 2026 says that, where a statutory duty of confidentiality applies, a contracting party’s name and seat are replaced by a sector label or, if that would identify the party, by an anonymised designation such as “Mandant 1.” On his own website he writes that he has worked as a lawyer in Berlin since 2017.

In-house work and disclosed business interests

The biography also states that since 2023 he has been in-house counsel (Syndikus) and a project manager at a large family business, without naming it. The disclosures identify the Syndikus post with Krieger Projektentwicklung GmbH in Schönefeld, Brandenburg, and place it under professional activity before membership of the Bundestag, not among paid activities alongside the mandate. The company is entered at the Amtsgericht Cottbus under HRB 9536 CB, at Am Rondell 1, 12529 Schönefeld. His website describes the role, from 2023, as Syndikus for a large Berlin family business. The disclosures do not list him as a shareholder or managing director of that company: the employment relationship they record is the Syndikus post, while the project-manager title appears only in the biographical self-report.

Other interests are published as company functions and, in two cases, as participations. He is listed as liquidator of CGFT Capital Pooling GmbH & Co. KG in Berlin, as a partner (Gesellschafter) of Krieger Sternberg GbR, and as managing director (Geschäftsführer) of Krieger V&V GbR, both in Berlin; the two partnerships are also listed as shareholdings. No income figures are published for these entries. CGFT Capital Pooling GmbH & Co. KG is registered at the Amtsgericht Charlottenburg under HRA 49584, Kurfürstendamm 48–49, 10707 Berlin. A company directory gives its object as pooling funds for a credit-guarantee fund in Tajikistan, without activities requiring a licence under the Capital Investment Code or the Banking Act. The Dutch development bank FMO records a completed €2.5 million financing of the partnership, from 20 December 2013 to 24 February 2025, for a partial credit-guarantee fund for small and medium-sized enterprises in Tajikistan.

Schüler Union and the 2005 video

Chairmanship of the Schüler Union

Lukas Krieger joined the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) in 2004. The Bundestag biography, based on members' own statements, lists him as federal chairman of the Schüler Union Deutschlands from 2006 to 2008.

The statutes of 28 April 2019 describe the Schüler Union as an independent working group of school pupils inside the Junge Union Deutschlands, seated at the Junge Union, with free membership from age 12 and the stated aim of taking part in education-policy debate in Germany and Europe. The federal chair, elected by the Bundesschülertagung, represents the association; those statutes open federal office only to members under 20. Krieger's term covered his last school years. Born on 11 November 1987 in Weingarten, he took the Abitur in 2007 at the Arndt-Gymnasium Dahlem in Berlin. The recording later tied to him was made in 2005, before the federal term, on a trip of the Berlin Schüler Union.

The Riga recording and resignation

Amateur footage from the 2005 trip to Riga, in Latvia, shows a group of young men sitting together. A report first published by the Berliner Zeitung, and carried by the Frankfurter Rundschau, identified Krieger, Danny Freymark and Christoph Brzezinski. By the time the tape was widely shown in 2016, Krieger was a candidate for the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin, Freymark was a sitting member, and Brzezinski chaired the Berlin Junge Union.

The account says someone off camera suggested switching the camera off, and that Freymark objected: the scene was "mitten aus dem Leben der Berliner Schülerunion." A swastika badge is held to the lens. Off-camera voices call it Brzezinski's badge "für besondere Verdienste" and "Die Ehrennadel der Schülerunion. Der HJ"—the initials of the Hitler Youth—and the room laughs. Krieger, described in a striped shirt in an armchair, is asked to speak. He talks about German history, foreigners and parallel societies; someone interjects, "Bei uns wird keiner abgeschoben, wir katalogisieren die." The report says he could barely suppress laughter before continuing: "Ich denke, dass wir uns darum kümmern müssen, dass wir in Deutschland auch wieder als Deutsche erkennbar sind, dass Deutschland deutsch bleibt und wir gegen den jüdischen Bolschewismus durchaus vorgehen." Neues Deutschland later quoted that sentence and wrote that the badge was shown and Krieger then looked into the camera. The wording invokes the antisemitic Jewish Bolshevism motif.

Citing Bild, the Frankfurter Rundschau reported that in 2008, during Krieger's federal chairmanship, former Berlin justice senator Michael Braun (CDU) received the recordings and confronted him in his district association. The three initially left the party and were banned from holding office; Freymark was out for half a year, and a return to politics came only years later. A German Press Agency report said Bild had already publicized the incidents in 2008. Neues Deutschland wrote that circulation inside the CDU, before wider publication, forced Krieger out temporarily and that about four years passed before he resumed a party career. The Bundestag line "2004 Eintritt in die CDU Deutschlands" does not mention that gap.

Renewed debate after publication

In April 2016, during the campaign for the 2016 Berlin state election, Bild published the amateur footage. The Frankfurter Rundschau wrote that Berlin newsrooms had known the video for years only from rumor until it was passed to the Axel Springer publishing house.

Freymark told the Berliner Zeitung that what was on the tape was "absolut beschämend und völlig inakzeptabel," that the Riga evening had "völlig aus dem Ruder gelaufen," and that serious mistakes had been made. He said it was difficult to face again events he deeply regretted, just as he began campaigning for another Abgeordnetenhaus mandate, and that he had drawn lessons. He and Krieger, he added, were active in the Förderkreis of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Krieger called it the "schwersten Fehler meines Lebens"; Brzezinski said, "Ich könnte mich jeden Tag ohrfeigen."

On 28 April 2016, Berlin CDU chairman Frank Henkel told the German Press Agency that he had found the episode completely tasteless and unacceptable and that his view was unchanged. Those involved, he said, treated it as the worst mistake of their lives and deserved a second chance; after temporary departures, the agency noted, all three were again active in the CDU.

The publication also divided the CDU in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Tagesspiegel reported on 13 May 2016 that the board of the local association Gartenstadt Schmargendorf, chaired by Stefanie Bung, had demanded Krieger drop his candidacy in constituency 7. At that week's district-executive meeting he said he would continue, which made the fresh nomination the local board wanted unnecessary. When Neues Deutschland returned to the tape in July 2026, on his designation as general secretary of the Berlin CDU, it wrote that Bung had accused him in 2016 of showing "überhaupt keine Reue," and that a later role with the support association of the Holocaust memorial had not stopped the recording from following him.

Party offices after 2012

Return to the CDU

In 2016 the Frankfurter Rundschau reported that Krieger and two other young politicians of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) had left the party in 2008 and been barred from office, with a comeback only some years later, though one of them, Danny Freymark, had been out for half a year. The Austrian site oe24, citing Bild, wrote that Krieger himself had stayed out of party politics for four years and rejoined the CDU in 2012. That autumn the Junge Union (JU), the youth organization of the CDU and the CSU, held its Deutschlandtag in Rostock, where the Tagesspiegel reported the re-election of federal chairman Philipp Mißfelder on 5 October 2012.

Junge Union national posts

The JU archive of federal executives lists Krieger as Bundesschatzmeister on the boards elected in Inzell for 2014–2016 and in Paderborn for 2016–2018, and as a Beisitzer, an ordinary voting member, of the 2012–2014 board elected in Rostock and of the 2018–2020 board elected in Kiel, on which Philipp Amthor is treasurer and on which Tilman Kuban succeeded Paul Ziemiak as chairman after a special Deutschlandtag in Berlin in 2019; the digitally elected 2020–2022 executive omits Krieger, and the lists do not name the arbitration court. The Rheinische Post reported on 20 September 2014 that the new treasurer was Lukas Krieger, then 26 and from Berlin, succeeding Ansgar Focke. His biography on the Bundestag website, which the parliament says rests on members' own statements, gives 2018–2020 a different title, Bundesjustiziar (federal legal adviser), and then lists him for 2020–2022 as presiding judge of the JU federal arbitration court. Under the JU statutes as published on 22 October 2023, the executive appoints the Justiziar, who must be qualified for judicial office and advises the organization on legal questions, while the arbitration court is a separate organ elected by the Deutschlandtag in odd-numbered years, with the same qualification required of its chair and at least two assessors, and with a bar on court members sitting on any JU executive.

District and state offices

In Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, the CDU branch for City-Kurfürstendamm reported that its executive co-opted Krieger on 16 February 2024. The Bundestag biography lists him as a member of that local executive, of the Berlin CDU state executive, and of the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district executive. The Berlin CDU has twelve district associations, one for each borough, and says district chairs and boards are elected every two years by members' assemblies. In June 2023 the Tagesspiegel put this association at about 1,800 members, while reporting a dispute over whether all members, rather than delegates, should elect the board. On 27 June 2025 the Berliner Morgenpost wrote that Krieger, the borough's successful Bundestag direct candidate, would stand the next day for district chair in an association long split over personnel. The state party's directory and the district board page later name him as Kreisvorsitzender. The Tagesspiegel used that title in January 2026, when he announced the district's nominations for the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin. A July 2026 post on the BZPP blog of the Free University of Berlin said that, so far as could be seen, he was not an elected member of the Landesvorstand and sat only in an advisory capacity, as a Berlin Bundestag member, under section 26(5) of the state statutes.

2016 Berlin state election

Nomination and internal opposition

For the 2016 Berlin state election on 18 September, Lukas Krieger was the direct candidate of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Wahlkreis Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf 7 for the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin. The state returning officer’s boundaries of 17 September 2015 place the seat along the borough line with Tempelhof-Schöneberg and Steglitz-Zehlendorf, from Bernadottestraße and Hundekehlestraße via the Hohenzollerndamm to Brandenburgische Straße and Weimarische Straße. It covers the CDU branch Gartenstadt Schmargendorf and adjoining southern Wilmersdorf, in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf.

At the district nomination conference in October 2015, district chair Andreas Statzkowski later said, delegates chose Krieger by 80 votes to 30. Stefanie Bung, chair of the Gartenstadt Schmargendorf branch, had stood against him and lost clearly.

After Bild and B.Z. republished a 2005 video of Krieger with Christoph Brzezinski and Danny Freymark, the Schmargendorf board asked him in May 2016 to withdraw. Bung called him “subjectively and objectively unsuitable” to hold a seat the CDU had won in the 2011 Berlin state election by 26 first votes, and said the footage was now viewable nationwide. The returning officer’s 2011 figures for the constituency are 7,289 CDU first votes (33.4 percent) to 7,263 for the SPD (33.3 percent). She asked Statzkowski, a state secretary in the interior administration, to call a conference for a new nominee, and said she was no longer available herself.

Krieger refused. He said the “inexcusable incident of 2005” and his activity since had been discussed in October, and that a clear majority had trusted him. Statzkowski said the question was already closed and that the local board “was not even asked”; Susanne Klose, a CDU borough assembly member, said the branch could make demands but the delegates had decided.

At the district executive on the evening of 12 May 2016, Krieger said he would keep the candidacy, which Tagesspiegel reported made the renomination Bung’s board wanted obsolete. Bung said he had shown “no remorse at all” until the video first appeared, and that joining pro-Israel associations left “the stale impression” of career preparation; Krieger rejected that. The paper reported that after the recording became public in 2008 the three had temporarily left party structures and joined the supporters’ association of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

Campaign and result

Krieger said he looked forward to a fair campaign and, with no new nomination, remained the CDU candidate.

He received 5,906 first votes, 25.1 percent of 23,548 valid ballots. Florian Dörstelmann of the Social Democratic Party, a lawyer born in 1967, won with 6,455 votes (27.4 percent), 549 votes and 2.3 percentage points ahead. Turnout was 74.0 percent (24,048 of 32,481 eligible voters). Alliance 90/The Greens took 4,269 first votes (18.1 percent), the Alternative for Germany 2,402 (10.2 percent), the Free Democratic Party 2,027 (8.6 percent), Die Linke 1,932 (8.2 percent) and Die PARTEI 557 (2.4 percent). From 2011 the CDU share fell 8.3 points and the SPD share 5.9; the AfD’s 10.2 percent was new. CDU second votes were 5,034 (21.2 percent). Krieger was not elected: the returning officer names Dörstelmann as the winner and does not list Krieger.

2025 federal election

Constituency and campaign

The election to the 21st Bundestag was held on 23 February 2025. Krieger stood for the Christian Democratic Union in constituency 79, Berlin-Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, which covers that borough except the area north of the Spree, part of constituency 77. The Berlin gazette of 3 February 2025 named the admitted direct candidates: Krieger, a lawyer, for the CDU; Michael Müller, then a Bundestag member, for the Social Democratic Party; Elisabeth Paus, listed as a federal minister, for Alliance 90/The Greens; Niklas Schenker for Die Linke; Martin Christian Thomas Kohler for the Alternative for Germany; and Christoph Meyer for the Free Democratic Party. The same notice placed Krieger sixth on the Berlin CDU state list and Paus, known as Lisa Paus, first on the Berlin Green list.

Müller, a former Governing Mayor of Berlin, had held the seat in 2021, including the partial rerun of 2024, by a narrow margin over the Greens and the CDU. It was Krieger's first direct candidacy. rbb described him as a lawyer and project manager at the Krieger Group. On 5 February the Berliner Morgenpost reported that left-wing protesters had stormed a CDU office in Charlottenburg after a Bundestag motion associated with Friedrich Merz, and that Krieger condemned the occupation at a campaign stand.

Under the 2025 rules, a party candidate won a constituency seat only with the most first votes and with that seat covered by the party's second votes in the Land (Zweitstimmendeckung). The poll was on 23 February; the new Bundestag first met on 25 March 2025.

Official result

In the Federal Returning Officer's final result, Krieger received 42,273 first votes, 26.3 percent, up 1.2 percentage points on the CDU in 2021, and was elected. Elisabeth Maria Paus, named as runner-up, received 38,681 votes (24.0 percent, down 1.1 points). The SPD, whose candidate was Müller, received 38,187 (23.7 percent, down 1.9). Die Linke took 17,861 (11.1 percent, up 5.5), the AfD 13,870 (8.6 percent, up 3.3) and the FDP 7,063 (4.4 percent, down 3.4). Turnout was 83.0 percent: 162,287 of 195,504 eligible voters, 14.9 points above 2021.

Second votes were led by the CDU with 37,332 (23.1 percent, up 1.1 points), then the Greens with 35,122 (21.7 percent, down 5.0), the SPD with 28,929 (17.9 percent, down 4.0), Die Linke with 23,469 (14.5 percent, up 8.0), the AfD with 14,329 (8.9 percent, up 2.8), the FDP with 10,335 (6.4 percent, down 4.2) and the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht with 6,995 (4.3 percent).

The roll of elected members records Krieger as chosen in constituency 079, and also shows sixth place on the Berlin CDU list. Paus is recorded as elected from first place on the Berlin Green list after also standing in the constituency. Müller is absent from that roll. rbb reported the day after the election that, with no list place, third place ended his membership of the Bundestag.

Transfer from the Borken district association

In January 2025, during the campaign, the CDU district association in Borken transferred €20,000 to the CDU association in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Tagesspiegel Checkpoint reported in January 2026 that the sum stood on an internal donor list of the Berlin association. Jens Spahn, later leader of the CDU/CSU Bundestag group, was still Borken district chairman when the money moved. Checkpoint noted that he and Krieger knew each other from the Young Union, and asked whether the payment was a personal favour for the Berlin campaign or was meant to secure later political support. The Borken association had previously lent €100,000 to the Cologne CDU.

The Westfälische Nachrichten reported the transfer under the headline "Loyalität gekauft?", asking why funds linked to Borken were supporting a Berlin association and what role Spahn had played. The Bocholter-Borkener Volksblatt likewise reported a €20,000 payment in the middle of the campaign. Markus Jasper, the Borken association's managing director, said an outside donor had asked that part of a gift also support other party units. Checkpoint's follow-up called that account a "fairy tale from the Münsterland" and wrote that the association gave no details of the donor. The reports did not allege that the transfer broke party-finance rules; they treated it as an internal payment between party units and questioned how far its purpose was disclosed.

Bundestag membership

Lukas Krieger has been a member of the 21st German Bundestag since the chamber constituted on 25 March 2025, holding the direct mandate for constituency 79, Berlin-Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. In the 2025 federal election the Christian Democratic Union candidate received 42,273 first votes (26.3 percent), ahead of Lisa Paus of Alliance 90/The Greens with 38,681 (24.0 percent). His constituency office is at Uhlandstraße 64, 10719 Berlin.

Committees and interparliamentary groups

He is a full member of the Finance Committee, the Bundesfinanzierungsgremium and the Subcommittee on Questions of the European Union, and a deputy on the committees for culture and media, legal affairs and consumer protection, and the budget. The Finance Committee constituted on 21 May 2025 with 42 full members, 14 from the CDU/CSU, including Krieger; the Bundesfinanzierungsgremium oversees federal debt, shareholdings and the stabilisation funds. He is deputy chair of the Parliamentary Group on Central Africa (Equatorial Guinea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Cameroon, the Republic of the Congo, São Tomé and Príncipe, and the Central African Republic).

Plenary debates

His floor speeches have concerned the budget and tax motions.

On 23 September 2025, in the general financial debate on the 2026 budget, he said Germany had a growth problem, that passage of the 2025 budget had ended a period without one, and that 2024 tax receipts of about €948 billion were not the constraint—interest on rising debt was. He opposed tax rises other than relief for low and middle incomes, rejected what he called Alternative for Germany plans to cut aid to Ukraine and the Climate and Transformation Fund, and pointed to less bureaucracy and coalition targets for lower staffing and administrative spending.

On 5 November 2025, on a Green motion for a levy on digital advertising (Drucksache 21/2247) and a Die Linke motion for a digital tax (Drucksache 21/2536), he said both touched an aim of Minister of State for Culture Wolfram Weimer: large platforms should help finance German media and culture. Alphabet and Meta, he said, paid little German tax through lawful profit shifting while taking advertising from regional media; with an OECD deal stalled after the United States under Donald Trump stepped back, and no near European Union solution since March 2019, he wanted a purpose-bound levy, not a tax into the general budget, and said both motions should fail.

On 15 April 2026, on a further Green digital-tax motion, he again preferred a levy, citing Article 106 of the Basic Law, EU law and trade risks with the United States, and told Karoline Otte that the legal problems were not trivial.

On 6 March 2026, on a Left call to collect the wealth tax again and a Green motion to drop the 300-dwelling inheritance-tax rule (Drucksache 21/4456), he called the wealth tax a device for unfunded spending. He said the Federal Constitutional Court's 1995 ruling had held it unconstitutional for unequal valuation and that it had not been levied since—an SPD interjection said it remained in force but was suspended—and he cited valuation costs, capital flight and findings he attributed to the German Institute for Economic Research, preferring growth measures to taxes on substance.

On 9 July 2026, on application-free child benefit, he said payment should be automatic where the family fund already had the facts and an account, including for a first child from autumn 2027, and that in doubt the mother should be the payee, by instruction rather than a delaying statute. He called an AfD bill to scale the benefit for children in other EU states to local costs contrary to a 2021 ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union, and told Kay Gottschalk that 1.4 percent of payments went abroad, mostly to EU citizens working in Germany, which he thought justified.

On 8 October 2026, on nine Green texts about "justice gaps" in property, inheritance, share deals and crypto-assets, he said each answered with higher taxes: ending the ten-year private-property exemption would tax inflation, trade tax on rents would reach tenants, and heavier tax on housing investment would mean fewer homes. Business-asset relief in inheritance tax was, he said, about jobs surviving succession, not a gift, and sums above €26 million were tied up in plant; he rejected the texts.

External advisory roles

On 6 November 2025 the Bundestag elected him deputy member of the Federal Ministry of Finance's advisory board on the graphic design of special stamps, with Pascal Reddig as full member on the same CDU/CSU nomination (Drucksache 21/2314). Rainer Groß and Nicole Hess were elected for the AfD; the Greens and Die Linke abstained. From 24 November 2025 he is listed as an honorary member of the Stiftungsrat of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, and from 24 June 2026 as a deputy member of the Kuratorium of the Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. The Kuratorium, with eight members from the Bundestag, eight from the federal government and 16 from the Bundesrat, decides the foundation's budget, programme and senior appointments.

Political positions

Taxation and public finance

In the Bundestag, Krieger has spoken for the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union. On 5 November 2025 he said large digital firms made billions in Germany, shifted profits abroad and took advertising from regional media and culture. He wanted a purpose-bound levy for media, culture and creators, not the general-budget tax proposed by Die Linke. An OECD or EU solution would be better, he said, but both were stalled—the United States under Donald Trump had left global minimum-tax talks, and a 2019 Commission plan had failed. He backed Wolfram Weimer's levy and rejected motions from Alliance 90/The Greens and the Left.

On 15 April 2026 he called a national digital tax the wrong tool for a real fairness problem. A tax could not reserve receipts for media and culture, might not fit Article 106 of the Basic Law so the federation could collect it, and raised EU-law and trade risks with the United States. He cited work already under way by Weimer, the Bundesrat and the CDU, and said a levy had to be legally secure and practical.

On 6 March 2026 he opposed a wealth tax. He said the Federal Constitutional Court's 1995 decision had held it unconstitutional for unequal valuation and equality. The order of 22 June 1995 in fact held the valuation rules incompatible with Article 3(1) and required a new law by the end of 1996; none followed. He added cost, capital flight, a German Institute for Economic Research finding of harm to growth, and Gabriel Zucman's doubt that a national wealth tax can work. Above one trillion euros of revenue, he said, the problem was spending, and the answer was growth, relief, digital administration, faster planning, lower energy costs and skilled immigration rather than taxes on substance.

On 8 October 2026 he read nine opposition texts on property, inheritances, share deals, crypto-assets and fraud as tax rises. Ending the ten-year private-sale exemption and the extended trade-tax deduction would, he said, tax inflation and rents and yield fewer homes; business-asset relief lets family firms pass on with their jobs; crypto should not be taxed more harshly than currency, metals or securities. Cum-ex and VAT fraud should be pursued, but not by financing relief for low and middle incomes with uncertain revenue and a flat subsidy cut.

Economy and administration

On 9 July 2026 he backed application-free child benefit where the family fund already has the facts, entitlement and an account. It would start in March 2027 for a later child and cover first-born children that autumn only if the child lived in Germany and a parent worked there. He called an AfD index for children living in other EU states contrary to 2021 case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union—1.4 percent of payments go abroad, mostly to EU citizens working in Germany—and wanted mothers preferred by instruction rather than a delayed law.

On 5 December 2025, in a debate that also covered cash and a digital euro, he answered an AfD motion on Bitcoin by accepting innovation and the one-year tax-free holding period, but not deregulation, citing warnings by the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority and the EU Markets in Crypto-Assets rules.

Culture, law and international contacts

On culture he has argued for Weimer's earmarked platform levy as support for media plurality and cultural work, rather than a general tax. On law he has used Article 106, the 1995 equality ruling and Court of Justice case law on family benefits against drafts he treated as unsafe.

The Bundestag lists him as deputy chair of the Central Africa parliamentary group, covering Equatorial Guinea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Cameroon, the Republic of the Congo, São Tomé and Príncipe and the Central African Republic. They arrange dialogue and delegations, not laws.

Berlin CDU leadership

Appointment as acting general secretary

On 10 July 2026, Kai Wegner, governing mayor of Berlin and state chair of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), withdrew as lead candidate for the 20 September election to the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin and gave up the state chair. He said his communication around the January power outage had been a failure—"Das war Mist"—and that he would remain mayor until the vote. On 13 July the state executive unanimously named finance and culture senator Stefan Evers lead candidate and acting state chair. At that sitting Ottilie Klein, general secretary since 2023, said she was stepping down "für einen glaubwürdigen Neuanfang." On Evers's proposal the board unanimously appointed Bundestag member Lukas Krieger, chair of the CDU in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, acting general secretary to run the campaign.

Krieger told the Tagesspiegel he accepted "mit Demut und hochmotiviert." Klein, installed by Wegner, had taken 76.2 percent in 2023 and a little over 60 percent on re-election in 2025; she was described as passive and rarely seen, while nd wrote that Krieger was to mobilize the party from one of its largest district branches. The offices stayed provisional. In August rbb24 still called both men acting, and in late October the state party's own board page listed "Stefan Evers, Landesvorsitzender, komm." and "Lukas Krieger, Generalsekretär, komm."

2026 Abgeordnetenhaus election

The vote was held on 20 September 2026, and Landeswahlleiter Stephan Bröchler’s committee certified it on 12 October. The CDU won 18.8 percent of valid second votes (342,746) and 33 of 153 seats. Die Linke led with 25.7 percent (468,391 votes) and 45 seats, ahead of the Alternative for Germany on 16.3 percent and 29 seats, Alliance 90/The Greens on 14.3 percent and 25, and the Social Democratic Party on 12.1 percent and 21. Turnout was 74.2 percent. A recount in Spandau constituency 1 gave the direct mandate to AfD candidate Tommy Tabor instead of CDU candidate Bettina Meißner and reduced the house from a preliminary 158 seats.

The CDU finish was well below the 28.2 percent and 52 seats rbb24 reported for 2023. With the SPD it held 54 seats, so the outgoing coalition no longer had a majority. On 24 September the caucus, still at its preliminary size, elected Evers floor leader by 30 votes to two, with two members absent.

Debate inside the party

On 14 July the Berlin Center for Party and Parliamentary Law at the Free University argued that giving Krieger the general secretary’s office conflicted with the Political Parties Act and the state statute. Section 9(4) of the act reserves election of the chair and the other board members to the party congress. Evers was already an elected deputy chair, so the authors thought he could exercise the chair’s functions; Klein had resigned, the statute provides no deputy general secretary, and Krieger was not an elected board member but only an advisory participant under section 26(5), as a Bundestag member from Berlin. The note compared the step to the federal CDU’s July 2023 appointment of Carsten Linnemann, which a congress confirmed only later.

Press coverage revived a 2005 Schüler Union video from a trip to Riga. On 15 July nd quoted Krieger, beside a swastika badge, saying that Germans should again be recognizable as Germans, that Germany should remain German, and that "wir gegen den jüdischen Bolschewismus durchaus vorgehen." It recalled his temporary exit from the party and Stefanie Bung’s 2016 charge that he showed no remorse. The Berliner Morgenpost reported the same week that he had called the recording the greatest mistake of his life, and in early September profiled him, under the headline "Der Mann der zwei Brüche," as the general secretary who was to help Evers to power.

Other activities

Memorial, church and cultural groups

Since 2023 Krieger has been treasurer of the Förderverein Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer e.V. The unpaid board supports the Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer, on an original stretch of the Berlin Wall at Bernauer Straße, and runs projects of its own. The association was founded in July 2008 after the Stiftung Berliner Mauer took over the memorial. On 7 February 2023 the members elected him deputy chairman for two years; a later foundation list names him only as a board member, while his Bundestag disclosure records the treasurer's office.

The Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Straße, whose support association lists Krieger as a board member.

His biography lists membership of hedwig21.berlin e.V., founded in 2017 by lay supporters to back the renovation and interior redesign of St. Hedwig's Cathedral and the Bernhard-Lichtenberg-Haus decided by the Archdiocese of Berlin in 2016. The disclosure names him separately as deputy chairman of Freunde der Hedwigskathedrale e.V., which seeks a respectful restoration and opposes what it calls an unjustified radical rebuilding.

He is an unpaid board member of the Secco Pontanova Stiftung in Berlin. With the Kunstverein Ost it awards the Claus Michaletz Prize, €10,000 given since 2020 to artists from Eastern Europe in memory of its founder, the publisher Claus Michaletz. The biography also lists the Freundeskreis der Kommunalen Galerie Berlin, formed in September 2014 to support that district gallery for contemporary art, open since 1974, and the KAS-AJC alumni network, a registered association started in 2013 for former participants in the exchange of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the American Jewish Committee. Former federal president Christian Wulff, an alumnus, is the network's patron.

From 1 May 2026 the disclosure lists him, unpaid, on the LiveMusikKommission body for the "Bundesschallschutzprogramm". LiveKomm is the federal association of music clubs and festivals. The 2026 pilot, about €3 million from the housing ministry, funds soundproofing at selected venues. Practitioners, a ministry representative and coalition parliamentarians review a shortlist prepared by LiveKomm and the Initiative Musik.

Sport and private life

His Bundestag biography, based on members' own statements, says he has been president of Herthafreunde Süd-West since 2009 and is a member of Hertha BSC. Hertha lists Herthafreunde Südwest as an official fan club in Berlin-Charlottenburg/Wilmersdorf.

The biography also lists the Mittelstands- und Wirtschaftsvereinigung of the CDU. Its statutes call the body the Mittelstands- und Wirtschaftsunion (MIT), a recognized CDU association for people interested in economic policy. A June 2025 CDU/CSU flyer names him treasurer of the Parlamentskreis Mittelstand, the largest of the group's six sociological circles, with 166 of 208 members. From June 2025 the disclosure also lists him as treasurer of the Verein zur Förderung der Arbeit des Parlamentskreises Mittelstand.

The biography states that he is a Roman Catholic, married, and the father of one son. He writes that he has lived in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf since 2002 and now lives with his wife near Rüdesheimer Platz.