# Markus Koob

# Markus Koob

Markus Benjamin Koob (born 5 December 1977 in Kronberg im Taunus) is a German politician of the [Christian Democratic Union](/organizations/christian-democratic-union-of-germany) (CDU) and a member of the Bundestag from Hesse. He has represented the Hochtaunus constituency since entering parliament in 2013, when he won the direct mandate, then numbered constituency 176, with 48.8 percent of the first votes (66,785). He kept the seat in 2017 with 39.9 percent and in 2021 with 31.3 percent. At the federal election of 23 February 2025 he was returned in the renumbered constituency 175 with 37.8 percent (57,261 votes), ahead of the Social Democrat David Wade on 19.5 percent, in a poll with a turnout of 85.6 percent among 178,433 eligible voters.

Koob is a Roman Catholic and is unmarried. He passed the Abitur in 1997 at the Altkönigschule in Kronberg and, from 1997 to 1998, performed alternative civilian service at the Protestant Versöhnungsgemeinde in Stierstadt. From 1998 to 2005 he studied for a Magister Artium at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, with political science as his major subject and public law and civil law as minors.

Before his election he worked for the administration of the Hochtaunuskreis in Bad Homburg, from 2006 to 2012 as personal assistant to the district administrator and from 2012 to 2013 as the district's press spokesman. The Bundestag's register of members records a right to return to a post with the district executive. He has been a CDU member since 1995 and a member of the Hochtaunuskreis district council since 2016. In August 2020, delegates elected him chairman of the CDU in the Hochtaunuskreis with 154 of 170 votes, succeeding Jürgen Banzer after sixteen years, and a party congress in March 2024 confirmed him in the office with 96.2 percent.

In the Bundestag elected in 2025 he is a full member of the Committee on [Foreign Affairs](/organizations/foreign-affairs) and a deputy member of the Committee on Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and of the Subcommittee on the International Order, the [United Nations](/organizations/united-nations) and International Organisations. He also sits as a full member of the Joint Committee under Article 53a of the Basic Law and is deputy chairman of the parliamentary friendship group for Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania. He is a member of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group and maintains constituency offices in Bad Homburg and in Limburg an der Lahn.

## Early life and education

### Schooling and civilian service

Markus Koob was born on 5 December 1977 in Kronberg im Taunus, a town in the Hochtaunuskreis of Hesse, in the Taunus. The Bundestag biography, drawn from the member's own disclosures, describes him as Roman Catholic and unmarried. A February 2025 profile in the *Allgemeine Zeitung* repeated both points, presented him as a man from neighbouring Oberursel, and said that he commuted between Berlin and his home in the Taunus, where his mother and a partner lived. The same article named politics, football and music as three lasting interests, including support for Eintracht Frankfurt and the bands U2 and Coldplay.

The curriculum vitae on his website lists primary school in the Stierstadt district of Oberursel from 1984 to 1988, then the Altkönigschule in Kronberg from 1988 to 1997. The Bundestag biography states that he passed the Abitur there in 1997. The Hessian school database classifies the Altkönigschule as a cooperative comprehensive school organised by school type (*schulformbezogene Gesamtschule*), with a Gymnasium branch and an upper secondary level. He joined the Christian Democratic Union in 1995, while he was still a pupil at the school.

For 1997–98 the Bundestag biography uses the combined label "Wehr-/Zivildienst" and places the service at the Protestant Versöhnungsgemeinde (Reconciliation parish) in Stierstadt. Local reporting is more specific about which of the two forms of compulsory service he performed. In November 2025 the *Taunus-Nachrichten* described him as a *Zivildienstleistender* of the Versöhnungsgemeinde of Stierstadt and Weißkirchen from 1997 to 1998 — that is, as someone who had done Zivildienst, civilian service, rather than service in the Bundeswehr. Conscription was still in force for men. Under a statute that took effect on 1 January 1996, basic military service had been cut from twelve months to ten, and civilian service for recognized conscientious objectors from fifteen months to thirteen. The biographies give only the years 1997 and 1998, not a month count. The 2025 parish event, organised by the discussion circle "Gott und die Welt" under the title "Vom Zivi zum Bundestagsabgeordneten", invited him to speak about parliamentary work and the debate on military and civilian service.

### Studies in Mainz

From 1998 to 2005 he studied at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate, on the Magister programme: political science as the major, and public law and civil law as minors. The Bundestag biography and his curriculum vitae both name the degree as Magister Artium and date the course to 1998–2005; neither gives a separate year in which the degree was conferred. The *Allgemeine Zeitung* described him as a Magister in political science, public law and civil law, and placed the start of his work after "his studies in Mainz" in 2006, as personal assistant (*persönlicher Referent*) to the Landrat of the Hochtaunuskreis. The parliamentary transparency project Abgeordnetenwatch records the qualification more briefly as a course of study in political science, and the year of birth as 1977.

That Magister belonged to the set of single-cycle first degrees — Diplom, Magister and teacher training — which the university senate, in November 2004, decided to replace for new students with Bachelor's and Master's programmes under the Bologna Process. The university expected the conversion of more than 100 programmes to be largely complete by the winter semester of 2008/09. Courses that ended in a nationwide state examination, including law (*Rechtswissenschaften*), together with the two theology programmes, were left outside the change. Koob's course is dated to 1998–2005, before that switch for new entrants, and the degree recorded for him is the Magister Artium rather than a Bachelor's or Master's degree. Public law and civil law appear in the official biography only as the two minor subjects of that Magister, not as a completed state examination in law.

## Local administration and party career

### Work for the Hochtaunuskreis

Koob’s first employment after university was in the administration of the Hochtaunuskreis, a district in Hesse. From 2006 to 2012 he was persönlicher Referent—personal aide—to Landrat Ulrich Krebs, the directly elected head of the district administration, and from 2012 to 2013 he was the district’s press spokesman. Krebs, of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), had taken office on 9 May 2006. A Frankfurter Rundschau account of Koob’s selection as a Bundestag candidate, written when he was 34, said that he had spent six years in the office of Krebs, whom it described as a party colleague, and that he had been the district spokesman since 1 May.

The same Bundestag biography lists that pre-parliamentary work under the statutory disclosures as employment by the Kreisausschuss of the Hochtaunuskreis in Bad Homburg—the district’s executive body—with a Rückkehrrecht, a right to return to the post.

### Municipal offices

Koob dates his CDU membership from 1995. In a 2013 questionnaire for the Hessian CDU he said that his first contact with the party had come when he joined the Junge Union, its youth organisation, at the age of 15; the Rundschau profile of his candidacy placed that step at 16 and party membership two years later. Born on 5 December 1977, he was 15 for almost all of 1993.

By the time of that nomination he was a Stadtverordneter, a city councillor, in Oberursel and a Beisitzer, a non-executive member, of the CDU Hochtaunus board; the Oberursel city association had put his name forward. Disclosures archived for the 18th Bundestag (2013–2017) record an unpaid seat on the Oberursel council. He stood again in the city-council election whose result the local election committee certified on 11 March 2016. As CDU candidate 145 he received 3,057 votes, 43rd of the 45 candidates on the CDU list, while the party won 12 of the 45 seats. The biography for the 19th electoral term no longer lists the city council. It records him instead as deputy chairman of the CDU in Oberursel and, from 2016, as a member of the Kreistag, the district council.

A profile published before the Bundestag election of 23 February 2025 still described him as deputy chairman of the Oberursel CDU. On 24 November 2025 the city association elected a new executive, with Nadja Hallert and Kerstin Korn as deputy chairs; on the association’s board page Koob appears as a Bundestag member, CDU Hochtaunus chairman and Kreistag member, not as a deputy chair. For the Kreistag election of March 2026 the Taunus-Nachrichten named him the CDU’s lead candidate. The district party had adopted that list in Glashütten in September 2025, with Koob first and Charlotte Stöckl second, at a time when the CDU held 25 of the council’s seats.

### Leadership of the CDU Hochtaunus

On 22 August 2020, 180 delegates met at the Christian-Wirth-Schule in Usingen for a district congress that had been delayed and was held under pandemic hygiene rules. Jürgen Banzer did not stand again. Reporting at the time described a 16-year chairmanship; the association’s own account of the handover spoke of 18 years in all at its head. Koob, then 42 and already a member of the Bundestag, was elected with 154 votes to 16 against, or 90.6 percent, for two years, and the delegates also elected Banzer honorary chairman.

The deputies chosen that day were Thorsten Bartsch of Bad Homburg, with 140 votes, Norbert Fischer of Friedrichsdorf, with 121, Anette Hogh of Königstein im Taunus, with 131, and Uwe Kraft of Neu-Anspach, with 98. After a correction in the meeting, membership was given as 1,805. Banzer told the congress that the figure put the Hochtaunus CDU among the larger district associations in the state, and that the CDU–SPD majority on the Kreistag—a single vote—had not lost a division. Koob praised what he called Banzer’s strategic judgement, credited him, as a former Landrat, with the district’s school-building programme, which he said Krebs had continued, and proposed three working groups: on the Taunus as a place to live, on the district as a business and financial location, and on its rural areas.

In May 2022, again in Usingen, 178 delegates re-elected him with 95 percent for another two years. Bartsch, Fischer and Hogh remained deputies; Alexander Jackson, chair of the CDU group on the Usingen council, replaced Kraft. Heino von Winning of Steinbach became treasurer after Alexander Hees, who had held the office for ten years. The district business manager, Katja Gehrmann, spoke of more than 1,700 members. Koob said that eight Junge Union members sat on the new executive and that Gregor Sommer, chair of the CDU group in the Kreistag, belonged to it by virtue of that office.

At a congress in the Erlenbachhalle on Saturday, 9 March 2024, delegates confirmed the 46-year-old Oberursel resident with 96.2 percent. Bartsch, Fischer, Hogh and Jackson were returned as deputies; von Winning remained treasurer and Svaantje auf dem Keller of Oberursel secretary. The only change on the executive board was the membership officer: Tanja Kulisch-Ziemens of Wehrheim succeeded Susanne Odenweller. The meeting was also used to take stock after the [2023 Hessian state election](/facts/2023-hessian-state-election), several mayoral contests and Krebs’s re-election as Landrat, and to look ahead to the 2024 European election and the 2026 local elections. Koob thanked Banzer, who had by then left the Landtag of Hesse.

## Bundestag elections

### The 2013 entry into parliament

Holger Haibach, the directly elected member for the Hochtaunus constituency, resigned his seat in the Bundestag with effect from 1 March 2011. The *Frankfurter Rundschau* reported that he was leaving to become country director of the [Konrad Adenauer Foundation](/organizations/konrad-adenauer-foundation) in Windhoek, Namibia; a December 2010 note had already said he would take that post the following year and give up the mandate. There was no by-election: the plenary record of 17 March 2011 states that Helmut Heiderich was welcomed as his successor.

On 23 November 2012 a delegate assembly of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Friedrichsdorf nominated Markus Koob for constituency 176, described in the report as Hochtaunus/Oberlahn. The *Frankfurter Neue Presse* wrote that the 34-year-old, then spokesman of the Hochtaunuskreis and a CDU member of the Oberursel city council, won on the first ballot with 115 of 213 valid votes, ahead of Torsten Hofmann (68), Jutta Nothacker (21) and Dr. Regina Sell (9). The paper presented him as Haibach’s successor and noted that Haibach had won the direct mandate in 2009 and was living in Namibia.

The election to the 18th Bundestag was held on Sunday, 22 September 2013. In constituency 176 the CDU received 66,785 first votes, 48.8 percent of valid first votes and 3.5 points more than in 2009. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) was second with 38,435 votes (28.1 percent). Turnout was 76.8 percent of 182,026 people eligible to vote, and the CDU also led the second vote with 43.0 percent. The published result names the winning party rather than the candidate; the *Frankfurter Rundschau* later recorded that Koob had held the direct mandate in every election from 2013 onward. The 18th Bundestag opened its first sitting on 22 October 2013.

### Re-elections from 2017 to 2025

The election to the 19th Bundestag was held on 24 September 2017. In constituency 176 the CDU received 57,579 first votes (39.9 percent), 8.8 points below 2013, and the SPD 33,201 (23.0 percent). During the campaign the *Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung* identified Koob as the CDU candidate and Hans-Joachim Schabedoth as the SPD candidate. Turnout was 80.6 percent of 181,516 eligible voters, and the CDU led the second vote with 33.5 percent.

On 26 September 2021, at the election to the 20th Bundestag, the CDU first-vote share fell again, to 44,549 votes (31.3 percent), 8.6 points below 2017. The SPD received 38,424 votes (27.0 percent) and Alliance 90/[The Greens](/organizations/the-greens) 21,769 (15.3 percent), so the CDU margin over the SPD was 6,125 votes. Turnout was 80.1 percent of 179,842 eligible voters. The *Frankfurter Rundschau* stated that Koob had won the direct mandate each time since 2013, most recently with 31.3 percent of first votes.

For the following election the CDU Hochtaunus executive, at a meeting reported on 13 September 2024, unanimously proposed Koob as direct candidate for constituency 175, formerly 176; the nomination still had to be confirmed by a delegate conference. On 17 November 2024 in Leun, with no opposing candidate, that conference gave him 149 of 157 votes, 157 of 194 delegates being present.

After the federal president dissolved the 20th Bundestag, the election to the 21st Bundestag was held on 23 February 2025. The final result for constituency 175 names Markus Benjamin Koob (CDU) as elected with 57,261 first votes, 37.8 percent, 6.6 points above 2021. The runner-up was David Wade (SPD) with 29,458 votes (19.5 percent). [The Alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) for Germany (AfD) took 16.5 percent of first votes, the Greens 12.2 percent, [Die Linke](/organizations/die-linke) 5.4 percent and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) 4.8 percent. Turnout was 85.6 percent, 152,705 voters out of 178,433 eligible. Second votes were 33.6 percent CDU, 16.6 percent SPD, 16.4 percent AfD, 13.1 percent Greens, 6.6 percent FDP, 6.2 percent Die Linke and 3.7 percent Bündnis [Sahra Wagenknecht](/people/sahra-wagenknecht).

### The Hochtaunus constituency

For the elections of 2013, 2017 and 2021 the seat was constituency 176 Hochtaunus; for 2025 it was constituency 175. The Federal Returning Officer’s description of the area lists ten municipalities of the Hochtaunuskreis — Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Friedrichsdorf, Glashütten, Grävenwiesbach, Neu-Anspach, Oberursel (Taunus), Schmitten im Taunus, Usingen, Wehrheim and Weilrod — and nine of the district of Limburg-Weilburg: Beselich, Löhnberg, Mengerskirchen, Merenberg, Runkel, Villmar, Weilburg, Weilmünster and Weinbach. The 2013, 2017 and 2021 descriptions list the same municipalities.

The remaining municipalities of the Hochtaunuskreis lie in the Main-Taunus constituency, and the remainder of Limburg-Weilburg in Rheingau-Taunus – Limburg. Before the 2025 renumbering those neighbouring seats were numbered 181 and 178. The division used for the 21st Bundestag is set out in the annex to the 27th Act amending the Federal Elections Act of 7 March 2024, which entered into force on 14 March 2024. Because of population change, one constituency was transferred from Saxony-Anhalt to Bavaria, and the numbers of the former constituencies 72 to 255 therefore shifted; Hochtaunus was one of 14 constituencies that were redescribed or renamed without a change of boundary. On 31 December 2023 it comprised 19 municipalities, 812.5 square kilometres and 255,900 inhabitants (315 per square kilometre). The *Frankfurter Allgemeine* described the seat as running from Bad Homburg and Oberursel across the Taunus ridge, with campaigning on both sides of the range.

## Parliamentary offices

### Committees across legislative periods

Markus Koob has been a member of the Bundestag since its 18th electoral term (2013–2017), sitting in the CDU/CSU parliamentary group on a constituency mandate in each of the four terms since then. Committee places are set out in the Bundestag biographies for each term, which distinguish a full member (*ordentliches Mitglied*) from a deputy member (*stellvertretendes Mitglied*), and, for the standing committees, in abgeordnetenwatch's membership data.

In the 18th term the archived biography lists him as a full member of the Committee on Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and of the Finance Committee, and as a deputy member of the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs, the Petitions Committee and the Subcommittee on Civic Engagement (*Unterausschuss „Bürgerschaftliches Engagement“*). Abgeordnetenwatch records the same full or deputy status for those four committees and does not list the subcommittee.

In the 19th term (2017–2021) the biography lists a full seat on the Committee on Foreign Affairs (*Auswärtiger Ausschuss*) and deputy seats on the Committee on Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, the Subcommittee on Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, and the Subcommittee on Foreign Cultural and Education Policy. The abgeordnetenwatch entry for that mandate confirms the Foreign Affairs full membership and the family-affairs deputy membership.

In the 20th term (2021–2025) he remained a full member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and was a full member of its Subcommittee on the United Nations, International Organizations and Civilian Crisis Prevention, and a deputy member of the Subcommittee on Foreign Cultural and Education Policy. The archived biography for that term does not record a seat on the family-affairs committee.

In the 21st electoral term the biography lists him as a full member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and as a deputy member of the Committee on Education, Family, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and of the Subcommittee on International Order, the United Nations and International Organizations. Abgeordnetenwatch assigns the same three roles to the 2025–2029 mandate, with full membership only on Foreign Affairs.

### Other parliamentary bodies

The 21st-term biography also lists him as a full member of the Joint Committee (*Gemeinsamer Ausschuss*) under Article 53a of the Basic Law. Despite the name, the Joint Committee is not a Bundestag committee. It is a separate constitutional body of 32 members of the Bundestag and 16 members of the Bundesrat, introduced with the emergency amendments of 1968 and described by the Bundestag as a kind of emergency parliament. If the Bundestag cannot meet in time or is not quorate, the Joint Committee may, by a two-thirds majority of the votes cast and at least a majority of its members, establish that fact and determine a state of defence, and may then exercise rights of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat; it may not amend the Basic Law or set it aside in whole or in part.

The same biography names him deputy chairman of the *Parlamentariergruppe* for Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania. A Bundestag list of group boards for the 19th term names him as a deputy chair under Uwe Schulz (AfD), and a list for the 20th term, dated 12 July 2024, names him as a deputy under Bernhard Herrmann (Alliance 90/The Greens). *Parlamentariergruppen* are cross-party associations of members, reconstituted each electoral term by the Presidium of the Bundestag. Their number and geographical coverage are set by the Council of Elders, and the chairs are distributed with regard to the strength of the parliamentary groups. They maintain contacts with parliaments of other countries through conferences, information visits and meetings; that work is not aimed at bills, formal resolutions or treaties.

### Rapporteur assignments

Posts as a group rapporteur (*Berichterstatter*) are not entered in the Bundestag biographies. On his own website, in a text about the 20th electoral term, Koob described himself as the CDU/CSU rapporteur in the Foreign Affairs Committee for basic questions of Africa policy, the [African Union](/organizations/african-union) and the Sahel initiative, for combating international terrorism, and for arms cooperation and arms-export questions, and wrote that he handled the committee's business on West Africa and Central Africa, the countries of Oceania, and the ASEAN states in Southeast Asia. Those assignments are not listed as formal offices on the Bundestag biography.

Since 2025 he has led the CDU/CSU parliamentary group's *Arbeitskreis Afrika*. In his newsletter for the sitting week of 13–17 October 2025 he wrote that he was taking over the chair with immediate effect. The Deutsche Afrika Stiftung's board note likewise states that he has led the working group since 2025, and describes [Stefan Rouenhoff](/people/stefan-rouenhoff) as its previous head.

## Foreign and security policy

### Africa, the Sahel and Sudan

On 22 March 2018, debating continued German participation in the hybrid United Nations–African Union mission UNAMID in Darfur (Drucksachen 19/1096 and 19/1304), Markus Koob of the CDU/CSU called conditions in Sudan still dramatic: 2.7 million people displaced and 2.3 million dependent on aid. The German contingent was small, he said, but as the only European one it carried a symbolic responsibility. The Bundestag adopted the renewal by 580 votes to 57, with 4 abstentions; Koob voted yes. Die Linke opposed it. Alexander Kulitz of the FDP asked how aid could continue if the peacekeepers left.

On 17 January 2019, on the peace process between Ethiopia and Eritrea, Koob welcomed the declaration of 8–9 July 2018 and Ethiopia’s acceptance of the boundary settlement. Eritrea, he said, still had to limit and pay national service—a major cause of flight—and allow opposition, elections and the rule of law. He called FDP and Green criticism of government Africa policy overstated and asked the House to back the coalition motion.

On 26 November 2020 the Bundestag took Sahel motions from the Greens (Drucksache 19/23986), the AfD (19/24653) and the FDP on Mali (19/24623). Koob said Mali remained dramatic despite the Bundeswehr, federal police and the GIZ, and would do so for years. He called the AfD text thin and dismissed “cooperate as equals, otherwise stay out”. The other motions were serious, but civil-society and GIZ contacts told him they could not work without the Bundeswehr even if they would prefer it absent. A purely military approach would fail, he said, yet the military part could not then be dropped. AfD speaker Roland Hartwig called the policy naive and the Mali deployment a failure.

In the agreed debate of 24 February 2021 on a comprehensive Africa policy, Koob said development workers told him there is no aid without security. Niema Movassat of Die Linke interrupted that he had heard the opposite. Koob recalled travelling with Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso and Mali, argued that parliament talked about Africans more than with them, and said ambassadors wanted European investment as part of the solution.

On 7 November 2025, in a Greens-requested hour on Sudan, Koob described Al-Fashir after more than 17 months of siege—massacres, flight on foot, malnourished children—as worsening daily. Citing the [Federal Foreign Office](/organizations/federal-foreign-office), he said more than 25 million people needed aid and more than 11 million were displaced, while the army and the Rapid Support Forces still fought and blocked aid. Only diplomacy would work, he argued, through Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Chad. He credited Foreign Minister [Johann Wadephul](/people/johann-wadephul) and Minister of State [Serap Güler](/people/serap-guler), and called an RSF acceptance of a “Quad” ceasefire proposal an uncertain hope. Asked by Vinzenz Glaser of Die Linke about arms for the Emirates, he said export decisions belonged to another body, not the plenary, and that a civilian transition was the real task. SPD speaker Adis Ahmetovic called El Fasher a symbol of international failure.

### United Nations missions and civilian crisis management

On 17 February 2022, at first reading of the renewal for the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (Drucksache 20/631), Koob said concern for South Sudan was shared. The mandate allowed up to 50 Bundeswehr personnel until 31 March 2022. He asked how aid was possible, in a country a UN report called one of the most dangerous, without troops. Kathrin Vogler of Die Linke said the Nonviolent Peaceforce had stayed when UNMISS pulled back in 2013 and that many groups worked best far from the military. Koob said his contacts reported the reverse, and that only Die Linke thought these regions could manage with no military means at all. The CDU/CSU would support the request, which was referred to committee.

On 11 November 2025 the supervisory board of the Zentrum für Internationale Friedenseinsätze (ZIF) was constituted for the new term. Foreign Office state minister Florian Hahn took the chair; the members elected Koob deputy. Each Bundestag group sends one member, with state secretaries from the interior, defence and development ministries. ZIF, founded in 2002 by government and Bundestag, is a non-profit owned by the Federal Republic through the Foreign Office. It trains and seconds civilians for crisis prevention, conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Koob’s parliamentary declaration lists the post as honorary from that day.

From 12 November 2025 the same declaration lists him as honorary board member (Beisitzer) of the Deutsche Afrika Stiftung, a non-partisan body focused on the government’s Africa guidelines and on parliamentary German–African exchange.

### European security and Ukraine

On 14 March 2024 the Bundestag adopted, by 494 votes to 188 with 5 abstentions, the committee recommendation to reject a CDU/CSU motion for delivery of the Taurus KEPD 350 to Ukraine (Drucksachen 20/9143 and 20/10433). A yes vote accepted that rejection. Koob voted no, with most of the CDU/CSU. Jens Koeppen, Mario Czaja and [Emmi Zeulner](/people/emmi-zeulner) voted yes; Heike Brehmer, [Hans-Peter Friedrich](/people/hans-peter-friedrich) and [Peter Ramsauer](/people/peter-ramsauer) abstained. [Wolfgang Kubicki](/people/wolfgang-kubicki) and [Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann](/people/marie-agnes-strack-zimmermann) also voted no, against most of the FDP.

In a written reply of 18 February 2025, Koob said the Union backed Ukraine’s self-defence against Russia’s war, which he called illegal, by diplomacy, finance, humanitarian aid and weapons, because a Ukrainian defeat could expose further European states. He excluded a direct Bundeswehr combat role, so Germany or NATO would not enter a war with Russia, and he wanted the Bundeswehr strengthened for deterrence. He supported a path into the European Union once the criteria were met, with security guarantees.

On 16 July 2026 he answered a constituent who said Ukraine could not defeat Russia militarily and that peace required concessions by both sides. Koob wanted a just peace, but not one reached by pressing Ukraine to concede heavily. Russia, he wrote, had started the war and could end it by withdrawing; talks required it to drop maximal demands, a readiness he did not yet see. Military as well as political, economic and humanitarian support should continue so Ukraine could negotiate from self-determination rather than signal that force can move borders.

## Domestic policy positions

### Family law

On 30 June 2017 the Bundestag voted, without a party whip, on a Bundesrat bill to open [marriage to same-sex couples](/facts/same-sex-marriage-in-germany). Of 630 members, 393 voted yes, 226 no and four abstained, with seven not voting. In the CDU/CSU, 75 voted yes and 225 no. Markus Koob voted no. Chancellor [Angela Merkel](/people/angela-merkel) also voted no. She said that for her marriage in the Basic Law was the marriage of a man and a woman, while adding that full adoption by same-sex couples should be possible.

A constituent had asked him to vote yes. Koob replied that the group had made it a vote of conscience. He welcomed equalising registered life partnerships in tax and survivors' rights, much of it required by the Federal [Constitutional Court](/organizations/constitutional-court), but wrote that the court had defined marriage under Article 6 as a union of a man and a woman, the possibility of children being, for him, the core of that protection. He would have preferred to add life partnerships to Article 6. An ordinary statute was not enough, he wrote, a view he attributed to the justice and interior ministries as well. He called the pre-recess vote undignified and an SPD manoeuvre.

*[Der Spiegel](/organizations/der-spiegel)* wrote that the path to the vote would itself have been reason for the Union to end the coalition, because the CDU and CSU had not wanted the bill on the agenda. SPD member Johannes Kahrs called Merkel's turn "pathetic".

### Drug policy

Koob has separated medical cannabis from recreational use. On 19 January 2017 the Bundestag adopted, by show of hands, with nobody against and nobody abstaining, a government bill allowing cannabis medicines to be prescribed. He later wrote that he and his group had backed that reform, in force from 10 March 2017, for seriously ill patients under medical supervision, not as a recreational drug.

Asked about decriminalisation and legalisation, he rejected recreational legalisation and a general waiver of prosecution for small amounts. He cited harm to memory and attention, risks of psychosis and other mental and respiratory disorders, rising THC content, health-system costs and youth protection, and what he called a 2019 World Health Organization statement limiting cannabis to medical and scientific use.

On 23 February 2024 he voted against the Cannabis Act, which passed by 404 votes to 226, with four abstentions. The government bill, which the CDU/CSU opposed, was described as allowing adult possession, three home-grown plants and non-commercial associations, in the name of health protection and a smaller illegal market. Accepting his nomination again that November, he said the coalition would be remembered because "even that they botched" ("selbst das haben sie vermurkst").

### Migration, asylum and the January 2025 votes

On 29 January 2025 the Bundestag adopted a non-binding CDU/CSU migration motion by 348 votes to 344, with 10 abstentions. Koob voted yes, as did AfD leaders [Alice Weidel](/people/alice-weidel) and Tino Chrupalla. After fatal attacks in Magdeburg and Aschaffenburg, it called for controls on all German borders, turning back attempted illegal entries even by people seeking protection, and wider detention and Federal Police powers. Chancellor [Olaf Scholz](/people/mig-olaf-scholz) said the plans would break European law and that [Friedrich Merz](/people/friedrich-merz) had accepted AfD votes, ending a consensus against common cause with the extreme right. Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck called that a break with the republic's tradition.

On 31 January the draft *Zustrombegrenzungsgesetz* failed, 338 to 349, with five abstentions. Koob, Weidel and Chrupalla voted yes. It would have restored "limitation" of migration as an aim of the Residence Act, ended family reunification for people with subsidiary protection, and let the Federal Police seek custody of people required to leave. SPD floor leader [Rolf Mützenich](/people/rolf-mutzenich) called reliance on the AfD a "fall from grace" (*Sündenfall*). Green co-leader [Katharina Dröge](/people/katharina-droge) said democratic forces were starting to ally with right-wing extremists.

Koob wrote on 14 February that he had backed both texts because measures were urgent and the CDU joined humanity with order. There had been, he said, no cooperation with the AfD and there would be none: it had not helped draft the texts, and there had been no prior talks. In Oberursel he called the week the most burdensome of his twelve years in Berlin. The *Taunus-Nachrichten* reported that he dated the draft to the September 2024 attack in Solingen, refused a committee referral because people were "tired of announcements", and said there had been no arrangement with the AfD. [The centre](/organizations/the-centre) — CDU/CSU, SPD, the Greens and the FDP — had to solve the problem. He said "the first firewall is already gone"; the paper set that beside those parties' support falling from 81 per cent to perhaps 63 per cent, and quoted him against "what there is in Austria". It also reported criticism that AfD votes would have carried the bill, and later attacks on CDU members.

On 27 June 2025 a CDU/CSU–SPD bill suspended family reunification for beneficiaries of subsidiary protection for two years, except in cases of particular hardship. It passed 444 to 133; Koob voted yes. Up to 1,000 relatives a month had been allowed. Interior Minister [Alexander Dobrindt](/people/alexander-dobrindt) said "limitation" was returning to residence law. Die Linke called the law cruel symbolic policy; Pro Asyl and the German Institute for Human Rights warned that pending cases would be frozen. The AfD said it would vote yes and that the cut was too small.

### Economy, energy and social questions

Accepting the CDU nomination in Leun on 16 November 2024, Koob said the "self-appointed progress coalition" of SPD, Greens and FDP had failed by deciding ideologically rather than with economic sense. The *Frankfurter Rundschau* reported that he named the bungled heating law, the "ideologically dressed-up" shutdown of the last three nuclear plants, and the need for border controls if European external borders were to be secure.

## Civic roles and financial disclosures

The code of conduct for members of the Bundestag is part of the Members of the Bundestag Act (Abgeordnetengesetz). The parliament states that the mandate is to stand at the centre of a member's activity, while other work is in principle allowed and certain monetary advantages are prohibited. Members must notify the President of their last occupation before entering parliament, of paid work beside the mandate, and of posts in companies, public-law bodies, associations, federations and foundations. Income from a notifiable activity is published to the cent when it exceeds 1,000 euro in a month or otherwise 3,000 euro in a calendar year. Filings are due within three months of taking the seat and within three months of any later change, and are published on the biography once a duty to publish has been confirmed.

### Associations and patronage

The association posts published for Markus Koob are local to the Hochtaunuskreis. He is chairman of the Verein zur Förderung des Feuerwehrwesens im Hochtaunuskreis, listed in Bad Homburg, and honorary first chairman of Landakademie Weilrod e.V. in Weilrod. The biography, which the Bundestag says is based on members' own information, also names him as a patron (Pate) of the network "Schule ohne Rassismus – Schule mit Courage" at the Adolf-Reichwein-Schule in Neu-Anspach. The school lists him as one of three patrons, describing him as a CDU member of the Bundestag who had already taken part in discussion formats run by its politics and economics department.

Two further posts, both marked honorary, date from November 2025. From 12 November 2025 he is an ordinary board member (Beisitzer) of Deutsche Afrika Stiftung e.V. in Berlin, and from 11 November 2025 deputy chairman of the supervisory board of Zentrum für Internationale Friedenseinsätze gemeinnützige GmbH (ZIF), also in Berlin. ZIF is a non-profit company owned by the Federal Republic through the Federal Foreign Office. For the 21st legislative period it lists Koob, for the CDU/CSU group, as deputy chair of the supervisory board, under [Florian Hahn](/people/florian-hahn), a minister of state in the Foreign Office.

### Declared posts and benefits

The same biography records, as a function in a public-law body, membership of the district council (Kreistag) of the Hochtaunuskreis in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe. No euro amount is attached to that entry or to the association and company posts. Under the heading for the occupation before membership of the Bundestag, the disclosure lists employment at the Kreisausschuss des Hochtaunuskreises in Bad Homburg, with a right to return to that post (Rückkehrrecht).

The current biography publishes no paid outside earnings. The archived record for the 20th electoral period (2021–2025) likewise gives no income figures for the district council, the Landakademie or the fire-service association. Its only sum is entered under donations and other benefits for political activity (Spenden und sonstige Zuwendungen für die politische Tätigkeit): the Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH, Berlin, assumed travel costs in 2023 of 13,697.61 euro. The archive notes that such published amounts are gross, including benefits in kind, that the member's own expenses are not deducted, and that the figure is not taxable income. It is a disclosed benefit tied to political activity, not pay for outside work. Abgeordnetenwatch's compilation of the administration's records for his mandates since 2013 contains that 2023 amount and no other income figure.

## Public reception

### Coverage in regional media

Hessian regional papers have treated Markus Koob as the local anchor of the Christian Democratic Union in the Hochtaunuskreis, not as a [national front](/organizations/national-front)-bencher. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that on 22 August 2020 in Usingen the member from Oberursel, then 42, won the district chair with 154 of 170 votes (90.6 percent), succeeding Jürgen Banzer after 16 years, and appealed to the "spirit of a real union."

The Frankfurter Rundschau reported his 2024 confirmation as chair with 96.2 percent, quoting a "splendid" mood and the line that "the heart of the Hessian CDU beats in the Hochtaunuskreis." It reported a unanimous executive nomination for the Bundestag, with district administrator Ulrich Krebs, himself CDU, quoted on Koob's "heart and passion" and on continuity, and a Leun delegates' vote of 149 of 157 with no opponent, framed as a winter campaign for Friedrich Merz.

On 3 September 2017 the FAZ headlined constituency work "Wahlkampf über die Höhe hinweg," across the Taunus ridge in a seat the CDU had long held directly. Before the 2025 election the *Allgemeine Zeitung*, reprinting a mittelhessen.de profile, followed him for an hour and quoted his refusal to be a "Reiseonkel" for a district reaching into Limburg-Weilburg.

### Criticism and political disputes

On abgeordnetenwatch.de, Tim Dassler asked in June 2017 that Koob support opening marriage to same-sex couples. Koob said he would vote no: he welcomed equalising registered partnerships, but argued from the Federal Constitutional Court's reading of Article 6 that marriage as a union of a man and a woman could not be opened by ordinary statute, and he called the pre-recess vote "undignified." In August 2021 Nico T. asked why Koob's party was "hostile" to cannabis users. Koob rejected the word, wrote that consumption itself was not an offence, and opposed recreational legalisation on health grounds.

The January 2025 dispute was national. On 29 January a CDU/CSU migration motion passed with votes of the Alternative for Germany and the Free Democrats; tagesschau reported 348 in favour, 187 from the Union and 75 from the AfD. SPD parliamentary leader Rolf Mützenich said the Union had left the political [centre. Alliance](/organizations/centre-alliance) 90/The Greens called it a black day for democracy; parliamentary co-chair Katharina Dröge said the majority existed only because a group she called far-right had voted yes. On 31 January the *Zustrombegrenzungsgesetz* failed, 338 to 349, with five abstentions. Koob wrote to Klaus G. that he had voted for both texts, that there had been and would be no cooperation with the AfD, and that there had been no prior talks and no AfD role in the drafting.

The *Taunus-Nachrichten* reported an Oberursel speech in which he called that week the most draining of twelve years in parliament, denied any arrangement with the AfD, and said the centre parties had to act. "The first firewall is already gone," he said; the paper tied the line to those parties' support falling from 81 percent to perhaps 63 percent, and he said he did not want Austrian conditions in Germany. It noted criticism that AfD votes would have carried the bill, and reported attacks on CDU members without naming Koob. On the Wednesday before the 23 February election it reported a rally of up to 1,100 people prompted by the sittings; Dietmar Mohr of the local trade-union federation called the CDU conduct a "breach of taboo" and blamed Merz, not Koob by name.

Asked in January 2024 about a November 2023 meeting in Potsdam, Koob wrote that WerteUnion members' presence with AfD figures shamed him, that "remigration" plans were repulsive, and that the proximity to the Wannsee Conference made him shudder. He said they had no place in the CDU, welcomed Merz's separation from the group, and wrote that the firewall against the AfD still stood. Coverage of the January votes in the national press was about Merz and the Union; what attaches to Koob in these sources are constituent questions, his votes and replies, and the local echo.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/markus-koob