# Mechthilde Wittmann

# Mechthilde Wittmann

Mechthilde Wittmann (born 12 December 1967 in Munich) is a German lawyer and a politician of the [Christian Social Union in Bavaria](/organizations/christian-social-union-in-bavaria) (CSU). She has been a member of the Bundestag since 26 October 2021 and holds the direct mandate for constituency 256, Oberallgäu, in Bavaria, with a constituency office in Kempten. The biography published by the Bundestag, which is based on her own information, lists her as unmarried.

That biography records an Abitur at the Gymnasium der Englischen Fräulein in Munich-Nymphenburg, a banking apprenticeship at [Deutsche Bank](/organizations/deutsche-bank), and studies in mechanical engineering, business administration and law at the Technical University of Munich and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, completed with the second state law examination. She has practised as a lawyer (*Rechtsanwältin*) and has been self-employed since 2011. Immediately before the mandate she was chief compliance officer at Flughafen München GmbH, the company that operates Munich Airport; the parliamentary disclosure register records that post together with a right to return, and her own account dates it to 2019–2021.

From 1994 to 2013 she sat on the Munich city council, latterly as deputy chair of the CSU group, and from 2013 to 2018 she was a member of the Landtag of Bavaria. She chaired the Landtag committee of inquiry into the Bayern-Ei salmonella scandal. When the final report was debated on 6 June 2018, she said the opposition’s allegations of regulatory failure and political responsibility had been refuted, a conclusion the SPD, the Free Voters and [the Greens](/organizations/the-greens) rejected. On 5 December 2018 Bavaria’s interior and integration minister, Joachim Herrmann, thanked her as the outgoing integration commissioner after she presented the activity report for 2013–2018; the cabinet named Gudrun Brendel-Fischer as her provisional successor.

At the [2021 German federal election](/facts/2021-german-federal-election) the CSU won constituency 256 with 53,566 first votes (29.7 percent), on a turnout of 79.4 percent among 228,803 eligible voters. At the 2025 German federal election, held on 23 February 2025, Wittmann was re-elected there with 70,226 first votes (36.8 percent); [Rainer Rothfuß](/people/rainer-rothfuss) of [the Alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) for Germany was runner-up with 16.7 percent, and turnout was 84.1 percent of 228,068 eligible voters. In the 21st Bundestag she is a full member of the Finance Committee, the Budget Committee and the subcommittee on European Union questions, and the CDU/CSU *Obfrau* on the commission of inquiry into the coronavirus pandemic. She also sits on the German delegation to the interparliamentary conference on stability, economic-policy coordination and governance in the European Union. From 2025 the disclosure register lists unpaid membership of the administrative boards of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (from 15 September) and the Institute for Federal Real Estate (from 1 September), and the honorary vice-presidency of the Bavarian Red Cross from 15 November.

## Early life and family

### Childhood and upbringing

Mechthilde Wittmann was born on 12 December 1967 in Munich. The Bundestag biography for the 20th electoral term lists her as Roman Catholic.

Her childhood ran alongside her father's years in federal politics. Fritz Wittmann, a lawyer and politician of the Christian Social Union (CSU), sat in the Bundestag from 1971 to 1994 and again from 1996 to 1998; he took his seat on 6 September 1971, when she was three. In a September 2021 interview with the *Schwäbische Zeitung*, she said that going into politics had not been a separate decision—"it was simply in there." She recalled saying at first that she did not want to become what her father was, a politician and a lawyer, and then becoming both. "If at the age of four you are already folding leaflets and putting them through letterboxes, and the news is always on at home, then you are political," she said; politics was always the subject at home, and she called her father a model because he understood politics as service to people.

### Parents and siblings

Fritz Wittmann was born on 21 March 1933 in Plan, near Marienbad (Mariánské Lázně) in the Egerland, and died in Munich on 17 October 2018, aged 85, after a serious illness. Munzinger's biography and a *Süddeutsche Zeitung* obituary describe him as Catholic and the son of a physician. He attended primary school in Kuttenplan and the Oberrealschule in Plan; after the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia he continued at the Humanistisches Gymnasium in Ingolstadt, passed the Abitur there in 1952 and joined the CSU the same year.

He studied law in Munich, passed the first state examination in 1956 and received a doctorate in 1964. From 1961 to 1963 he was a judge at the Landgericht München I, then worked at the Federal Ministry of Justice, including as an aide to the justice ministers Richard Jaeger and Gustav Heinemann, and from 1967 to 1971 on the planning staff for expellee affairs in the Bavarian Ministry of Labour and Social Order. From 1971 he practised as a lawyer in Munich. The *Süddeutsche Zeitung* reported that, at twelve, during the postwar years, a Czechoslovak soldier tried to shoot him and the rifle failed, and that as a Catholic he missed Sunday Mass only in exceptional cases. From 1972 he chaired the Bavarian Federation of Expellees (Bund der Vertriebenen), headed the Sudeten German Foundation and pressed for the Sudetendeutsches Haus in Munich. The Bundestag biography for the 13th electoral term listed him as married with three children and, from 1994, as national president of the Federation, chairman of its Bavarian association, deputy chairman of the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft and chairman of that foundation. The Federation's notice of 18 October 2018 said he led the national body from 1994 to 1998 and the Bavarian association for 27 years from 1972; the *Historisches Lexikon Bayerns* records that presidency as again placing a Landsmannschaft figure at the head of the Federation.

In the obituary Mechthilde Wittmann, identified as his daughter, told the *Süddeutsche Zeitung* that among friends he was warm-hearted, helpful, sympathetic and humorous; the paper also described him as an animal lover who spent much time with his grandchildren. The family death notice named his wife, Irmengard Wittmann, and their children Johannes, Mechthilde and Susanne. A requiem was held on 25 October 2018 at St. Peter und Paul in Munich-Feldmoching, with burial limited to the closest family; donations were requested for the Sudeten German Foundation for a church at Kuttenplan and St. Anna near Plan.

## Education and legal career

### Schooling and university studies

The biography Wittmann supplied to the Landtag of Bavaria, current as of her departure from that chamber in 2018, states that she attended primary school in Munich from 1974 to 1978 and a Gymnasium there from 1978 to 1987. She took the Abitur in 1987. The curriculum vitae published by the Bundestag, which the parliament notes is the member's own account, names the school as the Gymnasium der Englischen-Fräulein in Munich-Nymphenburg. The CSU executive-board biography instead calls it the Maria-Ward-Gymnasium in Munich. A chronology of the Nymphenburg campus records a modern-language Gymnasium at the institute of the Englische Fräulein from 1965/66, and a change of sponsor in 2006 from the Congregatio Jesu to the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, with separate leadership for the Gymnasium and the Realschule. The Gymnasium on Maria-Ward-Straße identifies itself as the Erzbischöfliches Maria-Ward-Gymnasium Nymphenburg.

From 1987 to 1989 she completed a bank apprenticeship at Deutsche Bank in Munich and qualified as a Bankkauffrau. The Landtag text then divides her university years into mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Munich from 1989 to 1993 and business administration and law at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich from 1994 to 2002. The CSU executive biography gives one span, 1989 to 2004, for mechanical engineering at TUM and for business and law at LMU. The Bundestag biography lists the same subjects at the two universities and records the second state examination in law, after which she is described as a Rechtsanwältin; the parliament's occupational line for her is Juristin. The CSU executive profile also describes her as a Rechtsreferendarin at the Oberlandesgericht in Bamberg, without dates for that traineeship.

In 2019 the CSU executive biography records an Aufbaustudium in compliance. The CSU association in Kempten specifies a supplementary course titled Compliance and Data Privacy at the University of Augsburg.

### Legal practice and compliance

The Landtag biography states that she had worked as a lawyer since 2003, in commercial law, company law and insolvency law. The later CSU curriculum vitae places her from 2004 to 2011 at Wellensiek Rechtsanwälte PartG mbB, in insolvency law and in commercial and company law. From 2011 the Bundestag biography describes her as self-employed. The CSU text says that practice is her own firm, currently dormant, with construction and real-estate law and commercial and company law as its fields.

From 2019 to 2021 the same biography lists her as chief compliance officer and Syndikusrechtsanwältin at Flughafen München GmbH, the company that operates Munich Airport. In the register kept under the members' code of conduct, the Bundestag records that post as her occupation before she joined parliament, together with a right to return to it. For the 20th electoral term the archived register also published payments from the company after she had taken her seat: a monthly gross amount of 5,238.20 euros as chief compliance officer through 31 December 2021, and a further 15,917 euros gross in 2022, entered as paid activity alongside the mandate. The Bundestag states that such figures are gross receipts, including compensation and benefits in kind, and are not a measure of taxable income.

In the register for the 21st term the airport role appears only as that prior activity, still with a right of return, and not as current employment. The same register lists paid work as a lawyer in Kempten, with the published detail limited to one client in Munich. Abgeordnetenwatch's copy of the disclosure dates that freelance entry to 10 March 2026. The CSU biography's statement that the firm is dormant therefore stands next to a continuing parliamentary entry for legal work beside the mandate.

## Munich city council

### Election and council roles

Wittmann entered the Munich city council (Stadtrat) for the Christian Social Union (CSU) at the repeat municipal election of 12 June 1994. In February 1994 the Bavarian Administrative Court, in a fifth-instance ruling, had voided the council election of 18 March 1990 because the CSU-aligned Junge Liste had been unlawfully kept off the ballot, and ordered a new vote within three months. The rerun fell on the same Sunday as the [European Parliament](/organizations/european-parliament) election in Germany. Born on 12 December 1967, and still a student, she was 26. A later Focus note called her the youngest councillor to enter the city hall. She lived in Moosach.

*Mechthilde Wittmann during the [2013 Bavarian state-election](/facts/2013-bavarian-state-election) campaign, while she was still a Munich city councillor.*

The CSU became the largest group, with 35.7 percent and 30 of 80 seats. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) fell to about 34 percent and 29 seats, its weakest Munich result since 1948, and the red-green majority ended. Alliance 90/The Greens took 10.1 percent and nine seats; turnout was just under 60 percent. Lord mayor Christian Ude (SPD) stayed in office without a secure majority.

The council information system records her membership from 1994. For 2008–2014 it lists her as deputy chair of the CSU group, spokesperson on the education and sport committee, member and deputy co-referent of the planning and building committee, and deputy spokesperson on finance. At its first meeting of 2012 the faction elected her deputy chair and school spokesperson. Faction leader Josef Schmid tied the choice to placing a younger woman in the leadership before the 2014 local election; Wittmann called education and sport the administration's largest budget.

She left after her election to the Landtag of Bavaria. On 23 October 2013 the full council swore in Alexander Dietrich, deputy chair of the Moosach district committee, as her CSU successor, ending a term of about 19 years.

### Portfolios and municipal companies

As education spokesperson she pressed the [department for education](/organizations/department-for-education) and sport on school conditions. In September 2012 the CSU group, including Schmid, tabled a motion it called "school toilets of horror," seeking toilet paper in every facility and cleaning matched to all-day opening hours. Wittmann said pupils were drinking too little in order to avoid the toilets, risking health and learning. The department replied that buildings varied, that pupils sometimes misused paper, and that supply was each school's task; cleaning, it said, had already been increased.

The 2013 motion register continues that line: repairs at the St.-Anna-Straße, Blumenau and Dieselstraße schools, relief of overcrowding at the Wiesentfelser Straße primary and middle school, and progress on the school-building programme (Schulbauoffensive) for 2013–2030. Other questions attacked the department's IT unit over support failures and system changes the group said threatened examinations.

On the companies, the council biography and the 2012 faction note list her as deputy chair of the supervisory board of GWG, the municipal housing company, and as a member of the supervisory board of Olympiapark München GmbH, which runs the Olympiapark. In March 2012 the *Münchner Merkur* reported that renovation and new building there could exceed 360 million euro within 15 years, and that the supervisory board would discuss a multipurpose hall after federal money linked to a Winter Olympics bid fell away. CSU councillor Mario Schmidbauer rejected further piecemeal decisions. That October Wittmann, Schmidbauer, Walter Zöller and Schmid asked whether Olympiapark GmbH was "leaderless." The labour and economic-affairs department closed the motion in December as ongoing management, without a council vote.

The same biography seats her on the building-plan commission, the Riem advisory council for Messestadt Riem, and the Freiham commission. In her last council year the register also records, under her name, motions on rents, the sale of GBW flats and a municipal scheme for their tenants, and the housing programme "Wohnen in München V."

## Bavarian Landtag

### Mandate and committees

Wittmann was a member of the Landtag of Bavaria from 7 October 2013 to 5 November 2018, for the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) and the electoral region of Upper Bavaria. On 15 September 2013 she stood in constituency 104, Munich-Milbertshofen. Ruth Waldmann of the [Social Democratic Party of Germany](/organizations/social-democratic-party-of-germany) won the direct seat with 26,005 first votes (33.8 percent) to Wittmann's 24,865 (32.3 percent); turnout was 60.9 percent. Seventh on the CSU list for Upper Bavaria, she was returned on the list rather than in the constituency: 31,333 combined votes, 6,468 of them second votes, left her 21st among the party's candidates in the region.

From 6 November 2013 she served on the committee for constitutional, legal and parliamentary affairs, until 11 April 2018, and for the full term on the committee for federal and European affairs and regional relations. From 12 April 2018 she joined the committee for labour and social affairs, youth, family and integration. She was also a member of the parliamentary control commission.

She sat on three other inquiries. As a member of the Labor inquiry (1 July 2014–26 October 2016) she joined the examination of suspected leniency, and political influence, in prosecutions of the Augsburg laboratory doctor Bernd Schottdorf and of a disputed system for billing laboratory work. She was a deputy member of the Modellbau inquiry (27 November 2014–14 March 2017), on model-building as work therapy in the forensic clinics at Ansbach and Straubing and on whether minister Christine Haderthauer had carried on a business in office. From 26 April to 18 September 2018 she belonged to the fourth inquiry, into the 2013 sale by Bayerische Landesbank of its stake in the housing company GBW. The opposition set it up against a CSU abstention; SPD deputy Volkmar Halbleib blamed then finance minister Markus Söder. The CSU majority concluded that EU state-aid rules had in effect barred a purchase by the Free State; the opposition said there had been no ban.

In 2018 she stood in constituency 105, Munich-Moosach. A recount left Benjamin Adjei of Alliance 90/The Greens ahead by 63 first votes, 17,572 (26.2 percent) to 17,509 (26.1 percent). She did not return; her membership ended on 5 November 2018.

### The Bayern-Ei inquiry

On 19 July 2017 the Landtag unanimously opened an inquiry into the Bayern-Ei scandal and chose Wittmann as chair, with Bernhard Pohl of the Free Voters of Bavaria as deputy. She was the first woman to chair a Landtag inquiry.

Its nine members—five CSU, two SPD, one Free Voters and one Green—started the same day. The 441 questions fell into three groups: who was responsible for consumer and animal protection, how the authorities had acted, and how the state government had handled the case. The case was a summer 2014 outbreak tied to eggs from the Lower Bavaria firm Bayern-Ei. The Landtag later recorded about 400 serious illnesses in Europe and one death suspected of a link to the eggs; Regensburg prosecutors had charged the former managing director, and no public warning was issued in 2014.

Twenty sittings, 78 witnesses and 1,344 files led to document 17/22311, adopted on 17 May 2018 and debated in plenary on 6 June. For the CSU majority, Wittmann said claims of a cover-up or of favoring the operator had fallen away: inspections had a statutory basis, and recalls, delivery bans and partial closures followed the day the first salmonella cases were known. The SPD, the Free Voters and the Greens filed a minority report. Florian von Brunn (SPD) spoke of protecting the firm and of unsanctioned overcrowding and hygiene failures; Pohl called the majority account "largely alternative facts"; Rosi Steinberger (Greens) said the company's interests had been put above consumer safety.

### Integration commissioner

In March 2018 Wittmann succeeded Kerstin Schreyer as integration commissioner when Schreyer became minister for family, labour and social affairs in the cabinet formed on 21 March. A cabinet decision at the end of 2008 had created the office; the Landtag fixed its status and tasks in the Bavarian Integration Act in December 2016. On 17 April 2018 the cabinet assigned the honorary post to the interior ministry.

The next day, on a CSU motion about Christian tradition and Easter in day care, she took up a report that a kindergarten near Munich was dropping Easter for St Patrick's Day. She said the saint's feast was becoming a drinking festival and that, at an Arbeiterwohlfahrt house, "we celebrate getting drunk" instead of Easter and the egg hunt. The nursery was Villa Drachenstein in Markt Schwaben. A note to parents had announced a St Patrick's project "instead of an Easter festival." Manager Ulrike Bittner said only the Easter breakfast was being replaced by a green brunch on Maundy Thursday, 29 March, and that the house had been heavily attacked online and by telephone. Alexandra Hiersemann (SPD) said the CSU wanted to show "how well they can do AfD"; Ulrike Gote (Greens) spoke of common cause with Pegida and the AfD; Kathrin Sonnenholzner (SPD) objected that Wittmann turned her back and talked through opposition speeches.

On 5 December 2018 she gave Interior and Integration Minister Joachim Herrmann the 2013–2018 activity report. The cabinet had appointed Gudrun Brendel-Fischer acting commissioner in her place.

## Party offices

### Junge Union and Munich

Wittmann joined the Junge Union in 1982 and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) in 1983, according to a Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte entry based on her own account. The Landtag biography, also drawn from information she supplied, likewise dates CSU membership from 1983. A CSU history project instead gives 1984 and 1985.

In Munich that project lists her as chair of JU Kreisverband München 9 (1991–1993), chair of JU Kreisverband München 08 (1993–1995) and deputy chair of the JU Bezirksverband München (1993–1995). A 2012 *Wochenanzeiger* report called her, without years, a former Kreisvorsitzende and deputy Bezirksvorsitzende of the Junge Union. The Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte instead dates a chairmanship of JU Kreisverband 8 to 1987–1995 and the deputy Bezirksverband role only to 1993–1994.

She later became deputy chair of a northern Munich CSU Kreisverband. The Landtag biography says deputy Kreisvorsitzende from 1999 of the Kreisverband CSU München-Nord; the history project says deputy chair of Kreisverband München 08 from 2001; the *Wochenanzeiger* wrote in 2012 that she had held that post in Kreisverband VIII since 2003. The history project also places her on the Bezirksverband München board in 2003–2005 and from 2011 to 2015.

On 15 June 2015, at the Munich Bezirksparteitag in the Hofbräukeller, she lost another term as a deputy Bezirksvorsitzende. The only candidate, she received 42 percent. The *tz* reported that Bezirksvorsitzender Ludwig Spaenle had refused to nominate her and that Joachim Unterländer proposed her; she said delegates had told her the result was arranged. Spaenle, re-elected with 86 percent, called it the conference’s decision. Party chair Horst Seehofer had urged the delegates to show unity.

### Kempten, Swabia and the state party

After she shifted her residence from Munich toward Kempten, the CSU Kreisverband there elected her chair on 23 March 2023, succeeding Thomas Kreuzer, who had led it for about 30 years and did not stand again. With no opponent she received 53 of 55 votes before about 70 members in the parish hall of St. Francis. In June 2025 the association re-elected her; the *Kreisbote* reported two votes against. The Bundestag biography, from members’ own statements, lists her in the CSU Bezirksverband Swabia and in the Mittelstands-Union, the Frauen-Union and the Union der Vertriebenen.

On 10 July 2023 the Frauen-Union Schwaben, meeting in Kempten, elected her Bezirksvorsitzende. Beate Merk, chair for nearly 15 years, did not stand and had proposed her. She left after two years. A text the association submitted, published by the *Augsburger Allgemeine* on 3 July 2025, said Christin Stepanski of the Neu-Ulm district was elected with a clear majority to succeed her, and quoted Wittmann as saying the organization needed a chair who could be fully present.

From 2014 the CSU history project and the Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte list her as deputy state chair of the Union der Vertriebenen, later the Union der Vertriebenen und Aussiedler. Its published state executive does not name her among the current deputies. A 2012 profile called her deputy chair of the Wirtschaftsbeirat Bayern from 2004; the Landtag biography says deputy chair of the Wirtschaftsbeirat München from 2005, and her own site says she sits on the Präsidium of the Wirtschaftsbeirat Bayern. The Wirtschaftsbeirat der Union directory of 17 October 2025 does not list her. At the CSU congress in Munich on 12 December 2025 she was elected to the Parteivorstand, tenth of the ten additional women on the board.

## Elections to the Bundestag

Mechthilde Wittmann has twice won the direct mandate in Bundestag constituency 256, Oberallgäu, which comprises the independent city of Kempten (Allgäu) and the districts of Lindau (Bodensee) and Oberallgäu. The seat had been held for the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) by Gerd Müller, federal minister for economic cooperation and development, who had represented it since 1994 and in 2020 said he would not stand again. In November 2020 the federal cabinet named him Germany's candidate to lead the [United Nations](/organizations/united-nations) Industrial Development Organization. The UNIDO General Conference confirmed the appointment on 30 November 2021; he was to succeed Li Yong the following month.

### The 2021 contest

On 12 April 2021, delegates of the CSU associations for Oberallgäu, Kempten and Lindau met in Kempten. Six candidates stood. Wittmann led the first ballot with 56 of 160 votes, ahead of David Fink of Lindau district on 39, and then beat Fink in a runoff, 84 votes to 73. She was also 14th on the CSU state list for Bavaria.

The election was held on 26 September 2021. Of 228,803 eligible voters, 181,755 cast ballots, a turnout of 79.4 percent. Wittmann won with 53,566 first votes, 29.7 percent of 180,138 valid first votes and 20.7 percentage points below the CSU share in 2017. Martin Basil Holderied of the Social Democratic Party of Germany was second with 28,401 votes (15.8 percent). Pius Bandte of Alliance 90/The Greens had 27,817 (15.4 percent), Stephan Thomae of the Free Democratic Party 23,604 (13.1 percent), Annette Elisabeth Hauser-Felberbaum of the [Free Voters](/organizations/free-voters) 16,181 (9.0 percent), and Rainer Rothfuß of the Alternative for Germany 14,473 (8.0 percent).

On second votes the CSU led with 55,017 (30.4 percent), down 11.1 points. The SPD followed on 16.5 percent, the Greens on 15.2 percent, the FDP on 11.6 percent, the Free Voters on 8.3 percent and the AfD on 7.9 percent. She took the seat as the constituency winner, so the list place was not used. The 20th Bundestag held its constituent sitting on 26 October 2021, which opened that electoral term.

### The 2025 contest

The three CSU associations renominated her on 21 August 2024 in Fischen. She had no opponent and received 91 percent of the delegates' votes. For the election of 23 February 2025 she was again 14th on the CSU state list. Rothfuß was third on the AfD list.

Of 228,068 eligible voters, 191,695 voted, a turnout of 84.1 percent. Wittmann was re-elected with 70,226 first votes, 36.8 percent of 190,708 valid first votes and 7.1 points above 2021. The federal returning officer recorded Rothfuß as runner-up, with 31,804 votes (16.7 percent). Andrea Wörle (Greens) received 23,668 (12.4 percent), Indra Baier-Müller (Free Voters) 16,475 (8.6 percent), Konstantin Plappert (SPD) 16,065 (8.4 percent), the independent Marc Wenz 9,779 (5.1 percent) and Thomae 8,113 (4.3 percent).

Second votes moved toward the two largest parties. The CSU took 72,526 (38.0 percent), up 7.5 points, and the AfD 33,443 (17.5 percent), up 9.6. The Greens stayed at 12.4 percent, the SPD fell to 10.5 percent, [Die Linke](/organizations/die-linke) rose to 5.2 percent, the Free Voters fell to 5.1 percent and the FDP to 4.3 percent. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, new on the ballot, took 3.3 percent. Rothfuß did not win the constituency; he returned to the Bundestag on the AfD state list.

### Kempten city council

For the city election of 8 March 2026, CSU members in Kempten adopted a list of 44 candidates headed by mayor Thomas Kiechle, with Wittmann second and Leonie Wittmann 42nd. In the provisional result proclaimed by the city's returning officer, pending formal determination by the election committee, 27,886 of 52,490 eligible residents voted and cast 1,055,469 valid votes. The CSU received 247,830, about 23.5 percent, and 10 of 44 seats, level with the Free Voters and ahead of the Greens (eight) and the AfD (six).

Personal votes, not the nominated order, decide who fills a party's seats. Wittmann received 8,484, sixth among CSU candidates, and was elected. Leonie Wittmann, a student, received 3,640 and was 40th among CSU successors, so she was not elected.

## Parliamentary work

### The 20th Bundestag

Wittmann entered the Bundestag when the 20th electoral term opened on 26 October 2021, for the Christian Social Union (CSU) in the CDU/CSU group, then in opposition, and for the constituency of Kempten, Lindau and Oberallgäu. In the week the standing committees were formed, the group named her a full member of the Committee on Internal Affairs and Homeland and a substitute on the Committee on Tourism. In the week of 23 March 2022 it made her a full tourism-committee member; the same report described her as already on the joint parliamentary scrutiny group for Europol. That Europol seat is honorary, and her Bundestag biography still listed it on 30 October 2026. The tourism committee’s activity report, closed on 18 December 2024, lists her only among former members of the 20th term, not among the ordinary or substitute members recorded from 13 March 2024. Abgeordnetenwatch, compiling memberships from parliamentary data, still has her on the interior committee through the end of the term.

On 8 July 2022 the Bundestag constituted its 1st Committee of Inquiry of the 20th term, on the end of the German mission in Afghanistan and the Kabul evacuation, and named Wittmann a substitute rather than a full member. Chaired by [Ralf Stegner](/people/ralf-stegner) (SPD), it was to cover decisions from the Doha agreement of 29 February 2020 to 30 September 2021. The CDU/CSU full members were [Thomas Erndl](/people/thomas-erndl), [Thomas Röwekamp](/people/thomas-rowekamp) and [Nicolas Zippelius](/people/nicolas-zippelius); the substitutes were [Michael Brand](/people/michael-brand), [Kerstin Vieregge](/people/kerstin-vieregge) and Wittmann, whose given name that account spells “Mechthild.”

Still in the 20th term, her office said at the end of February 2024 that the CDU/CSU had sent her onto the Finance Committee in place of Stefan Müller, with the group brief for banking and securities: national and European bank regulation, supervision of banks and financial-service providers, and exchange and capital-market rules, while she kept the interior seat. Abgeordnetenwatch records both committees for 2021–2025. On 20 March 2024 the group nominated her, with [Matthias Hauer](/people/matthias-hauer) and Michael Meister, for a body under section 28a of the Money Laundering Act, which the finance ministry must brief at least every six months on the Financial Intelligence Unit; the vote was set for the next day, and Abgeordnetenwatch lists her as a member of that body in the 20th term.

### Finance, the budget and European coordination

In the 21st term the Finance Committee and the Budget Committee both constituted themselves on 21 May 2025, each with 42 members, 14 of them from the CDU/CSU. The Bundestag’s accounts of both sittings name Wittmann among the Union members. Her biography of 30 October 2026 lists her as an ordinary member of the Finance Committee, the Budget Committee and the subcommittee on questions concerning the European Union, which the Bundestag places with the budget committee’s sub-bodies, and as a member of the delegation to the interparliamentary conference on stability, economic-policy coordination and governance in the EU. The delegation page, for the conference under Article 13 of the 2012 Fiscal Compact, lists six full members, with Inge Gräßle as leader and Wittmann for the CDU/CSU. Its report on the 25th meeting, in Billund on 29–30 September 2025, includes her; the sessions covered the EU’s place in the world economy, financing an EU security policy, and the newer European fiscal rules.

On 9 October 2025 the plenary elected her, with Philip M. A. Hoffmann and [Stefan Korbach](/people/stefan-korbach), to the section 28a body. The Alternative for Germany slate was rejected, leaving seven members rather than the nine fixed in the resolution, and the member list shows Korbach as chair. She is also an ordinary member of the nine-member body under section 80 of the Customs Investigation Service Act, which the finance ministry briefs on restrictions of postal and telecommunications secrecy by the Customs Criminal Office; [Ingo Vogel](/people/ingo-vogel) (SPD) chairs it. Ordinary members of the Budget Committee are automatically deputy members of its Audit Committee (Rechnungsprüfungsausschuss); the official biography does not list that deputy seat or membership of the special body under section 3 of the Stabilisation Mechanism Act.

### The corona pandemic inquiry

On 19 April 2023, in the 96th sitting, Wittmann voted for the recommendation to reject an AfD motion for a second committee of inquiry, “Combating the coronavirus,” on the [COVID-19 pandemic](/drivers/covid-19-pandemic) in Germany. The final roll call was 577 for that recommendation and 71 against, from 648 votes cast; she is on the CDU/CSU “yes” list. [Simone Borchardt](/people/simone-borchardt) and Dietrich Monstadt were the only CDU/CSU members recorded as voting no. [Philipp Amthor](/people/philipp-amthor), speaking for the CDU/CSU, said the group wanted a review but rejected this motion on the merits.

On 10 July 2025 the next Bundestag set up an inquiry commission (Enquete-Kommission), not another Untersuchungsausschuss: “Aufarbeitung der Corona-Pandemie und Lehren für zukünftige pandemische Ereignisse” (papers 21/562 and 21/805), with 14 members and 14 outside experts. It constituted itself on 8 September 2025 under Bundestag president [Julia Klöckner](/people/julia-klockner). Franziska Hoppermann (CDU) was elected chair with all 25 votes cast, and the groups named Wittmann Obfrau for the CDU/CSU. The Union’s ordinary members were Hoppermann, [Michael Hose](/people/michael-hose), Axel Müller, [Lars Rohwer](/people/lars-rohwer) and Wittmann. The mandate is an account of causes, course, consequences and state measures, including the public’s perspective, with a report by 30 June 2027. On 21 September 2026 Hose opened the first public sitting after the summer break as the new chair, after Hoppermann left on becoming CDU general secretary. The biography of 30 October 2026 still lists Wittmann as an ordinary member and as the CDU/CSU Obfrau.

## Political positions

### Migration and integration

In March 2018, soon after she became Bavaria’s integration commissioner, Mechthilde Wittmann of the Christian Social Union told the Landtag that kindergartens should not “pander to everything that comes along,” and said of an AWO kindergarten in Markt Schwaben that had added a St Patrick’s Day brunch to Easter: “We celebrate getting drunk in the AWO.” The *Süddeutsche Zeitung* reported that SPD deputy Doris Rauscher answered that Easter had not been cancelled and that “politics is being made at the children’s expense,” while Alexandra Hiersemann called the CSU motion a “desperate attempt” to fill a *Leitkultur*.

In the Bundestag on 12 September 2024 she said entrants from safe third countries, including European Union neighbours, could not claim protection from political persecution, yet 97.5 percent of refugees were in Germany. Quoting Chancellor [Olaf Scholz](/people/mig-olaf-scholz) on “the greatest turn in dealing with migration,” she called a tripling of the numbers in three years “a turn for the worse,” and credited the drop from over 470,000 entries in 2016 to 120,000 in 2020 to the Turkey deal under Horst Seehofer. The same day she called a cut of almost €100 million, about 11 percent, in staff and IT at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees “completely absurd” beside about 350,000 asylum applications. Halving integration courses would leave people “unintegrated and frustrated,” she said, while anyone without a lasting right to stay “must go and does not need an integration course.” She opposed €25 million for non-official advice, citing the rapist of Illerkirchberg. SPD deputy Dirk Wiese replied that the rejections she wanted required an emergency Bavaria had not declared.

On 27 June 2024 she said first applications would again likely exceed 350,000 and that “every flat, every bed and every kindergarten place” could be allocated only once; returns, she argued, needed third-country checks rather than another domestic appeal. On 4 July she asked that controls at internal Schengen borders continue, projecting about 85,000 prevented unauthorised entries a year and 6,300 rejections with re-entry bans.

### Public finance and the economy

On 21 May 2026 she described a cut in the aviation tax as relief “not for flying, but for Germany as an aviation location,” because costs in neighbouring countries were only half as high, and pointed to a new pier at Munich Airport. Green deputy Stefan Schmidt called the speech “the bottom drawer.” On 16 April 2026 she backed a temporary fuel-duty cut for rural apprentices, commuters, police and trades, not discretionary trips. Citing the Ifo Institute, she said the 2022 rebate had been passed on in full for diesel in the first month and 85 percent in the second, and she asked the Federal Cartel Office for heavier fines and the skimming of excess profits.

On 19 December 2025 she backed EU bank-capital rules “without any gold-plating,” noting that more than 80 percent of business, above all with the Mittelstand, ran through savings banks and cooperative banks, and she put idle private deposits at €9.2 trillion. On 11 September 2026 she called the 2027 budget a record investment plan, with an investment share above 10 percent, and said money from a special fund was “not simply debt.” She then set net borrowing at €98 billion in 2026, €118.7 billion in 2027 and €167 billion in 2030 and urged a reversal. Of €500 billion over twelve years, €100 billion each had gone to the climate fund and the Länder, which she told to invest rather than consume. To Green deputy Sebastian Schäfer’s question on the Ifo “shunting yard” criticism, she said it referred to 2025 and that Ifo had since cleared the 2027 use of the fund.

### Constituency issues in the Allgäu

In July 2022 she defended the four-lane B12 between Buchloe and Kempten as the safer link the hard-to-reach Allgäu needed for logistics and commuters. She called the estimated €365 million frightening but recoverable. AllgäuHIT reported wide opposition and a possible lawsuit by the Bund Naturschutz. Day visitors already loaded roads, trains and nature, she said, yet tourism was “one of the strongest pillars,” and she wanted one Bavaria-wide system for steering them. In March 2022 she opposed a cut for the German National Tourist Board as going “in completely the wrong direction,” tying weaker United States bookings to the war in Ukraine.

## Other offices and recognition

### Honorary and supervisory roles

Outside the Bundestag and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, Wittmann’s disclosed offices are unpaid seats on public bodies, together with paid legal work and a former post at Munich Airport.

On 15 November 2025 the Bavarian Red Cross (Bayerisches Rotes Kreuz), a public-law corporation of the German Red Cross, held its 42nd Landesversammlung, the four-yearly election of state offices, in Deggendorf. About 400 delegates elected Wittmann, of the Oberallgäu branch, vice-president, Hans-Michael Weisky of the Traunstein branch president, and Andreas Hanna-Krahl, a member of the Landtag of Bavaria from Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the other vice-president. Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann, whose ministry exercises legal supervision, addressed the assembly. Her disclosure lists the vice-presidency as honorary from that day.

On 18 September 2025 the Bundestag adopted a joint nomination of the CDU/CSU, the Alternative for Germany and the Social Democratic Party of Germany under section 4(3) no. 3 of the Act on the Institute for Federal Real Estate, naming Wittmann and [Kerstin Radomski](/people/kerstin-radomski) as CDU/CSU members of that agency’s administrative council; Alliance 90/The Greens and the Left abstained. The Bundesanstalt für Immobilienaufgaben said the new council, which supervises the executive board, first met on 13 October 2025 in Berlin and includes her among the Bundestag members. She reports the honorary seat from 1 September 2025.

On 15 January 2026 the Bundestag elected her and [Fritz Güntzler](/people/fritz-guntzler) the CDU/CSU members of the administrative council of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin). The council oversees BaFin’s management and decides a budget financed by supervised firms rather than the federal budget; BaFin’s statute requires the council, and its list as of April 2026 names her among five Bundestag members of 17 voting members. Her disclosure records the honorary seat from 15 September 2025.

The Kempten University of Applied Sciences lists her on its Kuratorium, which the university says supports it with knowledge and experience. The membership is disclosed as honorary and was first recorded on 30 January 2023.

For the 20th Bundestag she reported gross pay from Flughafen München GmbH, as chief compliance officer, of €5,238.20 a month until 31 December 2021 and €15,917 gross in 2022, with a right to return to the post. That disclosure and the record for the 21st Bundestag also list paid work as a lawyer; the later entry names a client in Munich and states no amount.

### Awards

In 2006 the City of Munich awarded her the gold medal “München leuchtet – Den Freunden Münchens”, with other councillors, for twelve years on the city council. The city’s annual report and its list of recipients both record the honour.

The *Abendzeitung* reported on 31 July 2013 that Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann had recognized her service to Munich with the Kommunale Verdienstmedaille in bronze, the state medal for special services to municipal self-government, and that Deputy Mayor Christine Strobl had presented it. Her Bundestag biography, based on her own information, lists both.

## Personal life

### Family and residence

Mechthilde Wittmann was born on 12 December 1967 in Munich. Her Bundestag biography, which the parliament states is based on members’ own information, records her as unmarried. The biography published for the 20th Bundestag, and her profile as a former member of the Landtag of Bavaria, also list her—again from her own statements—as Roman Catholic and as the mother of two children; the current Bundestag text no longer includes denomination or children. Local papers have described the children as two daughters.

In a February 2025 interview she said she had moved to Kempten in 2016, lives there out of attachment to the place, and counts riding and skiing among the pastimes she pursues in the Allgäu. The Bundestag lists Gerberstraße 18 in Kempten as her constituency office, not as a home address. In March 2023 the *Kreisbote* named Leonie Wittmann as Wittmann’s daughter when Leonie was chosen as digital officer of the Kempten Christian Social Union (CSU). The same paper later placed Leonie Wittmann 42nd, and Mechthilde Wittmann second, on the CSU list for the March 2026 Kempten city-council election.

### Publicly reported private life

During a CSU Landtag-group retreat at Banz Abbey in September 2016, Wittmann and Thomas Kreuzer, then chair of the CSU group in the Landtag and her group leader, confirmed that they were a couple. Wittmann told the *Oberbayerisches Volksblatt*, “We have been a couple for several months; we are happy,” adding that they did not want to conceal the relationship but wished to keep further details private. They said their main homes would remain Munich, where she lived as an unmarried mother of two young children, and Kempten, Kreuzer’s constituency; the paper described him as divorced and reported that Minister-President Horst Seehofer had been told.

The *Kreisbote* called her Kreuzer’s partner in April 2021. In January 2025 the *Schwäbische Zeitung* wrote that she lived in Kempten with her two daughters and with Kreuzer, identified there as the former CSU Landtag group chair. Published accounts through early 2025 do not describe a marriage, and the Bundestag biography continues to list her as unmarried.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/mechthilde-wittmann