# Nicklas Kappe

# Nicklas Kappe

Nicklas Kappe (born 11 November 1996 in Gelsenkirchen) is a German chemical engineer and politician of the [Christian Democratic Union](/organizations/christian-democratic-union-of-germany) (CDU) from North Rhine-Westphalia. He has been a member of the Bundestag since the 21st electoral term was constituted on 25 March 2025, holding a direct mandate for constituency 124, Bottrop – Recklinghausen III. In the 2025 German federal election, held on 23 February 2025, he received 49,625 first votes (31.7 percent), ahead of Dustin Tix of the [Social Democratic Party of Germany](/organizations/social-democratic-party-of-germany) on 46,276 votes (29.5 percent).

The constituency lies in the northern Ruhr and consists of the independent city of Bottrop and the towns of Dorsten and Gladbeck in the Recklinghausen district. At the previous federal election the area, then numbered 125, returned Michael Gerdes of the SPD with 39.1 percent of first votes, ahead of the CDU's Sven Volmering on 27 percent. In 2025 turnout rose to 80.9 percent of 195,336 eligible voters, from 74.6 percent in 2021, and second votes were led by the CDU (29.3 percent), the SPD (23.1 percent) and [the Alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) for Germany (20.9 percent). Under the electoral law used in 2025, a first-vote plurality did not by itself guarantee a Bundestag seat until the national allocation was finished; Kappe took the seat as the constituency member.

The Bundestag biography, which the parliament states is based on the member's own information, records a dual programme at Evonik Industries from 2015 to 2019 that combined a chamber-of-commerce qualification as a Chemikant with a bachelor's degree in process engineering, followed by a master's degree in chemical engineering at the Technical University of Dortmund from 2019 to 2022. The same account lists industrial side jobs and internships, a 2022–23 staff post for North Rhine-Westphalia state legislator Josef Hovenjürgen, and work at Evonik from 2023 until he entered parliament, first as a trainee in technology and project management and then as a plant engineer for energy supply. His published disclosure names the employer as Evonik Operations GmbH in Essen and records a right to return and protection against dismissal. The returning officer's list of admitted candidates describes him as a chemical engineer living in Dorsten, and Westdeutscher Rundfunk reported that he was then a member of the Dorsten city council and working in industry.

He sits in the CDU/CSU parliamentary group as a full member of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy and of the Petitions Committee, and as a deputy member of the Committee on the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety and of the Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development. He chairs the German–South Asian Parliamentary Group. The same disclosure lists continued membership of the Recklinghausen district council, with monthly gross pay of €504.60 through 31 December 2025 and €546.20 from 1 January 2026.

In December 2025 *[Die Welt](/organizations/die-welt)* described Kappe, then 29, as one of the CDU/CSU young-group members who had opposed fixing the statutory pension level past 2031 beyond the coalition agreement. He told the paper that he had abstained on the pension bill, and that the dispute had brought the pension commission's deadline forward from 2027 to the middle of 2026.

## Early life and education

### Childhood in the northern Ruhr

The Bundestag biography of Nicklas Kappe records that he was born on 11 November 1996 in Gelsenkirchen. The parliament notes that members’ biographical entries rest on their own disclosures. The Regionalverband Ruhr describes Gelsenkirchen as a city of the Ruhrgebiet with about 260,000 inhabitants. Published accounts do not, however, describe a childhood spent in Gelsenkirchen. They place him in Dorsten, one of the ten towns of the Recklinghausen district, which the same association lists within the Ruhr and credits with about 618,000 residents across those towns.

In July 2024 the *Dorstener Zeitung* quoted the then 27-year-old chemical engineer as calling himself a “Kind vom Dorf” — a child of the village — who, after training and university study, was working in his occupation and felt attached to people in the region. In a December 2025 interview with *WELT* he referred to Dorsten as his *Heimatstadt*. A profile in the regional magazine *Vest erleben*, written when he was 24 and presented as Dorsten’s youngest city councillor, identified him as a Lembecker, from the district of Lembeck. The town’s own description puts Lembeck in Dorsten’s Westphalian, rural north and presents it as a northern district among meadows, fields and farmland. Neither the parliamentary biography nor that profile names his parents, a year of any move away from Gelsenkirchen, or a primary school.

What is recorded about his school years concerns activities rather than a named institution. *Vest erleben* wrote that the engagement of the Christian Democratic Union member was already visible at school, listing service as a class representative and a school representative, work as a trainer at the local football club, and party membership. In a 2023 interview published by his employer he said that he had volunteered since his school days, and he described a period as a youth football coach as a particular highlight. Those accounts do not name the school or the club. No Gymnasium, Realschule or other secondary school appears in the Bundestag biography.

### Training and university study

From 2015 to 2019 Kappe completed what the Bundestag biography calls a dual course of study with Evonik Industries, finishing with a chamber of industry and commerce (IHK) qualification as a Chemikant and a Bachelor of Engineering in process engineering (*Verfahrenstechnik*). The Hochschulkompass of the German Rectors’ Conference defines a dual programme as university study combined with vocational training or company practice, under a contract with an employer and at two places of learning; an *ausbildungsintegrierendes* course builds a recognised vocational qualification into the degree. Chemikant is a state-recognised training occupation. The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training lists a standard duration of 42 months, with the chambers of industry and commerce as the competent bodies, and describes the work as chemical process operations and the monitoring of production plants, including process-control and plant technology. The four years recorded for Kappe are longer than that apprenticeship alone, which is consistent with a combined vocational and bachelor’s course. The parliamentary entry does not name the higher-education institution that awarded the B.Eng., or the vocational college at which the IHK examination was taken.

An Evonik career profile dated 26 July 2023, when he was a trainee, listed his training as “Chemikant / M. Sc. Chemieingenieurwesen” and stated that he had been with the company since 2015. In that interview he said that, during the dual programme, a manager had given him responsibility for a production-optimisation project on two of eight parallel lines. The remark is his own account as published by the employer.

From 2019 to 2022 he studied for a master’s degree at the Technical University of Dortmund, graduating M.Sc. in chemical engineering (*Chemieingenieurwesen*). The university’s Faculty of Biochemical and Chemical Engineering describes that master’s as a research-oriented programme extending bachelor’s-level work on the modelling, design and optimisation of chemical and process-engineering systems, including sustainable production, energy and resource efficiency, and plant technology. The Bundestag biography adds that, in the same years, he held various side jobs, internships and other work in industry. Speaking to *WELT* in December 2025, he said that in the chemical field, “where I am at home,” people he knew usually worked from the bachelor’s degree at the latest, and often already during a master’s, and he set that pattern apart from a full-time degree without practical experience. By July 2024 regional newspapers were describing him as a chemical engineer: the *Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung* called the 27-year-old a *Chemieingenieur* who sat for his home town on the Dorsten council and the district council. The official biography records no doctorate and no further named certificate after the master’s.

## Engineering career

Before he entered the Bundestag, Nicklas Kappe’s employment was in the chemical industry, with a shorter spell on the staff of a state legislator in North Rhine-Westphalia. The Bundestag lists his occupation as chemical engineer (*Chemieingenieur*). Its published biography, which the parliament states is drawn from members’ own information, places the industrial work at Evonik and a Landtag staff post in 2022–2023.

### Chemical industry

From 2015 to 2019 he was in a dual programme at Evonik Industries that combined a chamber of industry and commerce (IHK) qualification as a *Chemikant*, a chemical-plant operator, with a Bachelor of Engineering in process engineering (*Verfahrenstechnik*). From 2019 to 2022, during a Master of Science in chemical engineering at the Technical University of Dortmund, the same account lists various side jobs and internships in industry. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) district association in Recklinghausen additionally records work as a constituency staffer (*Wahlkreismitarbeiter*) in that period, without naming the office.

He was again an Evonik employee from 2023 to 2025, first as a trainee in technology and project management and then as a plant engineer for energy supply (*Anlageningenieur Energieversorgung*). A career profile Evonik published on 26 July 2023 described him as a trainee in Technology & Project Management within technical service, based in Essen, in the Technology & Infrastructure function, and as having been with the company since 2015 after training as a *Chemikant* and taking a master’s degree in chemical engineering. In that company text he described an 18-month traineeship covering technical service, with new projects and colleagues about every three months.

When nominations for the 23 February 2025 federal election were published, the returning officer for constituency 124 listed his occupation as *Chemieingenieur*, his birthplace as Gelsenkirchen and his residence as Dorsten. On election night WDR described the chemical engineer as working in industry and as a member of the Dorsten council. In December 2025 *Welt* likewise identified him as a chemical engineer and as a member of the Bundestag since March of that year.

In the register published under the members’ code of conduct, the occupation before membership is given as plant engineer, Energy & Utilities, at Evonik Operations GmbH in Essen, together with a right of return (*Rückkehrrecht*) and protection against dismissal (*Kündigungsschutz*). Section 45 of the Members of the Bundestag Act (*Abgeordnetengesetz*) requires a member to notify the Bundestag President of the last occupation before the mandate and of whether a right to return after the mandate, or dismissal protection under section 2(3), exists. Section 2(3) makes dismissal because a mandate was acquired, accepted or exercised unlawful, otherwise allows dismissal only for cause, and runs from nomination by the competent party body, or from filing of the election proposal, until one year after the mandate ends. The Evonik post appears under activity before membership, not among paid posts exercised alongside the mandate.

### State-parliament staff

For 2022 to 2023 the Bundestag biography lists Kappe as a staff member (*Landtagsmitarbeiter*) of Josef Hovenjürgen, a member of the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia. The Recklinghausen CDU association uses the same years and describes him as an employee of Hovenjürgen in the state parliament. Hovenjürgen, of the CDU, has been parliamentary state secretary in the state ministry for *Heimat*, municipal affairs, building and digitalisation since 29 June 2022; the state government records that he was born in Haltern am See. Neither account specifies Kappe’s duties, and neither states that the job sat in the ministry rather than in the legislator’s parliamentary office. The industrial employment at Evonik resumed in 2023.

## Local politics

From 2015 Kappe held office in the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its youth organisation, the Junge Union, and from 2020 sat on the council of Dorsten and the Kreistag of Kreis Recklinghausen. He left the city council in April 2025 after entering the Bundestag and remained a district councillor.

### Junge Union

The Recklinghausen CDU association records CDU membership from 2015 and, for 2016–2020, the chair of the Junge Union’s Dorsten city association plus a seat as deputy *sachkundiger Bürger*, a non-voting expert citizen, on the city council. *Vest Erleben* later described him as already attending committee and CDU group meetings in that role, and as a trainer at the local football club in Lembeck, the Dorsten borough with which the magazine identified him.

The same biography dates the chairmanship of the Junge Union in Kreis Recklinghausen from 2021. On 7 May 2022 the association’s own report quoted him in that office on a campaign tour with CDU Landtag candidates and district CDU chairman Michael Breilmann, asking for both votes for the CDU at the state election on 15 May. Meeting in Oer-Erkenschwick on 8 September 2023, the Kreisverband confirmed him as *Kreisvorsitzender*. Local accounts quote him as saying that, with elections due in 2025, the Junge Union wanted to matter in all ten towns of the district, in policy and in personnel. Three other Dorsten members joined that board: Frederik Janzen as deputy secretary, and Lara Adamzik and Alexander Stenkamp as assessors. Marcal Zilian, chair of the Ruhr regional association, spoke at the meeting. The Kreisverband’s later board list names Felix Wende, of the Herten city association, as *Kreisvorsitzender* and does not list Kappe.

The district biography also records him as deputy treasurer of the CDU Kreisverband from 2022 and as *Landesschatzmeister* of the Junge Union in North Rhine-Westphalia from 2023. The Junge Union NRW board page lists him as treasurer, a chemical engineer from the Ruhr *Bezirksverband*. On 17 November 2024 the *Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung* called him deputy CDU chairman in Dorsten while he sought the Bundestag nomination; the district biography mentions only “various offices” in the Dorsten city association from 2016, without an end date for a deputy chair.

### Council mandates

On 13 September 2020 Kappe won a direct seat on the Dorsten council in *Wahlbezirk* 4 (Lembeck): 1,004 of 1,419 valid votes (70.75 percent), ahead of Haake of Alliance 90/[The Greens](/organizations/the-greens) (144 votes, 10.15 percent) and Mende of the Social Democratic Party (142 votes, 10.01 percent). Turnout in the ward was 63.07 percent. *Vest Erleben* presented the then 24-year-old as the council’s youngest member and quoted his aim to be “a mouthpiece for young people in Dorsten,” including on sustainability in financial planning. The CDU district association lists him from 2020 as *Geschäftsführer* of the CDU council group.

The *Dorstener Zeitung* reported on 4 March 2021 that he was the new chairman of Dorsten’s sports committee, placed his sporting background in the football section of SV Lembeck, and asked whether he might be Germany’s youngest committee chairman and who had succeeded Stefan Ricken. The official gazette of 8 November 2024 named him a CDU assessor on the city’s election committee for 2020–2025, with Georg Lammers as his substitute.

The same 2020 poll returned him to the Kreistag. In *Kreiswahlbezirk* 24 he received 3,101 votes (44.79 percent), ahead of Jörg Grosche (SPD, 1,419 votes, 20.49 percent) and Kim Alexandra Wiesweg (Greens, 1,051 votes, 15.18 percent); the election book records a CDU direct mandate. The *Recklinghäuser Zeitung* reported on 21 March 2025 that the Dorsten council had seen him off after his entry to the Bundestag, while he meant to keep the district seat. The gazette of 22 April 2025 announced that Jan Heppner, born in 2001, had succeeded him on the council from 14 April 2025 under section 45(6) of the state municipal elections act; the agenda for 30 April included Heppner’s introduction.

Kappe was not among the direct Kreistag members the city named for Dorsten’s five districts after the election of 14 September 2025. CDU candidates won wards 20 to 24, the last shared with Haltern am See: Werner Niermann, Werner Kuhlmann, Tabitha Kleine-Besten, Ludger Samson and Bodo Klimpel. The city stated that if Klimpel won the *Landrat* runoff on 28 September, Kappe would take that constituency seat as the paired substitute (*Huckepack-Kandidat*). The district election committee confirmed on 2 October 2025 that Klimpel had been re-elected with 86,891 of 167,517 valid votes (51.87 percent) against Dr. Karsten Schneider (SPD; 80,626 votes, 48.13 percent).

The Bundestag side-activity register, as reproduced by Abgeordnetenwatch, lists Kappe as a Kreistag member, with a gross monthly allowance of 504.60 euros through 31 December 2025 and 546.20 euros from 1 January 2026. Up to 1 November 2025 it lists membership of the committees for economic policy and digital affairs and for climate, sustainability and the environment, and deputy membership of the personnel committee, the *Kreisausschuss*, the committee for agriculture and building, and the election-review committee. From that date the economic committee continues as the committee for the economy, the personnel deputyship has no end date, and the other committee roles are marked closed.

### Voluntary offices

*Vest Erleben* described Kappe as a trainer at the football club in Lembeck, and the *Dorstener Zeitung* placed the sports-committee chairman’s background in the football department of SV Lembeck; neither gives a club office or a date. From 1 January 2026 the side-activity register lists him on the board of trustees (*Kuratorium*) of the Jewish Museum of Westphalia in Dorsten, carried by the Verein für jüdische Geschichte und Religion, with no income recorded. The entry was filed on 27 March 2026 under functions in associations, societies and foundations.

## Candidacy and the 2025 campaign

### Nomination

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) picked its candidate for Bundestag constituency Bottrop – Recklinghausen III — Bottrop, Dorsten and Gladbeck — in an internal contest. When the associations opened it, the seat was still numbered 125; for the 2025 federal election it was 124.

Two members declared in early July 2024. Vanessa Vohs, then 25, a Bottrop native, chaired the Bottrop Junge Union and was a doctoral student in international relations working as a research assistant. She treated security — domestic order, defence, migration, civil protection, energy and cybersecurity — as the main cross-cutting issue, and said the cities should be relieved of what she called the consequences of a failed migration policy. Nicklas Kappe, then 27, a chemical engineer and deputy Dorsten CDU chair, had sat on the Dorsten council and the Recklinghausen district council since 2020, and his first party office was a Junge Union chairmanship in 2016. He said supporters had urged him to stand because people in the region felt unheard in Berlin, and that he would answer that with an engineer's pragmatism and local-government experience. Chairs Dr Anette Bunse (Bottrop), Jan Heppner (Dorsten) and Dietmar Drosdzol (Gladbeck) welcomed both bids. Members were to hear each applicant, then vote on 21 November 2024 at the Brauhaus in Bottrop-Kirchhellen.

Kappe won the November ballot by 207 votes to 199 among members present. Four days after the scheduled meeting, a CDU Gladbeck anniversary called him the newly chosen Bundestag candidate. On 14 December 2024 the CDU of North Rhine-Westphalia adopted its state list in Essen, with [Friedrich Merz](/people/friedrich-merz) at the top. Vohs was 52nd and Kappe 59th, so losing the direct nomination did not end her list candidacy.

The other selections were mostly uncontested. At an SPD delegate conference on 31 August 2024 in Gladbeck's Bürgerhaus Ost, Dustin Tix of Gladbeck beat Oliver Altenhoff of Bottrop by 28 votes to 17. Tix, born in 1995 and listed as a sales-control coordinator, had been a Gladbeck councillor since 2020 and chaired the local SPD. Heinz Peter Müller of Alliance 90/The Greens, a Bottrop government employee usually called Peter Müller in the press, was chosen unanimously in January 2025. In December 2024 the Free Democratic Party unanimously nominated Andreas Josef Bucksteeg, a Bottrop bank clerk who had stood for lord mayor. [Die Linke](/organizations/die-linke) unanimously nominated Uwe Foullong, a business graduate from Bottrop-Kirchhellen. The Alternative for Germany candidate was Markus Mellerke, a master motor mechanic and district-association spokesperson. Also admitted were Boris Benkhoff of Die PARTEI, chosen in December and a Dorsten councillor; Mike Glaß of the [Free Voters](/organizations/free-voters), an IT specialist from Gladbeck; and Stefan Engel of the Marxist–Leninist Party of Germany, a publicist and that party's chair for 37 years. The district returning officer published the nine names on 31 January 2025. The *Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung* noted that all nine were men.

### Campaign and debates

July 2024 planning still assumed a September 2025 election. Polling day was 23 February 2025. Kappe campaigned on the economy. A *Recklinghäuser Zeitung* portrait of 14 February used his line that the economy needed a restart, and said he explained how Dorsten's finances might be improved; its questions also asked what interested him, which Dorsten problem only Berlin could solve, and which single law he would change. In a podcast reported on 5 February with migration researcher Gerald Knaus, he said he wanted a cooler asylum debate and defended the CDU programme's emphasis on processing asylum in third countries, together with shorter-term measures.

On 30 January the *Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung* reported that Kappe and Tix were canvassing door to door and had promised each other a fair campaign. The evening before, the Lembecker Interessengemeinschaft held a forum at the Elvermann firm in Dorsten-Lembeck, described as a home event for Kappe. He, Tix, Bucksteeg, Foullong and Müller attended; Mellerke declined, and Benkhoff and Engel were absent. Candidates drew questions from representatives of construction, gastronomy, industry, agriculture and the motor trade, then debated in the open under Lorenz Graf Merveldt. The *Dorstener Zeitung* streamed it, and the *Recklinghäuser Zeitung* reported next day on what the five said they would do for local business.

On 11 February the Berufskolleg Gladbeck held a foyer debate. It had written before Christmas to the SPD, Greens, FDP, CDU, Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, Die Linke and AfD; only the AfD never replied. About 200 pupils were in the room, including guests from three other Gladbeck schools, and several hundred more followed a classroom stream. After welcomes from mayor Bettina Weist and head Holger Pleines, Tix, Bucksteeg, Müller, Kappe, Amid Rabieh and Foullong had about an hour for questions on social contributions, family and work, racism and asylum. Pupil-and-teacher teams checked figures as they spoke. Rabieh was not a constituency candidate: the official first-vote list had no Wagenknecht Alliance nominee. The *Neue Gladbecker Zeitung* wrote that the fact-checks corrected Bucksteeg more than once and Kappe once, and that a WDR account found Rabieh drawing the strongest response. WDR 5's *Westblick* carried the event that afternoon, noting the stream to classrooms because the hall was too small.

## The 2025 federal election

### The constituency

Constituency 124, Bottrop – Recklinghausen III, is one of 64 Bundestag constituencies in North Rhine-Westphalia. For the 2025 German federal election, as in 2021, it consisted of the independent city of Bottrop and, from the Recklinghausen district, Dorsten and Gladbeck. The district’s other municipalities lay in neighbouring constituencies, numbered 121 and 122 in 2021 and 120 and 121 in 2025. Only the number changed: the same territory was constituency 125 in 2021 and constituency 124 in 2025. As of 31 December 2023 the Federal Returning Officer recorded three municipalities, 307.8 square kilometres and 270,600 inhabitants, 13.4 percent of them foreign nationals, at 879 inhabitants per square kilometre. In that profile, 23.4 percent of employees liable for social insurance worked in manufacturing, unemployment at the end of November 2024 was 8.2 percent, and 2021 gross domestic product was €26,307 per inhabitant.

At the two preceding elections the first-vote plurality went to the Social Democratic Party (SPD). In 2017 the SPD received 55,128 first votes (36.8 percent), against 50,334 (33.6 percent) for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU); turnout was 74.9 percent of 202,793 eligible voters. In 2021 Michael Gerdes of the SPD, recorded by the Bundestag as the directly elected member for constituency 125, won 57,560 first votes (39.1 percent). WDR named Sven Volmering of the CDU as runner-up, on 27 percent. The official count gave the CDU 39,834 first votes (27.0 percent), Alliance 90/The Greens 15,144 (10.3 percent), the Alternative for Germany (AfD) 14,075 (9.6 percent), the Free Democratic Party (FDP) 11,352 (7.7 percent) and Die Linke 3,887 (2.6 percent). Turnout was 74.6 percent: 148,734 ballots from 199,344 eligible voters. Second votes were led by the SPD on 35.0 percent, ahead of the CDU on 24.9 percent, the Greens on 11.1, the FDP on 9.9 and the AfD on 9.4.

### Results

The vote was held on 23 February 2025. On 31 January the constituency returning officer in Bottrop published the nine nominations admitted by the constituency committee on 24 January: Dustin Tix (SPD; born 1995 in Gladbeck), Nicklas Kappe (CDU; born 1996 in Gelsenkirchen, resident in Dorsten), Heinz Peter Müller (Greens), Andreas Josef Bucksteeg (FDP), Markus Mellerke (AfD), Uwe Foullong (Die Linke), Boris Benkhoff (Die PARTEI), Mike Glaß (Free Voters) and Stefan Klaus Engel (Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany). Bündnis [Sahra Wagenknecht](/people/sahra-wagenknecht) (BSW) stood no constituency candidate.

The Federal Returning Officer’s final result listed 195,336 eligible voters and 157,959 ballots, a turnout of 80.9 percent, 6.3 points above 2021. Of the first votes, 1,340 (0.8 percent) were invalid and 156,619 valid. Kappe received 49,625 (31.7 percent), 4.7 points above the CDU share in 2021 and 3,349 votes ahead of Tix, who received 46,276 (29.5 percent), down 9.5 points. Mellerke and the AfD took 32,869 (21.0 percent, up 11.4 points). Müller and the Greens received 10,249 (6.5 percent, down 3.7), Foullong and Die Linke 8,927 (5.7 percent, up 3.1), and Bucksteeg and the FDP 4,185 (2.7 percent, down 5.0). Die PARTEI had 2,426 votes (1.5 percent), the Free Voters 1,810 (1.2 percent) and the MLPD 252 (0.2 percent). The result page names Kappe as elected in the constituency and Tix as the runner-up.

Of 156,977 valid second votes, the order was the CDU 45,953 (29.3 percent, up 4.3 points), the SPD 36,280 (23.1 percent, down 11.9), the AfD 32,770 (20.9 percent, up 11.5), the Greens 13,164 (8.4 percent, down 2.7), Die Linke 10,512 (6.7 percent, up 3.7), the BSW 6,710 (4.3 percent) and the FDP 5,422 (3.5 percent, down 6.5). The Animal Protection Party took 2,471 second votes (1.6 percent); Die PARTEI, the Free Voters and Volt were each under 1 percent, and 982 second votes (0.6 percent) were invalid. Kappe’s first-vote share ran 2.4 points above the CDU list in the constituency; Tix’s ran 6.4 points above the SPD list.

### Mandate and electoral law

A first-vote plurality did not by itself confer a seat. On 17 March 2023 the Bundestag amended the Federal Elections Act so that the house has 630 members and seats follow the second vote. Candidates with the most first votes are placed at the head of their party’s state list, ordered by their share of the vote, and are seated first from that list’s allocation; if the list has more constituency winners than seats, those with the lowest shares get none. On 30 July 2024 the Federal [Constitutional Court](/organizations/constitutional-court) held unanimously that this second-vote coverage rule, in section 1(3) and section 6(1) and 6(4), was compatible with the Basic Law. It also found the five-percent threshold unconstitutional as it then stood, and ordered that until a new rule was passed a party under five percent of the national second vote would be excluded only if it had also failed to finish first in at least three constituencies.

Coverage was applied for the first time in 2025. Tagesschau reported that the leading candidate was unseated in 23 of 299 constituencies: 15 from the CDU, four from the AfD, three from the [Christian Social Union](/organizations/christian-social-union-in-bavaria) and one from the SPD. The cases were in Baden-Württemberg (six), Hesse (five), Bavaria and Rhineland-Palatinate (three each), and one each in Bremen, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Schleswig-Holstein — not in North Rhine-Westphalia. On election night WDR reported Kappe’s lead and noted that a constituency winner was no longer seated automatically; entry would be clear only once every constituency had been counted. His plurality was covered. The Federal Returning Officer lists him as elected in the constituency, and the Bundestag records a constituency mandate for constituency 124. The 21st Bundestag held its constituent sitting on 25 March 2025.

## Work in the Bundestag

Nicklas Kappe has been a member of the Bundestag since its constitutive sitting on 25 March 2025, the opening of the 21st electoral term, holding the direct mandate for constituency 124, Bottrop – Recklinghausen III, in North Rhine-Westphalia. He sits with the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. The group’s page gives his Berlin office as the Bundestag postal address, Platz der Republik 1, 11011 Berlin, telephone 030 227-71833. The CDU/CSU Land group for North Rhine-Westphalia publishes the same address and the email address nicklas.kappe@bundestag.de. Neither page gives a room in the parliamentary buildings.

### Committees

On 15 May 2025 the Bundestag appointed 24 standing committees. Kappe is an ordinary member of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy (Ausschuss für Wirtschaft und Energie) and of the Petitions Committee (Petitionsausschuss), and a substitute member of the Committee on the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety and of the Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development.

The economic-affairs committee was constituted on 21 May 2025 under President of the Bundestag [Julia Klöckner](/people/julia-klockner). Of its 42 ordinary members, 14 are from the CDU/CSU, ten from the Alternative for Germany, eight from the Social Democratic Party, six from Alliance 90/The Greens and four from Die Linke. Christian Freiherr von Stetten (CDU/CSU) was elected chair by secret ballot, with 41 votes in favour and one against. Kappe was named among the Union members, and the biography still listed that seat on 30 October 2026.

The Petitions Committee, constituted the same day, has 26 ordinary members: nine from the Union, six from the AfD, five from the SPD and three each from the Greens and Die Linke. Kappe is one of the nine Union members. The AfD held the right to nominate the chair. Its candidate, Manfred Schiller, did not obtain the required majority, so the longest-serving member, [Andreas Mattfeldt](/people/andreas-mattfeldt) (CDU/CSU), chaired on an acting basis. On 25 June 2025 the committee elected [Hülya Düber](/people/hulya-duber) (CDU/CSU) deputy chair, with every member present voting for her. The parliamentary news service reported that she would lead the committee for the time being because the chair remained vacant.

Parliamentary groups name ordinary members and their substitutes. Each ordinary member has one vote; a substitute may attend every meeting but may vote only when standing in for an absent ordinary member of the same group. Seats follow group strength in the plenary, and the groups make the assignments.

### Parliamentary group

The CDU/CSU group lists Kappe in its working groups on petitions and on economic affairs and energy, in the employees’ group (Arbeitnehmergruppe), in the Parlamentskreis Mittelstand and in the Junge Gruppe. The faction classes the Junge Gruppe as a sociological group of Union members who were under 35 on election day. At its constitutive meeting on 25 March 2025, when it had 18 members, it unanimously elected [Pascal Reddig](/people/pascal-reddig) chair, Konrad Körner first deputy chair, and [Catarina dos Santos-Wintz](/people/catarina-dos-santos-wintz) and Anna Aeikens further deputy chairs. Its notice said the group would speak for younger members and watch that decisions not fall on later generations. The same officers, with Kappe among the members, are on the group’s page.

Disclosures on his biography, published under the members’ rules of conduct (sections 45 and following of the Members of the Bundestag Act), name his last job before the mandate as plant engineer for Energy & Utilities at Evonik Operations GmbH in Essen, with a right to return and protection against dismissal. They also record his seat on the council of Kreis Recklinghausen, at 504.60 euro gross a month until 31 December 2025 and 546.20 euro gross from 1 January 2026, membership of the district economic-affairs committee (until 1 November 2025 the committee for economic policy and digital affairs) and a deputy seat on the personnel committee. Other district-committee seats are shown as ending on 1 November 2025. From 1 January 2026 he is listed on the board of trustees of the Jewish Museum of Westphalia, through the Verein für jüdische Geschichte und Religion e.V. in Dorsten. Such notices are due within three months of taking a seat and of any later change.

### South Asia parliamentary group

The Bundestag lists Kappe as chair of the German–South Asian Parliamentary Group (Deutsch-Südasiatische Parlamentariergruppe). The partner countries given for it are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The officers published for the 21st term are Kappe for the CDU/CSU, Stefan Schröder for the AfD, [Johann Saathoff](/people/johann-saathoff) for the SPD, [Ulle Schauws](/people/ulle-schauws) for Alliance 90/The Greens and [Mandy Eißing](/people/mandy-eissing) for Die Linke.

On 14 September 2026 the Bundestag press office announced a delegation to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh from 14 to 19 September, led by the chair. The notice spells the surname “Kappa”, identifies Saathoff and Schauws as deputy chairs, and names [Gerold Otten](/people/gerold-otten) (AfD) as a further member. The announced programme was bilateral parliamentary exchange: in Sri Lanka, talks with Prime Minister [Harini Amarasuriya](/people/harini-amarasuriya) and opposition leader [Sajith Premadasa](/people/sajith-premadasa), visits to Trace Export City and the Colombo West International Terminal, and meetings with [foreign-affairs](/organizations/foreign-affairs) and economic committees; in Bangladesh, talks with Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmad Bir Bikram and the foreign-affairs committee, and visits to German firms in cement, textile chemicals and printer cartridges.

## Positions on economy, energy and pensions

### Industry and energy

In the 21st Bundestag, Kappe spoke for the CDU/CSU on commercial carbon management and hydrogen infrastructure. On 11 September 2025, in the first reading of the bill recasting the Carbon Dioxide Storage Act as a storage-and-transport law, he said capture, use and storage would serve the Energiewende only if allowed to scale, including for hard-to-avoid emissions and not only unavoidable ones. Where electrification or green hydrogen could in theory do the job, the choice belonged to management: “Der Staat ist nicht der bessere Unternehmer.” Carbon capture and storage, carbon use, electrification and hydrogen were one kit, for “Dekarbonisierung mit Augenmaß” rather than decarbonisation by deindustrialisation.

On 6 November 2025 he thanked the economics minister for a draft inside half a year and the SPD for talks he called hard but constructive. He called the revised text an enabling law, not a prohibition, and said carbon dioxide did not stop at a border. It passed with the Union and the SPD against the AfD, Alliance 90/The Greens, Die Linke and [Stefan Seidler](/people/stefan-seidler). Green MP [Michael Kellner](/people/michael-kellner) interjected that the draft had already been finished. The same sitting opened the hydrogen acceleration bill. Kappe rejected treating one ArcelorMittal case as proof that support had failed. Hydrogen could already be blended in suitable power stations, “round about bis zu 30 Prozent”, but electrolysis was costly and depended on the power source. Agreeing with the coalition partner, he said the H2 molecule “kennt keine Farbe”, while still distinguishing purity and use, and he wanted that settled in Europe beside carbon management.

At the final reading on 26 February 2026 he said hydrogen could cost twice to four times as much as energy from natural gas, which explained the slow ramp-up. Committee changes extended openness to derivatives such as methanol and ammonia. AfD members shouted “Planwirtschaft”; he called the ramp-up a “geplante Transformation”, citing more than 30 firms at the Klimahafen in Gelsenkirchen. Green MP [Katrin Uhlig](/people/katrin-uhlig) objected that the investments might be unnecessary in ten years. The bill passed with the Union and the SPD against every other group. On 23 April 2026, in the first reading of Energy Industry Act amendments for the EU gas and hydrogen package (Drucksache 21/5440), he said the ramp-up lagged, but the core network still had to reach beyond the trunk routes, with no general shutdown of gas grids and no disconnection where no local alternative existed. Green MP [Julia Verlinden](/people/julia-verlinden) said only 1.5 of 10 gigawatts of electrolysis planned by 2030 would be running by the end of the next year, and criticised key points from economics minister Katherina Reiche as unsettling municipal heat planning.

### Pensions

On 5 December 2025 the Bundestag adopted, by roll-call, the bill holding the pension level at 48 percent beyond 2025, equalising child-raising periods and suspending the sustainability factor until 2031. The result was 318 yes, 225 no and 53 abstentions, with 34 not voting, which met the chancellor’s majority of 316 associated with Friedrich Merz. All 120 SPD members voted yes; of 208 CDU/CSU members, 198 voted yes, seven no and two abstained. Kappe was one of the two abstentions, with Konrad Körner. Abgeordnetenwatch named the no votes as [Johannes Winkel](/people/johannes-winkel), [Yannick Bury](/people/yannick-bury), Pascal Reddig, Johannes Volkmann, Marvin Schulz, [Johannes Wiegelmann](/people/johannes-wiegelmann) and [Nicolas Zippelius](/people/nicolas-zippelius). The *WAZ* and the *Dorstener Zeitung* reported the abstention of the member for Bottrop, Gladbeck and Dorsten.

On 9 December he told *Welt*, under the headline “Renten-Rebell”, that the abstention was a compromise: he had heard that charge in Dorsten, but wanted this government to start the reforms. He rejected “Umfaller” for colleagues who voted yes. The young group had fought a pre-commitment past 2031 beyond the coalition agreement; the text was unchanged, but the row had brought the pension commission forward, with results due by mid-2026 rather than 2027. The level until 2031, he said, was fixed. Afterwards he wanted contribution years to count, so an apprenticeship from 18 was credited against entry at 25 or 28. “Wir werden nicht darum herumkommen, zwischen verschiedenen Berufsgruppen zu differenzieren,” he said, refusing a roofer-versus-graduate contrast. Linking working life to life expectancy was sensible if flexible; Aktivrente tax relief from 1 January 2026, passed that day as a separate bill, was under-discussed; occupational pensions should follow a change of job. On contributions from capital income he cited Clemens Fuest: new money could create new claims, and a levy without entitlements would, he thought, fail in Karlsruhe. *[Der Spiegel](/organizations/der-spiegel)* noted that researchers dispute blanket occupational privileges, because members of a trade are not equally burdened.

On 17 October 2026, interviewed by Deutschlandfunk at the Junge Union Deutschlandtag in Bonn, he said the commission’s process was good but implementation was missing — “wir stehen im Wort” — and called pensions the weightiest reform without making them the coalition’s sole test. Higher incomes were to contribute more, and those drawing the deduction-free pension after 45 contribution years were, he said, mostly higher earners. A promised electricity-tax cut was relief in a high-cost energy country, not an attempt to buy voters back.

### Petitions and the Ruhr

On 10 June 2026 he spoke on the Petitions Committee’s 2025 report. A child of the Ruhr, he called the committee a seismograph of public mood. The chair’s figure was 12,399 petitions, about 50 a working day and 34 percent up on the year before; North Rhine-Westphalia sent the most. A honey-labelling petition with more than 6,000 signatures showed, he said, that “Politik wirkt”: a revised honey regulation was to take effect on 14 June 2026. The coalition had also referred a Bavarian petition for a weekly, rather than daily, cap on working time. Against pessimism about the committee, he invoked Article 17 of the Basic Law.

His criticism of investment finance concerned the northern Ruhr. In June 2025 the *WAZ* reported his objection to the draft special fund for infrastructure and climate neutrality: “Damit droht die Gefahr, dass das Sondervermögen zum Freifahrtschein zur Finanzierung von Steuergeschenken wird, statt einen Mehrwert für kommende Generationen zu schaffen.” “Zusätzliche Investitionen” was undefined, including for 100 billion euros for the Länder and municipalities. The young group had proposed earmarking the money for construction, rail, motorway companies and municipalities, his case being the A42 between Essen and Bottrop, and he objected likewise to another 100 billion euros for the Climate and Transformation Fund. In March 2026 he told *Welt* that the constitutional decision predated his membership. The A40 showed the backlog, but the money had to go into roads, rail and energy networks. Studies by the Ifo Institute and the German Economic Institute, which the interviewer put at 86 to 95 percent of the new debt not used as planned, confirmed the warning: otherwise “dann ist das kein Fortschritt, sondern Schönrechnerei.” Patching potholes was not, for him, an additional investment; renewing a bridge was. The A52 extension toward the A2 had planning certainty, though the billions were not yet visible.

## Public profile

### Media coverage

On 14 February 2025 the *Recklinghäuser Zeitung* portrayed the CDU candidate in constituency 124 under his line that the economy needed a fresh start. On election night the *Bottroper Zeitung* led with the direct mandate and the proposal at his [victory party](/organizations/victory-party), and the *Recklinghäuser Zeitung* posted a short video, “Perfekter Abend für Nicklas Kappe”.

After he entered the Bundestag, those papers treated him as the member for Bottrop, Gladbeck and Dorsten. The *Recklinghäuser Zeitung* interviewed him on 2 November 2025 about his first half-year. National coverage then clustered on pensions. On 5 December 2025 the *Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung* headed an account of his abstention “Rentenrebell”. Four days later *Die Welt* published Nikolaus Doll’s interview with the 29-year-old chemical engineer, a directly elected member since March, under the label “Renten-Rebell”, on what should follow the collapse of the young members’ revolt in the CDU/CSU group. That morning *Der Spiegel* reported his call to distinguish occupational groups in retirement rules, with a photograph of him and Pascal Reddig talking to group chair Jens Spahn.

Local SPD politicians cast the same dispute as a split between generations. In a letter reported on 25 November 2025, Dorsten faction leader Dirk Groß asked [Bärbel Bas](/people/barbel-bas) and [Lars Klingbeil](/people/lars-klingbeil) to hold the coalition line. He called Kappe’s position “the opposite of generational justice” and Kappe the person splitting the generations, and wrote that if the Junge Union and Kappe prevailed only current pensioners would benefit from a level fixed until 2031. The report counted him among 18 younger members then opposing the package associated with Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

On 6 January 2026 the *Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung* interviewed him on the gap between Berlin and the constituency; the article’s address carried the line that the Berlin bubble really exists. On 17 October 2026 Deutschlandfunk aired a 12-minute interview by Christoph Heinemann, on *Informationen am Mittag*, about the Junge Union’s demand that agreed reforms be carried out.

A separate gap is unanswered public questions. The abgeordnetenwatch.de profile for the 2025–2029 mandate showed, in late October 2026, that none of 16 questions submitted during the mandate had been answered. Outstanding items included a possible AfD ban case, suspicionless chat monitoring, abolition of the freedom-of-information law, and an automatic link between pension age and life expectancy.

### Personal life in the public record

On Saturday 15 August 2026 Nicklas and Sophia Kappe exchanged vows at St. Laurentius in Lembeck, a district of Dorsten, with family, friends, colleagues and political associates present, the Dorsten portal *Dorsten.live* reported. The next day the *Recklinghäuser Zeitung* and the *Ruhr Nachrichten* carried Guido Bludau’s account that the couple had married at home after the election-night proposal.

*Nicklas and Sophia Kappe at their church wedding in St. Laurentius, Lembeck, on 15 August 2026.*

The same reports dated the relationship to a party shortly before Christmas. *Dorsten.live* named the “Homecoming” evening on Dorsten’s market square; the *Recklinghäuser Zeitung* said only that everything had begun with a party just before Christmas. The engagement was public. At the CDU party on Hof Steinmann in Kirchhellen, before the count was finished, he announced the win, thanked his girlfriend Sophia Strehl for her campaign help and proposed. The *Bottroper Zeitung* wrote that he closed the night with a direct mandate and a fiancée.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/nicklas-kappe