# Thomas Röwekamp

# Thomas Röwekamp

Thomas Röwekamp (born 18 September 1966 in Bremerhaven) is a German lawyer, notary and politician of the [Christian Democratic Union of Germany](/organizations/christian-democratic-union-of-germany) (CDU). He has been a member of the Bundestag for the state of Bremen since October 2021. On 21 May 2025, at the constitutive meeting of the defence committee chaired by Bundestag vice president Omid Nouripour, the committee elected him chair in a secret ballot, with 29 votes in favour and nine abstentions.

The Bundestag biography, which rests on his own disclosures, records that he is a married Lutheran with three children. He took his Abitur at a Gymnasium, trained as a bank clerk at Deutsche Bank in Bremerhaven from 1986 to May 1988, and performed basic military service from July 1988 to 1989. After a short return to banking he studied law at the University of Bremen from 1990 to 1994, completed his legal traineeship in Oldenburg and Düsseldorf from 1995 to 1997, and has practised as a self-employed lawyer since 1997 and as a notary since 2014, with specialist qualifications in tax, insurance and inheritance law.

He sat on the Bremerhaven city council from 1987 to 1991 and in the Bürgerschaft of Bremen from 14 October 1991 to 4 July 2003 and again from 30 June 2007 to 15 October 2021. From 2003 to 2007 he was Senator for the Interior and Sport of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, and from 2005 to 2007 also Bürgermeister. He chaired the CDU group in the Bürgerschaft from 2007 to 2021 and was state chair of the CDU in Bremen from 2008 to 2011.

In January 2005 the Bürgerschaft rejected a motion of no confidence brought by Alliance 90/[The Greens](/organizations/the-greens) over his conduct after Laye-Alama Condé died in police custody following the forced administration of an emetic. The vote was 60 to 19, with two abstentions, after Mayor Henning Scherf of the [Social Democratic Party of Germany](/organizations/social-democratic-party-of-germany) said that a defeat for Röwekamp would be a decision on Scherf himself. The same year the Bremen foreigners’ authority, in Röwekamp’s portfolio, treated the residence permit of Murat Kurnaz as expired while Kurnaz was detained without charge at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. On 30 November 2005 the Verwaltungsgericht Bremen held that the permit had not lapsed, because the detention had left Kurnaz unable to apply in time for an extension.

At the federal election of 26 September 2021 he stood for the CDU in constituency 54, Bremen I, and received 39,440 first votes (21.3 percent). The direct seat went to the SPD candidate, who took 55,934 votes (30.2 percent), while the CDU’s second-vote share in Bremen was 17.2 percent. In the election of 23 February 2025 the CDU rose to 20.6 percent of second votes in the state. In Bremen I Röwekamp received 46,309 first votes (24.0 percent), behind the SPD on 25.2 percent, but the constituency seat was left unfilled for lack of second-vote coverage under the electoral law then in force. In the 21st Bundestag he is an ordinary member and chair of the defence committee, a substitute member of the committee on research, technology, space and technology assessment, a member of the Joint Committee and of the German delegations to the [NATO Parliamentary Assembly](/organizations/nato-parliamentary-assembly) and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, and deputy chair of the German–Israeli parliamentary group.

## Early life and legal career

### Upbringing in Bremerhaven

Thomas Röwekamp was born on 18 September 1966 in Bremerhaven. He has described parents who both worked in commercial jobs and neither of whom had the Abitur; both, he has written, belonged to the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which he connects with support for [Willy Brandt](/people/willy-brandt), and after they separated his mother raised him and a brother while working full time and later pressed him to finish a practical qualification before university.

In a 2014 interview he called himself a child of divorce and the first person in the family to take a university degree, and said that as a child he had spent much of his time with a friend's family that set great store by schooling. He passed the Abitur in 1986 at the Schulzentrum Geschwister Scholl in Bremerhaven, named for the [White Rose](/organizations/white-rose) figures Hans and Sophie Scholl. He has written that he was the first in the family to do so, that a placement in a law office fixed his wish to study law, and that, as a class representative and a member of the student council, he took up education policy in the city.

### Education, military service and the bar

From 1986 to May 1988 he trained as a bank clerk (Bankkaufmann) at [Deutsche Bank](/organizations/deutsche-bank) in Bremerhaven. From July 1988 to 1989 he performed basic military service (Grundwehrdienst) in the Bundeswehr, and from October 1989 to May 1990 he again worked as a bank clerk.

He studied law at the University of Bremen from 1990 to 1994 and has written that he sat the first state examination in the Freiversuch, an early attempt that had just been introduced. The legal clerkship (Referendariat) ran from 1995 to 1997, with stages in Oldenburg and Düsseldorf; his firm states that it was attached to the Oberlandesgericht in Oldenburg. He was admitted in 1997 as a lawyer (Rechtsanwalt) and has practiced independently since that year.

The same firm profile lists him as a specialist lawyer (Fachanwalt) for insurance law from 2004, for tax law from 2009, and for inheritance law (Erbrecht) from 2013, as a certified executor of wills (Testamentsvollstrecker) of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Testamentsvollstreckung und Vermögenssorge, and as a member of the insurance-law working group of the German Bar Association (Deutscher Anwaltverein). In 2014 he was appointed a notary (Notar) with his official seat in Bremen. He practices in the partnership Röwekamp & Ley GbR at Schüsselkorb 26–27 in Bremen, which also carries the name of Friederike Ley; the firm names inheritance, company and commercial law, contracts of sale, tax, and insurance among his fields. The Bundestag biography, drawn from members' own statements, describes him as the proprietor of a law partnership and a specialist in tax, insurance, and inheritance law, and still gives his occupation as self-employed lawyer since 1997 and notary since 2014.

## Rise in Bremen politics

### Young Union and the Bremerhaven council

Röwekamp joined the Christian Democratic Union of Germany in 1983 and was chairman of the Junge Union, the CDU and CSU youth organization, in Bremerhaven. The Bremen CDU also lists him on its Bremerhaven district executive from 1985 and as deputy chairman from 1996, without dating the youth chairmanship.

From 1987 to 1991 he sat in Bremerhaven's Stadtverordnetenversammlung, the city's municipal assembly. The Bundestag biography is based on his own disclosures; the CDU Bremen website instead dates the council seat from 1985 and gives no end date.

### Bürgerschaft, 1991–2003

He was a member of the Bürgerschaft of Bremen, the legislature of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, from 14 October 1991 until 4 July 2003. At the 1991 state election the CDU won 30.7 percent of the vote and 32 of 100 seats, behind the Social Democratic Party of Germany on 38.8 percent and 41 seats. In a 25 January 1995 debate on an inquiry into public appointments in Bremerhaven, the *taz* called him a "CDU youngster" who quoted the file on hiring at the housing company Stäwog and described SPD patronage as "only the tip of the iceberg." SPD deputy Wilfried Töpfer called the speech partisan, and Green deputy Dieter Mützelburg said individual assertions had been turned into fact.

The 14 May 1995 election left the CDU on 32.6 percent and 37 seats, level with the SPD. On 4 July 1995 the Bürgerschaft elected a Senate under Henning Scherf (SPD) in which each party in the new grand coalition held four Senate posts; CDU lead candidate Ulrich Nölle became finance senator. Röwekamp was not in that cabinet. By September 1997 the *taz* listed him, with Jörg Kastendiek and Sybille Winther, as a CDU member of the Wirtschaftsdeputation. Asked about a younger economics senator, he said he was not being consulted and that better candidates existed.

On 6 June 1999 the CDU reached 37.1 percent and 42 seats, and the SPD 42.6 percent and 47. *[Der Spiegel](/organizations/der-spiegel)* called that the CDU's best postwar result in the state and reported that Scherf and CDU lead candidate Hartmut Perschau both favored continuing the coalition. After Frank Lutz's death, the CDU group in August 2001 named the 35-year-old Röwekamp its legal-policy spokesman.

On 15 May 2002 the Bürgerschaft (Landtag) set up a six-member inquiry into alleged improper influence, coercion, bribery or acceptance of advantages affecting the independence of Bremerhaven's Rechnungsprüfungsamt. Alliance 90/The Greens moved it; SPD and CDU members joined because the opposition lacked the quarter of seats needed to compel an inquiry. Röwekamp was elected chair and Manfred Schramm (Greens) deputy chair. Between 27 May 2002 and 27 January 2003 the committee held 29 internal meetings and 13 public evidence sessions. Its report, Drucksache 15/1360 of 29 January 2003, passed with the SPD and CDU votes; the Greens attached a minority opinion. Röwekamp called the text the "smallest common denominator" and said the inquiry would have been unnecessary "if everyone in Bremerhaven had behaved like adults." He described a disputed draft contract on the audit-office chief as contrary to good morals, said its author was unidentified, and added that he would understand if Artur Beneken, the SPD president of the city assembly, concluded he was no longer the right person for the post. In July 2002 he told *[Die Welt](/organizations/die-welt)* that draft orders to seize files withheld by the Bremerhaven magistrate lacked SPD support, so the committee asked Scherf to mediate with mayor Jörg Schulz.

His membership ended on 4 July 2003, when the Bürgerschaft elected him senator for the interior in Scherf's renewed grand coalition; he received 59 votes, and outgoing interior senator Kuno Böse handed over the department the same day.

## Interior senator and deputy mayor

### Coalition governments

The SPD–CDU coalition that had governed the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen since 1995 continued after the 2003 election to the Bürgerschaft. On 20 June 2003 the CDU nominated Thomas Röwekamp, a Bremerhaven lawyer and its justice spokesman, to succeed Kuno Böse as senator for the interior and sport. Hartmut Perschau was to remain the CDU deputy head of government. The Senate was sworn in on 4 July 2003. Sport, previously with the culture department, was added to the brief of Röwekamp's state secretary, Thomas vom Bruch.

On 12 May 2005 economy senator and Bürgermeister Peter Gloystein resigned after pouring sparkling wine over a homeless man at a wine festival, calling himself a burden on the Senate, the coalition and the city. On 25 May the Bürgerschaft elected Jörg Kastendiek to the economy, ports and culture, and the Senate made Röwekamp Bürgermeister and deputy to Henning Scherf while he kept the interior and sport. On 8 November 2005 the Bürgerschaft elected Jens Böhrnsen president of the Senate, by 62 votes to 19; Röwekamp remained the second Bürgermeister and interior senator.

Leading the CDU on 13 May 2007, he favoured continuing the coalition. The provisional official result cut the SPD from 42.3 percent in 2003 to 36.8 and the CDU from 29.8 to 25.6. Alliance 90/The Greens reached 16.4 percent, the Left Party 8.4 and the FDP 5.9. The SPD chose talks with the Greens, and the CDU withdrew, preparing for opposition under Röwekamp. On 29 June 2007 the Bürgerschaft elected a red-green Senate—Böhrnsen received all 47 votes of that coalition—and the government in office since 1995 left, ending Röwekamp's terms as senator and deputy mayor.

### Police and public order

Röwekamp had the uniformed police restructured from inside the department and the force. In April 2004 he proposed keeping all 18 stations but cutting inspections from five to four. Seven stations tied to the 110 cars would stay open overnight; the others would generally open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and until 4 p.m. on Saturdays. Twenty patrol cars, with up to 15 more as needed, would be directed centrally, and a car was to arrive within eight minutes of a 110 call. He said the force would not leave the neighborhoods.

In June 2004 the interior deputation, including the Greens, endorsed the plan: an end to five-shift rotas, more mobile work for about 2,500 officers, and a target of 120 contact-area officers. SPD spokesman Hermann Kleen called it not a cuts program but a response to the budget emergency, because more officers would otherwise have been required. Röwekamp offered performance pay for officers changing posts after holiday pay was abolished and the Christmas bonus halved. Union official Heinfried Keithan said there was "hardly any air to breathe," and that about 90 contact officers already existed, not 65. Chairman Horst Göbel tied the reform to earlier staff cuts; the FDP doubted the eight-minute target on the outskirts and opposed night closures.

Early in 2005, before the station cameras in place since 2002 had even been extended, Röwekamp asked for further sites. The SPD and the Greens said his success figures rested on very small case numbers. On 12 December 2005 the Senate adopted a "security package" still requiring a parliamentary vote. It widened data access and acoustic surveillance for the state domestic-intelligence service, allowed number-plate readers at checks and electric-shock weapons for special units, and permitted orders dispersing people who camped on public ground while drinking heavily, such as under the city-hall arcades. Kleen said this was not a power aimed at homeless people. Data-protection commissioner Sven Holst objected that officers listening in would not have to switch off inside the core of private life.

### Sport

In 2005 and 2006 Röwekamp chaired the Sportministerkonferenz of the Länder. The 29th session, in Bremerhaven on 11 and 12 August 2005, discussed elite sport, health, betting and doping, the 2006 World Cup, and the merger of the German Sports Confederation and the National Olympic Committee.

He called doping a problem for society as a whole, including gyms, and the conference backed specialized prosecutors and stricter trade supervision. The 30th session closed in Bremen on 22 September 2006, again under Röwekamp, by then also Bürgermeister. Ministers supported the state gambling monopoly because lottery income financed mass sport, and he argued that criminal penalties for athletes as well as coaches need not replace the sports bodies' own sanctions. DOSB president Thomas Bach attended for the merger of the two umbrella organizations. On 25 July 2006 in Frankfurt, at Röwekamp's invitation, the sport ministers, the Kultusministerkonferenz, the German Rectors' Conference and the DOSB agreed to help student athletes and to limit the "drop-out effect," in which young competitors gave up because training, school and work could not be combined, including through part-time degrees.

## The emetic controversy and the Kurnaz case

### Forced emetics and the death of Laye-Alama Condé

While Röwekamp was interior senator, police in Bremen forcibly administered emetics to suspected drug dealers. On 27 December 2004 officers detained Laye-Alama Condé, a 35-year-old man from Sierra Leone, in the Steintor district on suspicion that he had swallowed cocaine. A doctor forced ipecacuanha syrup and water through a nasal tube into his stomach. He lost consciousness and died on 7 January 2005 at St Joseph Hospital. Prosecutors later said water in the lungs had diluted his blood and caused fatal brain damage. The police doctor and an emergency doctor who had watched without intervening faced possible charges of negligent homicide; paramedics said the procedure continued after Condé stopped reacting.

Hamburg had already had a death. On 9 December 2001, 19-year-old Achidi John, arrested in St Georg as a suspected street dealer, was held down while a doctor administered ipecacuanha and water the same way. He suffered cardiac arrest and died on 12 December in hospital. An autopsy found heart disease; a preliminary investigation was later closed. [Olaf Scholz](/people/mig-olaf-scholz), then Hamburg’s Social Democratic interior senator, had authorized forced use in 2001 against Green opposition. Hamburg’s next Senate kept it, as did Bremen, where it had been allowed since the 1990s.

Before Condé’s emergency-doctor report became public, Röwekamp (Christian Democratic Union) called the Condé deployment proportionate, said Condé was himself to blame, and paused further use. He said people he called serious criminals must expect physical disadvantages. On television, during the coma, he called unyielding hardness justified and said Condé had poisoned himself with his own cocaine. On 15 January 2005 the Karawane für die Rechte der Flüchtlinge und MigrantInnen demonstrated under “Das war Mord, Herr Röwekamp,” demanding his resignation. The call termed the practice racist police torture and cited a 1995 [Amnesty International](/organizations/amnesty-international) finding of inhuman and degrading treatment.

On 11 July 2006 the Grand Chamber of the [European Court of Human Rights](/organizations/justice-ecthr), in *Jalloh v. Germany*, held by ten votes to seven that forcing emetics on a Sierra Leonean street dealer in Wuppertal in 1993 was inhuman and degrading treatment under Article 3 of the [European Convention on Human Rights](/facts/european-convention-on-human-rights), not torture. Natural excretion, the Court said, was an alternative, and the Hamburg and Bremen deaths showed a real risk.

### The motion of no confidence

On 25 January 2005 the CDU–SPD coalition agreed that emetics would be given only voluntarily. Refusal would mean detention in a cell with a toilet built to recover packages. Röwekamp proposed the change; Henning Scherf, SPD mayor and justice senator, accepted it. Carsten Sieling said forced use was finished. The same week 30 people filed criminal complaints, arguing that section 81a of the Code of Criminal Procedure allows no bodily intrusion once harm to health is feared.

On 26 January the Bürgerschaft of Bremen rejected a no-confidence motion from Alliance 90/The Greens, 60 votes to 19, with two abstentions; 12 Greens, the FDP deputy Wedler and eight others did not support him. Matthias Güldner held him responsible for the death in custody and for blaming Condé, and said that ending the practice after Hamburg in 2001 could have prevented it. The SPD, through Jens Böhrnsen, criticized the interview but opposed the motion because forced use had ended.

Scherf said, “Bei Thomas Röwekamp wird auch über mich entschieden,” and called the vote a test of the grand coalition, linked to talks on federal funds. He said officials had followed rules then thought correct, and that he felt responsible. Röwekamp stayed in office.

### Residence status of Murat Kurnaz

Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen born and raised in Bremen, was arrested in Pakistan and held from early 2002 at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp. He had no lawyer until June 2004. In August 2004 Röwekamp said on regional television that the unlimited residence permit had expired, because Kurnaz had left in November 2001 and not returned within six months, and that he had no discretion. The interior authority said the law does not distinguish among reasons. Amnesty International protested. Bremen treated the title as extinguished in 2004, and a Schengen entry ban followed in May 2004.

That autumn the Federal Interior Ministry under [Otto Schily](/people/otto-schily) pressed Bremen for material for an expulsion order, lest a court restore the permit and a visa still allow entry. A note of 16 November 2005 described the aim as preventing re-entry, while on 9 November Röwekamp’s staff had written that no serious danger was shown. The government later told the Bundestag that it had not instructed Bremen, under section 65 of the Aliens Act, to treat the permit as expired or to list him for a ban, though the ministry had been in contact with the authority. Re-entry, it said, is generally not decided by Länder interior departments.

On 30 November 2005 the Verwaltungsgericht Bremen (4 K 1013/05) held that the permit had not expired, because Kurnaz could not apply to extend the deadline. A spokesperson said an appeal would await written reasons. Röwekamp called comment on the judgment “unangemessene Polemik” and appealed. On 17 January 2006 a Chancellery meeting under [Angela Merkel](/people/angela-merkel) decided to accept his return. He withdrew the appeal; a report of 20 January said he had waived further remedies the day before, when the ministry also deleted the entry ban.

In March 2007 he told *Der Spiegel* that Berlin had steered the expulsion effort, which his staff had doubted because terrorism would have had to be proved. Schily said that, in agreement with the Bremen senator, the ministry had not wanted Kurnaz in Germany. In 2011 he told the *Weser-Kurier* that injustice had been done to Kurnaz at Guantánamo and in an unrealistic finding that he was dangerous.

## CDU leadership in opposition

### Faction chair after 2007

The Bürgerschaft election of 13 May 2007 ended twelve years of SPD–CDU government in Bremen. Lead candidate Thomas Röwekamp took the CDU to 25.6 percent and 23 of 83 seats. The SPD had 36.7 percent and 32 seats, Alliance 90/The Greens 16.5 percent and 14, the Left 8.4 percent and seven, and the FDP 6.0 percent and five. Turnout was 57.6 percent. Because the five-percent hurdle applies separately in Bremen and Bremerhaven, the DVU and Bürger in Wut each won a seat.

SPD delegates voted 191 to one for talks with the Greens. Mayor Jens Böhrnsen said the CDU had not shown what it stood for, while crediting the old coalition with better port infrastructure. On 29 June 2007 the Bürgerschaft elected him with 47 votes; Willi Lemke took interior. The CDU had already acclaimed Röwekamp unanimously as opposition leader on 22 May. He said the party would not re-enter a grand coalition and that failed red-green talks should mean a new election. Hartmut Perschau chaired the group until Röwekamp left the senate. On 2 July the faction elected Röwekamp without a vote against; Heiko Strohmann was one of three deputies chosen in contested ballots.

In January 2008 Röwekamp, also budget spokesman, called the 2008/09 draft irresponsible and said the senate was “feeding social poverty” rather than investing; he wanted faster pay rises for teachers and police. In 2010 the CDU proposed a debt brake in the state constitution, going beyond the Basic Law, to clear the structural deficit by 2020. He spoke of the “most brutal possible saving,” including unfilled teaching posts and a pay freeze, but withheld a full list until the CDU was in office. The State Court of Justice later dismissed a CDU–FDP challenge to the 2011 budget, while tying extra borrowing to a fixed consolidation path.

### State party leadership, 2008–2011

On 17 May 2008 Röwekamp, the only candidate, was elected state chair with 83.5 percent, succeeding Bernd Neumann, in office since 1979, who became honorary chair. He called for investment aid instead of money “squandered in the social-security systems” and said comprehensive schools harmed children with better chances. A congress confirmed him on 29 May 2010 with 86.3 percent.

Rita Mohr-Lüllmann led the 2011 list and sought black-green. Green candidate Karoline Linnert refused; her party also campaigned on the offshore terminal. On 22 May the CDU fell to 20.4 percent and 20 seats, behind the SPD (38.6 percent, 36 seats) and the Greens (22.5 percent, 21). [The Left](/organizations/the-left-slovenia) kept five seats on 5.6 percent, the FDP missed out on 2.4 percent, and Bürger in Wut held one seat on 3.7 percent. Turnout was 55.5 percent. Mohr-Lüllmann said there had been no mood for change, and red-green kept a large majority.

The state party then balloted its members on the chair for the first time. Of 3,021 members, 1,519 voted and 1,509 ballots counted: Mohr-Lüllmann 864, Röwekamp 645. On 16 December 2011 he resigned as state chair, asked her to act until spring 2012, and remained faction chair.

### Later elections and succession

On 10 May 2015, with Elisabeth Motschmann heading the list, the CDU regained second place on 22.4 percent and 20 seats. The SPD took 32.8 percent and 30, the Greens 15.1 percent and 14, the Left 9.5 percent and eight, the FDP 6.6 percent and six, the AfD 5.5 percent and four, and Bürger in Wut one seat on 3.2 percent. Turnout was 50.2 percent. The programme’s stated core was the economy, finances, transport, internal security, education and poverty. SPD and Greens still had 44 of 83 seats. Böhrnsen stood down as mayor. Motschmann said red-green had been voted out and offered a coalition; Böhrnsen had already called continuing red-green the first option.

At the 2019 state election on 26 May the CDU placed first for the first time, on 26.7 percent and 24 of 84 seats, ahead of the SPD on 24.9 percent and 23. The Greens had 17.4 percent and 16 seats, the Left 11.3 percent and ten, the AfD 6.1 percent and five, the FDP 5.9 percent and five, and Bürger in Wut one seat on 2.4 percent. Turnout was 64.1 percent. Lead candidate Carsten Meyer-Heder claimed the mayoralty. Jamaica—CDU, Greens and FDP—would have had 45 seats, and a grand coalition 47, but Greens and Left voted heavily to negotiate with the SPD. Maike Schaefer cited distrust of the FDP, its rejection of a carbon tax, and differences on transport and education. The SPD–Green–Left senate under [Andreas Bovenschulte](/people/andreas-bovenschulte), the first such government in a western state, left Röwekamp leading the largest opposition group.

On 13 July 2021 the faction elected manager Heiko Strohmann to succeed him. Röwekamp, chair for 14 years, was the state CDU’s Bundestag lead candidate.

## Bundestag elections

### 2021 election

At the Bundestag election of 26 September 2021, voters in the state of Bremen cast two votes: a first vote for a constituency candidate and a second vote for a party's closed state list, which sets how many seats the party receives. The state has two constituencies, Bremen I (Wahlkreis 54) and Bremen II–Bremerhaven (Wahlkreis 55). On 30 July 2021 the state electoral committee admitted the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) list with Thomas Röwekamp in first place, and the joint constituency committee admitted him as the CDU candidate in Bremen I, alongside Sarah Janina Ryglewski of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Elisabeth Motschmann, the CDU's member of the Bundestag from Bremen since 2013, had withdrawn her candidacy the previous February, writing to the state chairman that a contest with Röwekamp was splitting the party.

In the final result the CDU received 56,499 second votes in Bremen, 17.2 percent, 7.9 points below 2017, and one of the state's five seats. The SPD won both constituencies, so the CDU seat came from the list. Turnout in Bremen I was 75.9 percent. Röwekamp took 39,440 first votes, 21.3 percent, and placed third, behind Ryglewski, who was directly elected with 55,934 votes (30.2 percent), and [Kirsten Kappert-Gonther](/people/kirsten-kappert-gonther) of Alliance 90/The Greens, the Greens' candidate, with 39,721 votes (21.5 percent). He entered on the Bremen state list and became the CDU's Bundestag member from the state in succession to Motschmann. The 20th Bundestag convened on 26 October 2021. His Bundestag biography records that his membership of the Bürgerschaft of Bremen ended on 15 October 2021.

### 2025 election

Röwekamp again led the CDU state list and stood in Bremen I in the snap election of 23 February 2025. The electoral law amended on 8 June 2023 fixed the Bundestag at 630 members. A party candidate wins a constituency seat only with a plurality of first votes and with enough second votes in that state to cover the seat; any further constituency in which the party leads stays vacant.

The CDU received 71,573 second votes in Bremen, 20.6 percent, up 3.3 points, and again one of five seats, with one each also for the SPD, the Greens, [the Alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) for Germany and [Die Linke](/organizations/die-linke). Turnout in Bremen I was 81.2 percent. Röwekamp received 46,309 first votes, 24.0 percent, up 2.7 points, and finished second to Ulrike Elisabeth Hiller of the SPD, who received 48,663 votes (25.2 percent). The Federal Returning Officer recorded that Wahlkreis 54 remained unfilled for lack of second-vote coverage. The SPD led in both Bremen constituencies but was entitled to only one seat: coverage went to Bremen II–Bremerhaven, where its first-vote share was 30.3 percent, and not to Bremen I at 25.2 percent, the SPD's only uncovered constituency win in Germany. Röwekamp was returned from first place on the state list. The 21st Bundestag convened on 25 March 2025.

## Twentieth Bundestag

Thomas Röwekamp was a member of the 20th [German Bundestag](/organizations/german-bundestag) from 26 October 2021 to 25 March 2025, returned on the Bremen state list of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) after standing in constituency 054, Bremen I. The archived biography lists him as an ordinary member of the Defence Committee and of the 1st Committee of Inquiry on Afghanistan, as that inquiry’s CDU/CSU Obmann, and as a substitute on the Committee on Climate Action and Energy. It does not list the Petitions Committee, the legal-affairs committee, or the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

### Defense committee

He was an ordinary member of the Defence Committee, which Article 45a of the Basic Law requires. It meets in closed session, oversees the Bundeswehr, and is consulted on deployments and on procurements from €25 million, which in this term were central to spending the €100 billion special fund. On the agenda of the 84th sitting, 11 February 2025, he was the CDU/CSU rapporteur for clearance of the Afghanistan inquiry’s report before publication and for the government’s report on Israel and its consequences for German defence.

### Afghanistan committee of inquiry

From its constitution on 8 July 2022 until February 2025, Röwekamp was CDU/CSU Obmann of the 1st Committee of Inquiry, chaired by [Ralf Stegner](/people/ralf-stegner) of the SPD, on the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the evacuation after the Taliban took power. The committee then gave Vice President [Aydan Özoğuz](/people/aydan-ozoguz) printed paper 20/14700, a final report of more than 1,400 pages.

It was established that day under Article 44 of the Basic Law on a motion of the SPD, CDU/CSU, Alliance 90/The Greens and the Free Democratic Party (papers 20/2352 and 20/2553); the Alternative for Germany voted no and Die Linke abstained. Stegner was elected chair by secret ballot (11 in favour, one abstention), with [Thomas Erndl](/people/thomas-erndl) of the [Christian Social Union](/organizations/christian-social-union-in-bavaria) as deputy and Röwekamp and Jörg Nürnberger (SPD) as coordinators among twelve full members. The motion of 21 June 2022 ran from the Doha agreement of 29 February 2020, signed by the United States under [Donald Trump](/people/mig-donald-trump) and the Taliban, to 30 September 2021. It asked what the Chancellery and the defence, foreign, interior and development ministries knew and did about withdrawing the Bundeswehr and other NATO forces, evacuating Germans, Afghan local staff and others at risk, and influencing the American timetable.

On 27 June 2024, after about 80 sittings, he told *Das Parlament* that there had been no plan to evacuate German local staff until shortly before the collapse, while the Bundeswehr’s own exit had been orderly and soldiers had taken on people at risk beyond their core task. Trump and [Joe Biden](/people/env-person-joe-biden), he said, had planned only an American withdrawal. The local-staff procedure had never been built for large numbers, and the Foreign Office under Heiko Maas had avoided early planning so as not to signal instability; against Nürnberger, he defended the interior ministry under Horst Seehofer and blamed missing visas.

On 30 January 2025 he told the Bundestag that Germany had not set the date, that the Bundeswehr had met its aim and managed the pull-out, that local staff were neglected, and that the end had not been foreseen. Tagesschau reported more than 100 witnesses, mostly on the evacuation, and a dispute between the Foreign Office under Maas and the defence ministry under [Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer](/people/annegret-kramp-karrenbauer), and a Federal Intelligence Service view that Kabul would not fall until days before it did.

The Bundestag’s account of the handover says the SPD, CDU/CSU, Greens and FDP largely agreed, while the AfD attacked both the deployment and the inquiry. They found that Washington had dealt with the Taliban alone, that an unconditional date had made the Taliban a “government in waiting,” and that attempts by Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Foreign Office to add conditions later delayed worst-case planning. The CDU/CSU text said the moment to prepare must not be missed, credited the intelligence service and the defence and development ministries with foreseeing events, blamed the later picture mainly on the SPD-led Foreign Office, and with the FDP proposed a national security council; all four called the treatment of local staff deficient.

### Other roles

Throughout the term he was a substitute member of the Committee on Climate Action and Energy. In January 2025 the CDU/CSU group’s website, identifying him as a member of the 20th Bundestag and of the Defence Committee, listed him as chairman of the Bremen Land group (Landesgruppe Bremen).

## Twenty-first Bundestag and the defense committee

### Election as chair

In the 21st Bundestag, Thomas Röwekamp of the CDU/CSU holds his seat from the state list of Bremen. The Defence Committee (Verteidigungsausschuss) constituted itself on 21 May 2025 under vice president [Omid Nouripour](/people/omid-nouripour) of Alliance 90/The Greens. In a secret ballot it elected Röwekamp chair with 29 votes in favour and nine abstentions.

The committee has 38 ordinary members in this term: 13 from the CDU/CSU, nine from the Alternative for Germany, seven from the Social Democratic Party of Germany, five from Alliance 90/The Greens and four from Die Linke, with the same number of substitutes. The Bundestag names [Bettina Lugk](/people/bettina-lugk) (SPD) as deputy chair; the report of the constitutive sitting published a count only for the chair. Article 45a(1) of the Basic Law requires a defence committee. It prepares the plenary's legislative decisions and supports control of the government, including the Defence Ministry, the defence budget and procurement for the Bundeswehr.

### Assemblies and bilateral groups

The Bundestag biography lists Röwekamp as a deputy member of the Committee on Research, Technology, Space and Technology Assessment, an ordinary member of the German delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, and a delegation member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE. In October 2025 the Bundestag included him in the delegation led by [Marja-Liisa Völlers](/people/marja-liisa-vollers) (SPD) to the NATO assembly's annual session in Ljubljana. From 29 June to 3 July 2025 he was one of ten Bundestag members, led by [Tobias Winkler](/people/tobias-winkler) (CDU/CSU), at the OSCE assembly's 32nd annual session in Porto, on the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act.

On 26 June 2025 the parliamentary groups nominated him among eleven CDU/CSU members of the Joint Committee under Article 53a of the Basic Law, an emergency parliament of 32 Bundestag members and 16 members of the Bundesrat that meets if the Bundestag cannot convene in time. It was added with the 1968 emergency legislation and has never sat. The biography lists him as an ordinary member of that committee and as deputy chair of the German–Israeli Parliamentary Group.

### Defense and service policy

In an October 2025 interview with the Bundestag newspaper *Das Parlament*, Röwekamp said pledges to NATO required 260,000 temporary-career and career soldiers by 2035—"not a wish concert, but a military necessity"—which meant at least 5,000 to 10,000 additional active soldiers a year. The CDU/CSU wanted those steps fixed in the bill. Voluntary service should be tried first, he said, but conscription had to be ready if the figures were missed; because whole age groups were not required, he called a random draw of young men for mustering, and if necessary for service, the fairest method still open under the Basic Law.

Defence minister [Boris Pistorius](/people/boris-pistorius) (SPD) answered that only mustering whole cohorts would show who was fit. Röwekamp said questionnaires, compulsory for men and voluntary for women, already gave a first picture, and that both arguments should be weighed in the bill, including at a public hearing on 11 November 2025. He wanted enough volunteers that Germany would not have to tell Russia it lacked soldiers. Personally he favoured a general compulsory service year for a whole age group, not only young men—in the Bundeswehr, disaster relief, the fire service, care homes or daycare—as fairer by gender and between Germans and non-Germans. He said the constitution did not allow that general duty, so an amendment had to be considered, and that everyone living in Germany should be expected to contribute.

Green parliamentary co-leader [Britta Haßelmann](/people/britta-hasselmann) said on 15 October 2025 that the coalition's failure to hold the compromise was "totally amateurish," that the Bundeswehr was "not a lottery booth" and service "not a lottery," and that service should be wholly voluntary. In December 2025 he told *Die Welt*, as reported by Radio Bremen, that replacing 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers who leave each year, on top of any growth, made him doubt voluntarism would suffice, and that he expected compulsory service back within three years. A draw was still, for him, the fairest selection, and physical criteria were outdated: someone overweight need not be a poor drone pilot.

*Der Spiegel* reported in August 2025 that he thought German soldiers likely to help secure a peace in Ukraine after a settlement, in logistics, training and air defence, because Russian assurances had proved unreliable. Saxony's minister-president [Michael Kretschmer](/people/michael-kretschmer) opposed German ground troops there; Chancellor [Friedrich Merz](/people/friedrich-merz) left a deployment open, pending the coalition and a possible Bundestag mandate. In February 2026 *Die Zeit* reported that he told the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland voluntariness should remain the rule, but that service would have to be ordered if it could not fill the brigade in Lithuania.

## Private life and non-parliamentary roles

### Family and church

The Bundestag biography, compiled from Röwekamp's own statements, records that he is Evangelical Lutheran, married and has three children, and it publishes no names or further family detail.

In Bremerhaven the same disclosures list him as chairman of the Vereinigte Protestantische Gemeinde zur Bürgermeister-Smidt-Gedächtniskirche, a united Protestant congregation of the Bremische Evangelische Kirche. The Evangelische Zeitung, citing the Protestant press service, described him as an unpaid member of that congregation's church council. He was also a member of the church's governing body, the Kirchenausschuss, until 30 June 2025.

On 30 January 2025 the church synod, the Kirchentag, did not give him the 41 votes required for the nominating committee that prepares the election of the church leadership. He was absent. The day before, he had backed a Christian Democratic Union resolution for a stricter migration policy that passed with votes from the Alternative for Germany, and a delegate asked the synod to respond.

Europa-Union Deutschland lists him in its cross-party group of Bundestag members from Bremen.

### Legal practice and disclosed interests

Röwekamp has been a self-employed lawyer since 1997 and, since 2014, a notary. The Bundestag biography also describes him as the proprietor of a law partnership and a specialist lawyer in tax law, insurance law and inheritance law. While a member of parliament he has continued that work at Kanzlei Röwekamp & Ley GbR in Bremen. The partnership is disclosed as a business holding, with income from it referred to the amounts already published as paid activity alongside the mandate.

Reportable receipts are gross amounts, not taxable income; where a partnership's gross receipts cannot be determined, the published figure is the member's share of distributed profit.

The archived disclosure for the 20th Bundestag lists profit distributions from the firm of €38,000 in 2021, €150,000 in 2022, €216,493.82 in 2023, €104,241.79 in 2024 and €12,000 in 2025. The biography for the 21st Bundestag lists €18,972 for 2025 and €35,000 for 2026. Clients are listed by number and sector, mostly private consumers, without separate euro amounts. Abgeordnetenwatch and *Der Spiegel*, using filings as of 30 September 2024, put cumulative disclosed side income since 2021 at €505,573, 16th among members, and said most of about 240 clients were consumers or came from insurance and property management.

Other published interests include a seat on the supervisory board of GEWOBA Aktiengesellschaft Wohnen und Bauen in Bremen until 3 December 2021, for which €1,700 was reported for 2021; the unpaid chairmanship of the board of trustees of the Kieserling Stiftung in Bremen; and a board seat at the Deutsch-Koreanisches Forum until 4 May 2026. Third parties also met travel costs that had to be disclosed: ELNET Deutschland €3,096.09 in 2022, and the [Konrad Adenauer Foundation](/organizations/konrad-adenauer-foundation) €12,041.62 in 2023 and €6,673.57 in 2024.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/thomas-rowekamp