One office suits him, he has already filled it once. That was from 2000 to 2002, and even then Friedrich Merz, as leader of the opposition, accompanied an SPD-led federal government through particularly turbulent times, one could say: through times of a turning point.

The September 11 terrorist attack was followed by Otto Schily's security laws and the deployment of the Bundeswehr in Afghanistan. Merz was sometimes critical, sometimes constructive, always pointed. He has continued this style since he was re-elected chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group 20 years later in mid-February.

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