Olaf Scholz (; born ) is a German politician, and has been Chancellor of Germany since 8 December 2021. He was First Mayor of Hamburg from 7 March 2011 to 13 March 2018. From 2018 until 2021, Scholz was the Vice Chancellor of Germany and Federal Minister of Finance during the Angela Merkel cabinet.
Early life
Scholz was born on June 14, 1958, in Osnabrück, Lower Saxony, but grew up Hamburg's Rahlstedt district. He began studying law at the University of Hamburg in 1978 as part of a one-stage legal training course.
Hamburg and national politics
From May to October 2001, he was Minister of the Interior (Innensenator) of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and from 2002 to 2004 he was general secretary of the SPD.
In 2005 Scholz was elected a member of the sixteenth Bundestag, and succeeded Franz Müntefering as Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, when the latter left office in 2007.
In 2010, Scholz took part in the annual Bilderberg Meeting in Sitges, Catalonia, Spain.
On 20 February 2011, the Social Democrats led by Scholz won the Hamburg state election, 2011 with 48.3% of the votes, resulting in 62 out of 121 seats in the Hamburg Parliament. Scholz resigned as a member of the seventeenth Bundestag on 11 March 2011 shortly after his election as First Mayor.
Merkel cabinet
After the 2017 federal election, the CDU, CSU and SPD agreed to continue a coalition, Scholz was accepted by all parties as Federal Minister of Finance. Scholz was sworn in alongside the rest of the Government on 14 March 2018. He also took the role of Vice-Chancellor of Germany under Angela Merkel. Within his first months in office, Scholz became one of Germany's most popular politicians, reaching an approval rating of 50 percent.
Chancellor of Germany
2021 federal election
On August 10, 2020, the SPD party executive nominated him as its chancellor candidate for the 2021 federal election in Germany. Scholz led the SPD to a narrow victory in the election, winning 25.8% of the vote and 206 seats in the Bundestag.
On 8 December 2021, Scholz was elected and sworn-in as Chancellor by the Bundestag with 395 votes in favour and 303 against. At of age, Scholz is the oldest person to become Chancellor of Germany since Ludwig Erhard who was old when he assumed office on 17 October 1963.
Tenure
During his campaign in the 2021 election, Scholz was against forcing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. However, since the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant began to rise in late November 2021, he supported a vaccine mandate, including closure of non-essential retail stores to unvaccinated adults and a vaccine mandate for adults.
Personal life
Scholz is married to SPD politician Britta Ernst since 1998. The couple live in Potsdam since 2018.