Jürgen Rüttgers

Jürgen Rüttgers (born 26 June 1951) is a German politician of the

Rüttgers was a Member of the German

In 2000, Rüttgers succeeded Norbert Blüm as chairman of the CDU in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. As head of the party in Germany's most populous state, he commanded considerable influence, especially with its grassroots.^[4] He also became the party's group leader in the state parliament. In this capacity, he notably opposed the takeover of Mannesmann by the British telecommunications company Vodafone in 2000, one of the largest-ever company takeovers worldwide.^[5]

Amid the revelations of the CDU donations scandal in early 2000, Rüttgers – who ran as the party's candidate in a crucial state election in North Rhine-Wesphalia that year – was one of the few leading figures who remained loyal to former Chancellor Helmut Kohl even after prosecutors began a criminal investigation into Kohl's financial dealings.^[6] By January 2000, daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung claimed that Kohl, angered by party chairman Wolfgang Schäuble's efforts to distance himself from the scandal surrounding secret payments to the party, was encouraging Rüttgers to make a bid for the leadership at the CDU's annual conference; instead, Angela Merkel was elected as Schäuble's successor^[6] and Rüttgers became one of her four deputies, alongside Volker Rühe, Annette Schavan and Christian Wulff.^[7]

In his role as chairman of the CDU in North Rhine-Westphalia, Rüttgers later publicly endorsed Merkel as the party's candidate to challenge incumbent Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in the 2002 federal elections; instead, Edmund Stoiber ended up being the joint candidate of CDU and CSU.^[8][9]

Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia

In the

Also in 2007, Rüttgers helped negotiate an agreement on closing Germany's last anthracite mines and clearing the way for the stock market flotation of the mines' owner, RAG AG, at the time the largest German coal producer and an international chemicals, energy and real estate conglomerate.^[15]

Between 2007 and 2009, Rüttgers was one of 32 members of the Second Commission on the modernization of the federal state, which had been established to reform the division of powers between federal and state authorities in Germany.

Shortly before the

Rüttgers joined the Düsseldorf office of German law firm Beiten Burkhardt as Of Counsel in March 2011. In this capacity, he is a member of the firm's Assets, Succession, Foundations practice group and also advises international companies on investments in Germany and German companies on international investments.^[19]

In May 2011, Deutsche Bahn nominated Rüttgers as executive director of the Brussels-based Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER);^[20] instead, Libor Lochman was eventually appointed to the position.^[21][22]

Rüttgers was a CDU delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2017^[23][24] and 2022.^[25]

Since 2021, Rüttgers has been a member of the so-called Limbach Commission (Advisory Commission on the return of cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution, especially Jewish property), a panel convened by the German government to give recommendations on restitution claims regarding art works stolen or purchased under duress by the Nazis.^[26]

In addition, Rüttgers has held several paid and unpaid positions since leaving politics, including the following:

• 321–2021: 1700 Years of Jewish Life in Germany, Chair of the Board of Trustees (since 2018)^[27]
• CFC Industriebeteiligungen AG, Member of the Supervisory Board (since 2011)^[28]
• Gothaer Lebensversicherung AG, Member of the Supervisory Board (2016–2023)^[29]
• Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, Member of the Foundation Council^[30]
• Brost-Stiftung, Member of the Board of Trustees^[31]
• Deutsche Telekom Stiftung, Member of the Board of Trustees^[32]
• Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS), Member of the Board^[33]

Political positions

During his political career, Rüttgers proved to be a conservative on social issues such as immigration. He also positioned himself as a "workers' leader" on economics, defending labor rights and opposing business demands for deregulation of the economy.^[34] Unlike many in his party at the time, he was also in favor of expanding day care for young children and supported all-day schools.^[35] Following the CDU's performance in the 2005 federal elections and the formation of the first government under Chancellor Merkel, Rüttgers blamed her campaign for talking "too much about flat tax and not enough about the people." Instead, he called on the party to shed its "capitalist" image.^[36]

In his 1993 book Dinosaurs of Democracy, Rüttgers attacked Germany's main parties and the government for being unwilling to decentralise political power to ordinary people.^[37]

Controversy

Rüttgers is widely known for his views on immigration and the much-discussed phrase "Kinder statt Inder" ("children instead of Indians") which was a media interpretation of "Statt Inder an die Computer müssen unsere Kinder an die Computer" ("instead of Indians in front of computers, our children must be in front of computers"), during an election campaign (which he eventually lost) at a time when there was a parallel nationwide discussion about whether or not immigration rules should be liberalised on behalf of attracting more highly qualified foreign academics to the German labor market.

In response to Rüttgers's much-discussed phrase Kinder statt Inder, Germany's Green Party overwhelmed his Internet mailbox with thousands of messages. The Internet attack was the first of its kind in German politics.^[38]

Recognition

Honors and awards

• 1997 – Georg Schulhoff Award
• 1997 – Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 2004 – In collaboration with the Ministers of Education Luigi Berlinguer (Italy), Claude Allègre (France) and Baroness Tessa Blackstone (Great Britain), Jürgen Rüttgers was one of the heads of the Sorbonne Declaration, with the aim of "harmonising the architecture of the European Higher Education system". For their achievements in European education and research, Rüttgers and his colleagues received an honorary doctorate from Roma Tre University in Rome in 2004.
• 2004 – European Craft Award^[39]
• 2007 – Rident Red Tape Award of the DBB civil servant union and tariff union
• 2008 – Commander of the Legion of Honor^[40]
• 2009 – Grand Cross of the Order of Merit Pro Merito Melitensi of the sovereign Order of Malta^[41]
• 2010 – Orden wider den tierischen Ernst (Order against dead seriousness)^[42]
• 2010 – Grand Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau
• 2015 – Commander Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland

Honorary degrees

• 2007 – Honorary doctorate from Waseda University
• 2008 – Honorary Professor of Ben Gurion University
• 2014 – Honorary Professorship of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

References