Dennis Thering takes over the Hamburg CDU - and should open up new power options

When the Hamburg CDU last announced important personal details for a state election in spring 2019, Marcus Weinberg, who had been chosen for the top candidate, had invited to a restaurant on the top floor of a Reeperbahn skyscraper. However, the Hanseatic city was only optically at his feet - what followed was the fall of the Christian Democrats to a historically poor 11.2 percent in February 2020. A good three years later, the party has shed its skin several times, instead of the trendy district, the mezzanine floor of the Party headquarters in dignified Hanseatic Winterhude. At a press conference on Sunday, Dennis Thering was proclaimed the new leader: He is to replace Christoph Ploß as state chairman in April and also lead the party as the top candidate in the race for the 2025 state elections.

Thering has been the leader of the CDU parliamentary group in the Hamburg Parliament since the beginning of the current legislative period. At 38, he belongs to the new generation of his party. This also applies to the state chairman Christoph Ploß, who is a year younger and has a close ally in Thering. Both have freed the party from the idea that electoral success in a big city can be achieved by getting as close as possible to the SPD and Greens - because then there is public applause but no votes. Ploß, in particular, has been following a more conservative party course since then, and as a puller behind the scenes, he did not shy away from accepting a former AfD parliamentary group leader into the party, bypassing the committees, or with an anti-gender initiative, whose spokeswoman likes to talk about homosexuality and that Ende Evolution ponders getting on a boat.

In an election campaign, this could have been difficult for Thering as the top candidate, having to catch possible statements from his own party leader hasn't helped anyone candidacy. Even in some district associations of the CDU, the use of Ploß was recognized, but the political style and orientation were not necessarily appreciated. Coalition options with the Greens or the SPD would also have become problematic as a result of Ploß, he is too much of a stimulus for that. And since the Merz friend already sees his political future as a member of the Bundestag in Berlin, as he emphasized several times, the change is surprising, but strategically explainable. The impetus for this came from himself, Ploß said on Sunday. He thinks it is right to focus on “one person” for the upcoming election campaigns – district elections will be held in Hamburg next year.

Thering, married, father of one daughter, trained banker and bachelor's degree in political science, is generally more reserved in appearance. In recent years he has tried out different political styles in relation to the red-green government under Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD), most recently he switched to attack with a view to transport and port policy. It has been clear for a long time that he would run as a top candidate, he himself only confirmed this a few weeks ago. The approval of a state party conference is then only a matter of form. The change at the top of the state is to be voted on April 3rd.

Thering now wants to remain in attack mode for the next two years: "The mood in the city is changing," he says. Hamburg currently has a "historically weak Senate", which also applies to Tschentscher at the top, who is "historically weak in decision-making and leadership". Tschentscher is also responsible for issues such as transport policy, for which the Greens are responsible in the Senate, after all he supports the traffic turnaround course. In contrast to the governing coalition, the CDU is as determined and resolute as he "has not experienced it since 2001" - at that time Thering joined the CDU to support Ole von Beust. At that time, it had succeeded in conquering the town hall with issues such as internal security and the economy and through a coalition with the Schill party. Thering has come back to these issues, but he rules out a coalition with the AfD and recently underpinned this with speeches in the citizenship.

The role model and encourager for the Hamburg CDU is Berlin, which was able to put the Union's big city problem aside and could now even appoint the governing mayor with Kai Wegner. Here, too, the CDU scored with a bourgeois course and classic party issues. The view also goes to the smaller city-state of Bremen, where elections are held in May and, according to polls, the CDU is in the race for the top spot. It is unlikely to get that far in Hamburg, the SPD and Greens currently have a two-thirds majority. But Thering could achieve respectable success and get over 20 percent; the last poll published looked at his party in this area. And then, perhaps 14 years after the end of the last government participation, the CDU would be back as a power option for the SPD and the Greens on the political stage in the Hanseatic city. Thering himself is convinced that this will work: This time, according to Thering, there will be an election campaign on an equal footing with the SPD and the Greens - in 2020 public perception focused primarily on the duel between the Greens Katharina Fegebank and Tschentscher. In this respect, Thering said on Sunday, not without self-confidence, "this Sunday is also an important day for the city."