Christian Lindner

Christian Lindner
Member of the Bundestag
In office
2009–2012
Leader of the Free Democratic Party
Incumbent
Assumed office
7 December 2013
Preceded by Philipp Rösler
Secretary General of the FDP
In office
24 December 2009 – 14 December 2011
Preceded by Dirk Niebel
Succeeded by Patrick Döring
Personal details
Born January 7, 1979
Wuppertal, West Germany
Political party FDP
Residence Düsseldorf, Wermelskirchen
Occupation Politician
Religion None

Christian Lindner (born January 7, 1979) is a German politician and leader of the liberal party Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP).

Early life and education

Christian Lindner was born in Wuppertal, Germany. His father Wolfgang Lindner is a teacher of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Städtisches Gymnasium in Wermelskirchen. After graduating from Gymnasium in 1998, he studied political science at the University of Bonn from 1999 to 2006.[1][2]

Political career

Lindner joined the FDP in 1995. He has been a member of the Executive Board of the FDP in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia since 1998 and became Secretary General in 2004 (until February 2010). In 2000, he was elected to the state parliament (Landtag) (until 2009). In 2007 he also became a member of the Executive Board of the FDP on federal level.

From 2009 Lindner has served as a member of the German Bundestag. In the negotiations to form a coalition government following the 2009 federal elections, he was part of the FDP delegation in the working group on families, integration of immigrants and culture, led by Maria Böhmer and Hans-Joachim Otto. From December 2009 until his surprise resignation[3] in December 2011, he was also general secretary of the FDP on federal level.

Lindner was later chosen to lead the FDP in the 2012 state election of North Rhine-Westphalia.[4] In the election, the FDP received 8.6% of the vote,[5] surpassing all expectations at the time.[6]

Linder was elected the new chairman of the FDP following the resignation of Chairman Philipp Rösler after the 2013 German federal elections[7][8] in which the FDP failed to clear the 5% hurdle to enter the Bundestag for the first time since 1949.[9]

In early 2015, an impromptu rant by Lindner, defending entrepreneurs and startup culture made it onto newspaper front pages and became one of the most watched political speeches in months. Lindner was speaking before the state legislature in North Rhine-Westphalia about the importance of entrepreneurship when a Social Democratic member in the audience yelled: “That’s something you have experience in.” That was a reference to an Internet company co-founded by Lindner that failed after the dot-com bubble burst in the early 2000s. Lindner responded with a finger-wagging, 2½-minute tirade. “If one succeeds, one ends up in the sights of the Social Democratic redistribution machinery and, if one fails, one can be sure of derision and mockery,” he responded.

Bild, the highest-circulation daily newspaper in Germany, praised Lindner on its front page. The Berlin daily Tagesspiegel said the rant offered a welcome contrast to the “persistent fog of alternative-less Merkelism” that characterized debate in the Bundestag.[10]

Other activities

References

External links