Since he took over as state premier of Bavaria in 2018, Markus Söder has not only become the commanding political presence in one of Germany’s richest states, but a leading conservative voice in Germany.
The 58-year-old dominates his party, the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), to such an extent that his deputies and ministers have little national profile and even less hope of replacing him for the foreseeable future.
Over the course of his tenure, Söder honed his identity into an affable political entertainer — a rare animal in Germany, where more reserved characters like former chancellors Angela Merkel and Olaf Scholz tend to prevail.
His speeches often feature off-the-cuff personal anecdotes, and Söder’s social media accounts have capitalized on his breezy style. His #Söderisst (“Söder eats”) hashtag, which involves posts of whatever he has had for dinner — often Bavarian specialties — has developed from a running gag into a cookbook.
That too is very much on-brand for Söder, who embraces merchandising with an enthusiasm that few politicians do. His face has featured on both giant Easter eggs and Christmas Lebkuchen, the famous Bavarian gingerbread cookies. In 2018, he also saw fit to display his face on a bizarre jokey logo promoting Bavaria’s space program, which he named “Bavaria One.” Most recently, the Bavarian leader has registered a “Söder Kebab” logo, featuring a picture of him slicing meat from a rotating skewer, which can be bought on a T-shirt from the CSU’s online store.
Sausage politics
These antics have prompted much criticism from his peers. “Markus Söder’s fetishistic sausage-eating is not politics. And yet it serves a purpose. It distracts from the reasons people may have for feeling overlooked and left behind,” said Robert Habeck, the former Green Party leader and German economy minister, in a recent interview with the taz newspaper.
Habeck, who resigned from politics this week with a series of swipes against his former colleagues, frequently clashed with Söder while in office, especially over the latter’s refusal to allow new wind farms in Bavaria.
Bavaria’s Premier Markus Söder (center, back row) enjoys posing in beer tents and at OktoberfestImage: Joerg Koch/Bayerische Staatskanz/SVEN SIMON/picture alliance
Söder was of course swift to offer a barbed retort: He wished Habeck “good luck outside of politics. Because he was very unsuccessful in politics,” he told the Bild newspaper. He added that he would “continue to enjoy eating Bavarian white sausages and Franconian bratwurst.”
But Söder’s style does seem to go down well in Bavaria. “He’s almost a cabaret performer,” CSU supporter Sabine Maier told DW at an election event in Ebersberg, near Munich, in September 2023, after the party leader had effortlessly regaled the crowd for about an hour.
Declining popularity
Söder’s CSU is not immune to the ongoing fragmentation in German politics. The CSU, which once boasted election results in Bavaria of over 60%, has been leaking voters in recent years and gained only 37% at the last state election in 2023. The poor showing was widely attributed to the rise of rival right-wing parties the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Free Voters (FW) — and Söder has been forced to share power in coalition with the latter.
Despite this, the CSU could claim several victories in the recent federal coalition negotiations with Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD): Despite only representing one state, Bavarians landed their key demands, including raising the “mother’s pension” for elderly mothers, and lowering sales tax on the gastronomy industry.
In 2020, when he was still embracing environmentalist policies, Markus Söder posed as a tree hugger for reportersImage: Peter Kneffel/dpa/picture alliance
‘Shameless and clever’
Söder was born in 1967 in Nuremberg, Bavaria’s second biggest city, to parents who ran a small building firm. His speeches sometimes feature an anecdote about his tough bricklayer father condemning his son’s general uselessness: “‘Kid, you have no chance of a decent job, you’ve got two left hands,'” Söder said his father told him. “‘The one thing that could save you is your big mouth. Maybe that’d be enough to become a priest or politician.'”
In fact, Söder’s first job after completing his law studies was as a journalist for the Bavarian state broadcaster BR. But a political career always seemed likely: He joined the CSU in his teenage years, and led the CDU/CSU’s national youth organization, the Junge Union, from 1995 to 2003.
That gave him the springboard into the state parliament and prepared his rise through various, increasingly prestigious posts: CSU general secretary, Bavarian minister for federal and European affairs, minister for environment and health, and finance minister in the cabinet of State Premier Horst Seehofer, who soon recognized him as a rival.
Every year, Söder dresses up in elaborate Carnival costumes — in 2016 he went as Bavaria’s King Ludwig IIImage: picture-alliance/Eventpress/Adolph
Even as he rose through these stations, Söder’s style was often criticized as too populist by his peers, and his biographer, Süddeutsche Zeitung journalist Roman Deininger, described him as “simultaneously shameless and clever.”
A Bavarian chancellor?
When Chancellor Angela Merkel retired in 2021, Söder exploited the ensuing power struggle at the top of the CDU and threw his hat in the ring to become the parties’ joint chancellor candidate against the Social Democrats’ Olaf Scholz in the general election.
Many saw him as a stronger candidate than the CDU’s preferred leader, Armin Laschet. But ultimately, the CDU leadership rallied behind Laschet, who promptly lost the election after running a gaffe-riddled campaign.
Söder’s ambitions for the chancellery seem to be dormant now. Since that struggle with Laschet, he has stressed that his loyalties are now to Bavaria. Perhaps for this reason, his relationship with Chancellor Friedrich Merz, himself no stranger to populist right-wing soundbites, has proved more or less cordial.
Edited by: Rina Goldenberg
This article was originally published in July 10, 2023 and was updated on September 2, 2025.
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