Margret Mergen

Margret Mergen (Elisabeth Margarete Mergen; * 26 August 1961 in Billerbeck, Westphalia) is a CDU politician who served as Lord Mayor of Baden-Baden from 2014 to 2022. She won the mayoral election of 16 March 2014 outright, taking an absolute majority in the first round, and succeeded the incumbent Wolfgang Gerstner on 10 June 2014.

Background and education

Elisabeth Margarete Mergen was born on 26 August 1961 in Billerbeck, Westphalia. Her father directed the Chamber of Agriculture of Westphalia-Lippe. She passed her Abitur in 1980, then studied geography at the University of Münster and graduated with a diploma in 1986. She has been married to Wolfgang Pöter since 1997.

Career

Mergen began her career in 1987 as a trainee with the city of Karlsruhe and took further qualifications at the Baden-Württemberg state academy of public administration. In 1993, Karlsruhe’s then Lord Mayor Prof. Dr. Gerhard Seiler appointed her city treasurer. She ran for Lord Mayor of Rastatt in 1999 and narrowly lost to the incumbent, Klaus-Eckhard Walker. In 2000 she moved to Heilbronn, where she was elected mayor for economic affairs and finance and later First Mayor as well. From 2007 to 2014 she served as a mayor of Karlsruhe, and from 2009 to 2014 as the city’s First Mayor.

Lord Mayor of Baden-Baden

In the 2014 mayoral election in Baden-Baden, Mergen prevailed against five other candidates and took office on 10 June 2014. In March 2017 Baden-Baden hosted the G20 finance ministers’ meeting, where she welcomed the ministers and central bank governors.

In the mayoral election of 2022 she took 24.69 % of the vote in the first round and then withdrew from the race. Dietmar Späth was elected as her successor on 27 March 2022 and took over the office on 10 June 2022.

After the mayoralty

Mergen stayed active in politics after leaving office, with a focus on local government. In October 2023 she was appointed to the Baden-Württemberg Regulatory Control Council (Normenkontrollrat) and became its deputy chair. The six-member honorary body advises the state government on cutting red tape and reviews draft state legislation before it is passed. The appointment runs for five years.^[1]

Within the CDU, she sits on the Baden-Württemberg state executive, serves as deputy state chair of the party’s local-government association and belongs to that association’s federal executive. She also chairs the state policy committee on municipalities and civil protection. Beyond the party, she is president of the Verwaltungs- und Wirtschaftsakademie Baden e.V., deputy president of the Josef-Saier-Stiftung and a lecturer for the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, where she trains mayors and council groups.^[2] In April 2026 she joined the board of trustees of the Eberhard-Schöck-Stiftung.^[3] Founded in 1992 by the construction entrepreneur Eberhard Schöck and based in Baden-Baden, the foundation pursues two aims: promoting the skilled trades in Central and Eastern Europe, currently above all in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, and promoting the German language, for which it awards the Kulturpreis Deutsche Sprache.^[4]

References

1. ↑ Neuer Normenkontrollrat nimmt Tätigkeit auf, Normenkontrollrat Baden-Württemberg, 19 October 2023, retrieved 12 July 2026 (Archived)
2. ↑ Über mich, margret-mergen.de, retrieved 12 July 2026 (Archived)
3. ↑ Schöck Stiftung fördert Handwerksausbildung in Osteuropa, margret-mergen.de, April 2026, retrieved 12 July 2026 (Archived)
4. ↑ Die Stiftung, Eberhard-Schöck-Stiftung, retrieved 12 July 2026 (Archived)

Web links

• Margret Mergen’s official website