An East German phantom: This mysterious man is Merz's closest advisor
Jacob Schrot is 34, from Brandenburg, a talent show winner, and sat next to Friedrich Merz in Donald Trump's speech. But anyone trying to get close to him encounters obstacles. A search for clues.
This week, he sat in the Oval Office, diagonally across from Donald Trump and JD Vance. Right next to Friedrich Merz . He saw up close how the Chancellor remained calm and, on a few occasions, answered questions so confidently that even political opponents in Germany praised him. He saw the Chancellor present Trump's grandfather's birth certificate, a small coup in the form of a gift. He saw how the visit to the White House, which could have been a disaster for his boss, turned into a success.
A success that, as far as we know, he played a key role in preparing: the man next to Merz. A 34-year-old from Brandenburg an der Havel. An America fan, a political nerd who has risen to become the Chancellor's closest advisor, and yet whose name hardly anyone knows: Jacob Schrot.
Even during the election campaign, he was almost always seen at Merz's side. Schrot greeted journalists in a friendly manner, carried documents, kept an eye on his boss, and was barely noticeable. From a distance, the two men could almost be mistaken for each other. Schrot is just as tall as Merz, almost two meters tall, just as slim, and wears similar suits, often dark blue. Even his receding hairline resembles his boss's.
Jacob Schrot: A young Friedrich Merz from Brandenburg?After the election, Merz announced that Schrot would head his office in the Chancellery and establish the new National Security Council, a central element in Merz's political reorganization.
Much of this is surprising. Schrot is half Merz's age, and he grew up far away from the Sauerland region, in eastern Germany. The part of the country that Friedrich Merz feels noticeably alienated from. Schrot worked under Angela Merkel and for Armin Laschet—for the other camp in the CDU, so to speak. Only three years ago, he joined Merz's team. And now he sits next to him under Donald Trump. In the innermost circle of power.
How did a young East German manage this? What distinguishes him, what has shaped him politically? And does he only resemble his boss in appearance—or is Schrot a young Merz, a man with even more plans than just running the Chancellor's office?
Anyone attempting to approach Jacob Schrot encounters obstacles. He responds to an inquiry politely but negatively. He writes that he does not want any reports about him and wants to remain in the background. While this research was still underway, a request was made to delete his Wikipedia article, and later the entry actually disappeared.
A surprising number of associates don't even respond when asked about Schrot. Yet, one would like to know what the Chancellor's closest confidant achieved in previous public offices, how he got into politics, and what drives him. At the age of 16, he reportedly joined the CDU in his hometown of Brandenburg and has remained firmly rooted there ever since. The district association even ignores inquiries about whether this is true. Politicians from the CDU who talk about him decline to be quoted later.
It's like chasing a phantom.
At the same time, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group is saying that Schrot impresses with his "communication skills." At least within the party, he seems to be anything but a phantom. Almost everyone knows him personally because, although he's still young, he's also been around for a long time. But nothing is supposed to be leaked to the public—at least not since he took over the Chancellery.
This is how Günther Jauch remembers Jacob SchrotJacob Schrot's path into politics began as publicly as it could in the pre-social media era: with a casting show. It aired on ZDF and was called "I Can Be Chancellor." That's why you can ask Günther Jauch about Jacob Schrot. The TV presenter, the superstar of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." Sixteen years ago, he sat on a jury for the show Schrot participated in. Unlike Schrot's local CDU chapter, he's back immediately.
Although Jauch doesn't remember any details of the show, an image of Jacob Schrot has stuck in his mind: "A typical 18-year-old with long hair, quite cute." Schrot was the youngest in the final round – and the best, says Jauch. The participants always had one minute to speak on a topic, and Schrot spoke the most convincingly, "and didn't just sound like a politician." "He knew what he was doing," says Jauch.
You can find several scenes from the show online, and Schrot can be seen in one of them. Tall, lanky, wearing a blouson jacket over a white shirt. He's pondering the quiz question about whether Konrad Adenauer played chess, skat, or boccia in his free time. In another scene, he's seen at the moment of his first great triumph. He fidgets a bit, but when he learns that more than 72 percent of the 80,000 callers voted for him, he just nods curtly, raises an arm in thanks like a politician on stage, and nods again. The 18-year-old seems like an old hand, trapped in the body of a teenager.
Jauch recalls that Schrot had "already done a lot" when he came on the show. In an interview with a local newspaper before the finale, Schrot himself listed his career: UNICEF Youth Ambassador, Amnesty International, State Student Council, Youth Welfare Committee, and he had just returned from an exchange to Israel. He said, "I never travel without being political." His parents were worried because he often only slept four hours.
He explained that his mother was from Brandenburg an der Havel, his father from Rudolstadt in Thuringia; both were doctors. Jacob Schrot was born in June 1990, a child of the last summer of the GDR.
At 21, he senses a “political market gap”For his victory in the casting show, he won a chancellor's salary of €16,000, and an internship in the Bundestag. But Jacob Schrot explained that he had already been there, Günther Jauch recalls. He preferred the Chancellery. Jauch didn't follow Schrot's future after the show. But when he found out now, he wasn't surprised.
After the show, Schrot went to Uganda for a year of community service, then moved to Dresden to study politics and communications. The show stuck with him there, according to a former classmate who sat with Schrot on the philosophy student council. A "certain aura" surrounded him. He was more of an outsider, he said, than a CDU member among left-wing students. Schrot "had his cake and eat it," says the former classmate, accumulating positions to bolster his resume, or so it seemed to him. It was noticeable that Schrot felt "called to greater things."
In addition to university, Schrot led a working group on Christian values for the Dresden CDU, led school classes through the Saxon state parliament as a side job, and appeared on Maybrit Illner's talk show. He had a CV that had grown to three pages. He told a Zeit journalist who was writing a profile of him: "When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I think about is politics. Even if my girlfriend is lying next to me." He was 20 at the time.
While his former classmate suspected him of being a careerist, his colleagues from the CDU say that Schrot showed “genuine political interest” early on, which is rare.
Shortly before his 21st birthday, he identified a "political niche in the market" within the "community of transatlanticists," in which he was already active at the time. A pro-America native from Brandenburg, Schrot felt there were too few young people in the scene, and founded the Young Transatlanticists initiative, which still exists today. Schrot is its honorary chairman. He talks about the founding of the group in a podcast on the website. He speaks like someone who loves to talk, explains, often interjecting "now I'll stop too," but then doesn't stop.
He says that his "family background is very clearly pro-Western," and that he has always been interested in German-American relations; this is "self-explanatory." He talks about hearts "in Giessen, Flensburg, Augsburg" that must be won over to the cause. He doesn't mention his East German origins or the skepticism many in the East feel toward the United States.
It's anything but obvious that a boy from Brandenburg an der Havel would become a transatlanticist. Schrot talks about the Berlin Airlift and the Marshall Plan, just as Angela Merkel used to talk about Adenauer, carefully concealing her inner East Germanness. This still seems to be the surest path if someone from Brandenburg or Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania wants to make it not just to the position of Commissioner for Eastern Europe, but to the very top.
The podcast also reveals how strategically Schrot approached things even as a student. He founded the association with seven members "from a blank sheet of paper," which he says was liberating. Until there were 150, he called each of them every two months, which "didn't do his phone bill much good." He has become friends with US ambassadors, and in one case even with the ambassador's family. What you do at the top of an organization is of great importance, he explains; that's the case in every district association. It's about "leading by example." For four or five years, he devoted all of his free time to the association.
Lukas Winkelmann, who now leads the Young Transatlanticists, which has since grown to 300 members, says: "Jacob still supports us with advice and support. He said you can always call me if you need help." Winkelmann sits in a suit and tie in a café in Berlin-Friedrichshain, where no one else is wearing even an ironed shirt, a Coke with ice in front of him. He is a student and, like Schrot, joined the CDU at a young age, but he comes from Rhineland-Palatinate. His parents and grandparents already felt a connection to the Americans who were stationed nearby.
He describes Jacob Schrot as "friendly, approachable, calm, thoughtful." In Young Transatlantic circles, he is jokingly called the young Friedrich Merz. "I think Jacob and Friedrich Merz have a similar approach to problems—an analytical one," says Winkelmann. Schrot evidently shares the unconditional faith in the West, which is also one of the Chancellor's core beliefs, even if it comes from very different sources.
Jacob Schrot, the talent show winner who was supposed to represent young people in politics, gave repeated interviews. It became increasingly clear that he was no ordinary young politician.
Armin Laschet on Jacob Schrot: “He doesn’t care about work-life balance”At 27, he spoke in a Deutschlandfunk report about what it was like to work for two members of the Bundestag. One of the two parliamentarians was Stephan Harbarth, now President of the Federal Constitutional Court. Jacob Schrot estimated in the radio report that he worked 70 hours a week in both jobs, but he sounded cheerful. Shortly thereafter, Harbarth promoted him to office manager.
The job marked the beginning of his rise: From office manager, Schrot became a senior advisor in the Chancellery, Foreign Policy Division. Then, he became a senior advisor to the head of the Foreign Policy Department. In 2021, he became the personal advisor to Armin Laschet, the then chancellor candidate and chairman of the CDU. Schrot was now 29 years old, and the casting show had been eleven years ago. He probably still slept little, thought about politics first thing in the morning, and never traveled outside of politics.
Armin Laschet says of Jacob Schrot: "He doesn't care about work-life balance." Laschet has exactly ten minutes for a phone conversation about Schrot. He fills the minutes with praise, calling Schrot an exceptional talent. "If he weren't good, he wouldn't be in the Chancellery now." When he started working for him, Schrot was young, "but already very experienced." Laschet describes him as a "calm, matter-of-fact, precise worker, unpretentious. He puts himself at the service of the cause."
Laschet also has a surprising assessment: East German identity has always played a role for Schrot, he says. "He has deep roots in Brandenburg an der Havel. He often reported from there; I always knew where he came from." Schrot, Laschet believes, is proof that East Germans can reach influential positions. Without any quotas. You just have to work as tirelessly as Jacob Schrot. "It was always clear that he would either become a politician himself or end up in a position like the one he has now," says Laschet.
In spring 2022, Friedrich Merz merged the leadership and planning staff of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, which he then headed. He assigned the new position to Jacob Schrot. He suddenly wielded enormous power within the parliamentary group. Sources within the group reported that there were "as always" jealous individuals, but that Schrot was not perceived as arrogant. What the parliamentary group members perceived was that Schrot had "no other agenda than Merz" and clearly had the full trust of the leader.
He organizes a trip to Ukraine for the new bossSchrot also organized a trip for Merz. And even then, it was a political victory: In May 2022 , Merz traveled to Ukraine , even before Olaf Scholz had decided to do so. Schrot was there. After his return, he gave an interview to the Märkische Allgemeine newspaper, talking about how deeply the visit to bombed-out Kyiv had upset him. It was a "roller coaster of emotions." He was particularly impressed by how "disciplined and calm" things had been in Kyiv, and how well organized it was.
Then Jacob Schrot disappears from public view.
Perhaps his role model is Beate Baumann, who headed Angela Merkel's office in the Chancellery and still works alongside her today. Little is known about her, and she keeps a low profile. A phantom, if you will.
But Baumann has never won a casting show, never led the parliamentary group's leadership team. She has also never taken on a task like the one Schrot now faces: the establishment of the National Security Council, which is intended to enable the government to respond more quickly to domestic and foreign policy crises. The council is the linchpin of Merz's paradigm of a "single-source security policy." The establishment is likely to be difficult because ministries could fear for their power. It will be Jacob Schrot's first real test.
If he passes this test, the young man from the East, who won the "I can be Chancellor" vote and worked tirelessly for his rise, would likely be firmly established at the center of West German power. His name would then be familiar to almost everyone.
Berliner-zeitung
