education and professional activity

From 1977 Söder attended the Nuremberg Dürer High School . After graduating from high school in
1986 (average grade 1.3) [3] he did basic military service in Transport Battalion 270 in
Nuremberg . [17] From 1987 he studied law at the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-
Nuremberg on a scholarship from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation . In 1991 he passed the first
state examination in law (overall grade 7.41 points) [18] and was then a research assistant at the chair
for state ,Administrative and Canon Law at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. In 1998, Söder
became a modern municipal edict at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg with his dissertation Von
Altdeutschen Rechtstraditionen. The development of municipal legislation in Bavaria on the right
bank of the Rhine between 1802 and 1818 to Dr. legal PhD . [19] The work was rated satis bene . [20]
From 1992 to 1993 he completed a traineeship at Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) , after which he
worked as an editor at BR in Munich until 1994 . [21]
In 2003, in addition to his seat in the state parliament, Söder was head of
central corporate communications at Baumüller Holding [22] owned by his father-in-law Günter
Baumüller. [23]

Young Union

Markus Söder as a young CSU MP (2003)

Markus Söder as CSU General Secretary (2007)

As a teenager, Söder was an admirer of Bavaria's Prime Minister at the time, Franz Josef Strauss : "I
really liked Strauss, this powerful clockwork, this titan of words. I even had a huge poster of Strauss,
almost larger than life. I lived in our house under a sloping roof and this poster hung there. So when I
woke up, I looked straight at Strauss on the ceiling. In later years, that didn't turn out to be so easy
when a friend was there and Strauss saw her first. [...] But I really liked Strauss.” [24] Söder became a
member of the CSU and the Junge Union in 1983(JU). He remained a JU member until reaching
retirement age in 2003 and was state chairman of JU Bavaria from 1995 to 2003.

Party career in the CSU

From 1997 to 2008, Söder was chairman of the CSU district association in Nuremberg-West. He has
been a member of the Presidium of the CSU since 1995. In 2000 he was appointed head of the CSU
media commission.
From November 17, 2003 to October 22, 2007, Söder was Secretary General of the CSU. He was a
member of the working group that drew up the government program of the Union parties for
the 2005 federal elections .
In 2008, Söder succeeded Günther Beckstein , who had been elected Prime Minister, as CSU
district chairman of Nuremberg-Fürth-Schwabach. In 2015, he was confirmed in office at the CSU
district party conference with 98%. [25] He held the post until he was elected party leader.
On January 19, 2019, at the CSU party conference in Munich, Söder was elected with 87.4 percent
of the votes to succeed Horst Seehofer as chairman of the CSU . [26] He is the first evangelical CSU
chairman.

public offices

Söder has been a member of the Bavarian State Parliament for the Nuremberg-West

constituency since 1994 . Like others supported by Edmund Stoiber, he is counted among the so-
called '94 group. From 1999 to 2003, Söder was deputy chairman of the commission of inquiry "With
new energy into the new millennium" and was a member of the board of the CSU parliamentary
group from 2003 to 2007 by virtue of his office as CSU general secretary.
On October 16, 2007, Söder was sworn in as Minister of State for Federal and European
Affairs in the Beckstein cabinet. After the state elections in Bavaria in 2008 , he was
appointed Minister of State for the Environment and Health in the Seehofer I cabinet . In November
2011 he succeeded Georg Fahrenschon as Bavarian State Minister of Finance. In the Seehofer II
cabinet , he had been Minister of State for Finance, Regional Development and Homeland  since
October 2013 .
After months of power struggles between Söder and Prime Minister Horst Seehofer , he announced
his resignation as Bavarian Prime Minister on December 4, 2017 for the first quarter of 2018. On the
other hand, he wants to remain in the office of CSU chairman. Seehofer specified his announced
resignation from the office of Prime Minister in writing at the beginning of March, effective March 13,
2018. [27] [28]
On March 16, 2018, Söder was elected Prime Minister in the Bavarian state parliament with an
absolute majority of 99 of the 169 votes cast in the first ballot. 64 MPs voted no, 4 abstained, 2 votes
were invalid. [29]