A combative orator and millionaire hobby pilot, the trained lawyer has a strong business background, including with US asset manager BlackRock, but has never before held a government leadership post.
After two decades of more centrist rule in Germany under his party rival Angela Merkel and then the Social Democrats, Merz has vowed a governing style that returns to the old-school conservative roots of his Christian Democrats (CDU).
In other signals of a rightward shift, Merz has vowed to impose a “zero tolerance” law-and-order drive, to limit “woke” policies and gender-sensitive language and to study a return to nuclear power, which was phased out under Merkel.
“The world out there isn’t waiting for us,“ he has warned after half a year of political paralysis in Berlin since the coalition of outgoing SPD chancellor Olaf Scholz imploded on November 6, the day Trump was re-elected.
On the European stage, Merz has pledged to rebuild Berlin's central role, in close partnership with Paris and Warsaw, as the European Union confronts what he has termed a new era during which Trump has thrown into doubt decades-old certainties.
Merz's inauguration fulfils his life's ambition to become chancellor, which Merkel foiled decades ago when she beat him in an internal power battle and went on to rule the country for 16 years.
Biographer Sara Sievert wrote that during that time Merz often railed against Merkel in private.
As he has staged his political comeback, Merz has openly attacked many of Merkel's policies, especially her welcome a decade ago to millions of war refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
In a political gamble, he pushed a non-binding motion demanding an immigration crackdown through parliament -- with the support of the AfD, a move widely condemned as breaking a long-standing taboo against co-operating with the far right.
'Captain of industry'
At six foot six (198 centimetres) tall, Merz stands out in a crowd. He is a licenced pilot who sometimes flies his own private jet.
“Merz is a classic bourgeois conservative,“ wrote Sievert, describing a politician who values good manners, punctuality, sharp suits and a tidy office.
A free-market liberal who wants to slash red tape to help Germany Inc, he outlined his views in a 2008 book titled “Dare More Capitalism”.
“He likes to flirt a little with this role of having returned to politics as an outsider, as an experienced captain of industry, not just a career politician like Scholz,“ he said.
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