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Boris Pistorius (SPD), Federal Minister of Defense, next to his partner Julia Schwanholz.
© Annette Riedl/dpa
As Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius has quickly become Germany's most popular politician.
Now the man from Lower Saxony has married the woman at his side.
Berlin - Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and his partner Julia Schwanholz have married.
The wedding took place between the years, said a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense in Berlin upon request.
The “Bild” newspaper first reported, which wrote on Friday that the highest employer of the soldiers in the Bundeswehr had “secretly said YES”.
Pistorius (63) and Schwanholz, who is around 20 years younger, are both in the SPD.
The political scientist is known in Osnabrück, Pistorius's hometown, as chairwoman of the Working Group of Social Democratic Women.
She is an academic advisor at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Duisburg-Essen.
Her areas of expertise include parliamentary and democracy research with a focus on digital transformation.
Lower Saxony Pistorius - who was the state's interior minister until he took office at the head of the defense department a good year ago - and Schwanholz appeared together in public more than a year ago.
In the state elections in October 2022, they came together to the state parliament in Hanover.
Pistorius' first wife died in 2015 and there was a separation from Doris Schröder-Köpf in 2022.
As Defense Minister, Pistorius quickly became the most popular politician in Germany in surveys.
With a hands-on and genuine manner, he quickly gained recognition.
He is repeatedly seen as a kind of reserve chancellor for the SPD if Olaf Scholz cannot turn things around.
Pistorius himself emphasizes that he still has a lot planned as defense minister.
Schröder-Köpf publicly praised Pistorius' character highly last year.
“He is the perfect combination of experience and openness, grounding and imagination, a sense of responsibility and generosity,” wrote the then 59-year-old in a guest article for “Bild” in April under the headline “That’s why everyone loves Boris.”
“He leaves behind neither politically nor privately scorched earth.
He has strong opinions and leadership, the women in the Ministry of Defense can rely on him to see their interests and promote their talents,” Schröder-Köpf continued.
In the post she reveals that he also has “(a few, small) weaknesses”, for example when it comes to sweets.
“I learned from him that there is a “dessert stomach” - especially for meringues and tiramisu.” dpa