“Let’s celebrate tonight and in the morning, we’ll get to work,” he told cheering supporters. His immediate priority is to try to form a government with the third-placed Social Democrats of Olaf Scholz.
Even before the result was clear, Merz said his top priority was unity in Europe, so that “step by step, we can really achieve independence from the US”.
The other big winner in Sunday’s vote was the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), who are celebrating a record second-place result of 20.8%.
The AfD’s candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel, did a victory lap of her supporters, but even her party had hoped for a greater result and the mood at AfD HQ was subdued.
Merz, 69, has never held a ministerial job, but he has promised if he becomes the next German chancellor to show leadership in Europe and beef up support for Ukraine.
Most Germans have been shocked by President Donald Trump’s conduct towards Ukraine and Europe and Friedrich Merz said the US leader had shown “the Americans are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe”.
Trump has labelled Ukraine’s leader a “dictator” and two of his leading figures have openly backed the AfD in the run-up to the vote. Vice-President JD Vance was accused of meddling in the vote during a visit to Munich, while billionaire Elon Musk has made repeated remarks on his X platform.