David McAllister

Leibniz University Hannover, where McAllister studied law

McAllister was born in West Berlin on 12 January 1971 to a Scottish father and a German mother. His father, James Buchanan McAllister, who was originally from Glasgow (where the family still has relatives), was a British civil servant. From 1969, James McAllister worked in West Berlin, while attached to the British Army's Royal Corps of Signals.

David McAllister's mother, Mechthild McAllister, is a music teacher.

He was raised bilingually and attended a British primary school in Berlin.[9]

In a 2010 interview he linked his family's name to Clan MacAlister.[10]

After his parents moved to the small town of Bad Bederkesa in Lower Saxony in 1982, he went to the Lower Saxon Internatsgymnasium (boarding school) in Bederkesa, where he took his Abitur in 1989. From 1989 till 1991, McAllister served his compulsory military service in the Bundeswehr, in Panzerbataillon 74 in Cuxhaven. From 1991–96 he studied law with a scholarship from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation at the Leibniz University Hannover. In 1994, McAllister became local chairman of the CDU youth organisation, Junge Union, in the Cuxhaven district.

McAllister holds both German and British citizenship and speaks both German and English as native languages, although he has stated that he's "more or less completely German. I've lived in Germany all my life. I did all my school in Germany and my military service in Germany."[11] His upbringing in West Berlin, however, he describes as "very British" with "British network, British schools". Holding dual citizenship, he could have relinquished his German citizenship to avoid compulsory military service in Germany (the UK does not have compulsory military service), but opted to serve instead.[12]

McAllister has said that "my upbringing in West Berlin may have had an impact on my resentment towards communists. I became a member of the CDU when I was 17 – it was a birthday present. My parents said, 'What do you want for your birthday?’ I said I wanted to become a member of the CDU", explaining that his father was a conservative, although neither of his parents were involved in party politics.[11]

McAllister in an electoral poster for the 2008 Lower Saxony state election.

From 1996 till 2010, McAllister was a member of the Cuxhaven district council (Kreistag). He served as mayor of his hometown of Bad Bederkesa from 2001 to 2002. From 2002 to 2003, he also was secretary general of the CDU in Lower Saxony. Since 2003, McAllister has served as the leader of the CDU parliamentary party group in the Parliament of Lower Saxony, of which he has been a member since 1998. McAllister succeeded Christian Wulff as party chairman of the CDU in Lower Saxony from June 2008 until November 2016. He was succeeded by Bernd Althusmann. In the United Kingdom, McAllister is a supporter of the Conservative Party.

In 2005, Chancellor Angela Merkel offered him the position of Secretary General of the CDU, but McAllister declined, arguing he did not want to rise too far too fast.[13] He was a CDU delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2004, 2009, 2010 and 2012.

Following Brexit, McAllister joined Manfred Weber, Esteban González Pons and Sandra Kalniete in co-signing a letter to President of the European Parliament David Sassoli to establish an EU-UK Joint Parliamentary Assembly.[23]

McAllister is married to Dunja McAllister, née Kolleck, who is also a lawyer. He lives in Bad Bederkesa in the district of Cuxhaven.[24] He supports Rangers FC and Hannover 96.[25]

• Honorary doctorate, University of Edinburgh, 2012[26]

• List of people from Berlin

Wikimedia Commons has media related to David McAllister.

• Homepage of David McAllister
• State Chancellery