Overview
- The chancellor, who visited his old Friedrich-Spee-Gymnasium in Rüthen on Monday, took part in a centenary event and answered students’ questions in a private 45-minute discussion.
- Merz has said his Abitur certificate remains locked in a home safe and declined to disclose the exact grade, though he hinted in a 2025 ZEIT podcast that his average was around 3.8.
- He told students and reporters that as a teenager he struggled with discipline, once repeated a year, changed schools for behavioral reasons and recalled corporal punishment in early primary school.
- The visit followed his recent appearance at the Deutscher Schulpreis and served to underline a renewed, personal focus on education that connects to the Friedrich and Charlotte Merz Foundation he and his wife founded in 2005.
- Coverage from outlets across the spectrum treated the trip as a humanizing moment that revisited his difficult school past, with some tabloids emphasizing his low grades and others highlighting his pledge to visit more schools, while the closed-door format limited press access.