page_title: David McAllister
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: David McAllister / Biography
caption_attribution_description: Bederkesa, Burg, Hof mit Roland-Statue Foto von Benutzer:Geoz 2005
context_page_description: David James "Mac" McAllister is a German politician of the conservative Christian Democratic Union. On 1 July 2010 he was elected Minister-President of the state of Lower Saxony, succeeding Christian Wulff, who resigned following his election as President of Germany. Until 2013, McAllister headed a coalition government with the liberal FDP, the Cabinet McAllister. In 2013, he was succeeded by Social Democrat Stephan Weil. Since 2014 he has been a Member of the European Parliament.
  A lawyer by profession, he has been the chairman of the CDU parliamentary group in the Landtag of Lower Saxony from 2003 to 2010 and was elected chairman of the state party from 2008 until 2016. From 2010 until 2013, he was also a member of the supervisory board of Volkswagen.
  McAllister is of German and Scottish descent, and he leads a state that has historic ties to Britain, as the old Kingdom of Hanover makes up parts of the state and the state capital is Hanover City.
context_section_description: McAllister was born in West Berlin on 12 January 1971 to a Scottish father and a German mother. His father, James Buchanan McAllister, was a British civil servant, originally from Glasgow (where the family still has relatives). He had been stationed in West Berlin since 1969, attached to the Royal Corps of Signals. His mother, Mechthild McAllister, is a music teacher. David McAllister was raised bilingual (speaking English and German) and attended a British primary school in Berlin.
  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 as a soldier in the Bundeswehr, in Panzerbataillon 74 in Cuxhaven. From 1991–96 he studied law with a scholarship of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation at the University of Hanover. In 1994, McAllister became local chairman of the Junge Union, the CDU youth organisation, in the Cuxhaven district.
  David McAllister is both a German and a British citizen, but says that he is "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." 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.
  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 none of his parents were involved in party politics.
caption: Bederkesa Castle, a landmark in Bad Bederkesa
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