Thomas de Maizière was born in Bonn in 1954. After studying law and earning his doctorate, he began his career in 1983 as a staff member of the governing mayor of Berlin before moving into federal politics via positions as state secretary and minister in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony. In Angela Merkel's governments, he was head of the Federal Chancellery from 2005, Federal Minister of the Interior from 2009 to 2011 and again from 2013 to 2018, and Defence Minister from 2013 to 2015. He became politically active as early as 1971, when he joined the CDU, for which he sat in the Bundestag from 2009 until his retirement from active politics in 2021. He is also active in various committees and foundations, including as President of the Protestant Church Congress, as Chairman of the Telekom Foundation and as a member of the Commission "30 Years of Peaceful Revolution and German Unity". Since 2022, he has been President of the Friends of the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra.
He is married and has three children.