Thomas Karl Leonard Kemmerich (born 20 February 1965) is a German politician, formerly of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) who served as the Minister-President of Thuringia from 5 February to 4 March 2020. With a tenure of only 28 days (3 days if his time as acting officeholder is excluded), he has been both the shortest-serving Minister-President of Thuringia and the shortest-serving head of a state government in the Federal Republic of Germany (as of 2024).
After Reinhold Maier, who had served as minister-president of Württemberg-Baden (1945–1952) and, after the state's fusion with two other southwestern states, of the new state Baden-Württemberg (1952–1953), he was the second minister-president from the FDP in German history. In September 2025, Kemmerich left the FDP.
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Life
Kemmerich was born in Aachen, West Germany. He is Roman Catholic, married, and father of six children. He completed his law studies at the University of Bonn in 1989. In January 1990, just after the Peaceful Revolution in East Germany, he moved to Erfurt and became the manager of a hairdresser's chain in Thuringia.
Political career
He served as a member of the Thuringian Landtag (state parliament) from 2009 to 2014. He became the leader of Thuringia's Free Democratic Party in 2015, and was a member of the Bundestag (federal parliament) from 2017 to 2019. He returned to the Landtag after the 2019 state election (where the FDP passed the five-percent threshold by a mere 45 votes) and served as the leader of the FDP parliamentary group consisting of five lawmakers. After the 2024 state election, Kemmerich called for the federal FDP to leave the governing coalition. The party lost all its seats in Thuringia.