CDU as a three-letter abbreviation can refer to:

Angela Dorothea Merkel, German: [aŋˈɡeːla doʁoˈteːa ˈmɛʁkl̩] ( listen); née Kasner (born 17 July 1954) is the Chancellor of Germany and Chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Merkel is the first female Chancellor of Germany.

A physical chemist by professional background, Merkel entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989 and briefly served as the deputy spokesperson for Lothar de Maizière's democratically elected East German government prior to the German reunification. Following reunification in 1990, she was elected to the Bundestag, where she has represented the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern since. She served as Federal Minister for Women and Youth 1991–1994 and as Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety 1994–1998 in Helmut Kohl's fourth and fifth cabinets. She was Secretary General of the CDU 1998–2000, and was elected chairperson in 2000. From 2002 to 2005, she was also chair of the CDU/CSU parliamentary coalition.

After her election as Chancellor following the 2005 federal election, she led a grand coalition consisting of her own CDU party, its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), until 2009. In the 2009 federal election, the CDU obtained the largest share of the votes, and formed a coalition government with the CSU and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP).

Peter Altmaier (born 18 June 1958 in Ensdorf, Saarland) is a German politician. He has been a member of the CDU since 1976. A jurist by profession, he worked for the European Commission from 1990 to 1994. He has been a member of the Bundestag since 1994. Since 2005, he has been a secretary of state in the Federal Ministry of the Interior (Germany). From 2006 to 2011 Altmaier was president of Europa-Union Deutschland, the German section of the Union of European Federalists. Altmaier replaced Norbert Röttgen as Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety on 22 May 2012.

Dr. Gregor Gysi (German pronunciation: [ˈɡiːzi]; born 16 January 1948) is a German attorney and key politician of the socialist left-wing political party The Left (Die Linke). He played an important role in the end of communist rule in East Germany in 1989^{[citation needed]}, and was a main figure in the post-reunification Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS). He is well known for his rhetoric talent and is considered one of the best German public speakers.

Gysi was born in East Berlin, Soviet Zone of Germany. His father, Klaus Gysi, was a high-ranking official in East Germany, and had been Minister of Culture from 1966 to 1973. His mother, Irene, was the sister of political activist Gottfried Lessing, who was married to the British writer Doris Lessing during his exile in Southern Rhodesia. The surname "Gysi" is of Swiss-German origin. Both of his parents were of part Jewish ancestry; his paternal grandmother was Jewish, as was one of his maternal great-grandfathers. One of his maternal great-grandmothers was Russian.