Manuel Hagel (born 1 May 1988) is a German politician and former bank officer who has served as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union in Baden-Württemberg (CDU) since 2023, having been its secretary general from 2016 to 2021. He has been a Member of the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg (MdL) for Ehingen since 2016, where he has chaired his party's parliamentary group since 2021.
In May 2025, he was selected as CDU's lead candidate for the upcoming Baden-Württemberg state election.
Hagel was born in 1988 in the Swabian town of Ehingen and became a banker. He is Catholic and has served as the altar boy, after his grandfather was a sacristan.
Hagel entered the CDU in 2006 and was elected as part of his party's leadership in Baden-Württemberg in 2015. He became a member of the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg in the 2016 state elections. In parliament, he has since been serving on the Committee on Internal Affairs, Digitization and Migration and on the Committee on Consumer Protection.
On the basis of a proposal made by Thomas Strobl, Hagel was elected as secretary general of the CDU in Baden-Württemberg in 2016.
Hagel was nominated by his party as delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2022.
In the negotiations to form a Grand Coalition under the leadership of Friedrich Merz's Christian Democrats (CDU together with the Bavarian CSU) and the Social Democrats (SPD) following the 2025 German elections, Hagel led the CDU delegation in the working group on digital policy; his counterparts from the other parties were Reinhard Brandl and Armand Zorn.
In 2020, Hagel expressed support for Jens Spahn as next chairman of the CDU. Ahead of the 2021 Christian Democratic Union of Germany leadership election, he endorsed Friedrich Merz to succeed Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer as the party's chair.