Hans Günther Merk was born in Münchwald in the administrative district of Bad Kreuznach on 13 September 1930 and died in Bonn on 30 November 2024. After obtaining his university entrance qualification in 1950, he studied law in Mainz. In 1954, he passed the first, and in 1958 the second state examination in law.
From 1958 to 1959, Hans Günther Merk worked as a lawyer and judge at the local court in Koblenz. In 1959, he joined the Federal Ministry of the Interior, where he served for 35 years in various functions, among other things, in the areas of sports and media, data processing in the public administration, and population issues. In the late 1960s, in the sports department of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, he was involved in the preparation of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.
On 9 June 1992, Hans Günther Merk was appointed President of the Federal Statistical Office. During his term, the complete system of federal statistics was introduced in the new Länder. This allowed official statistics for the first time to present a comprehensive picture of the economic and social situation in the whole of Germany because data collection was based on the same methods everywhere. At that time, the course was set also for transferring the Branch Office of the Federal Statistical Office from Berlin to Bonn.
Under Hans Günther Merk, official statistics in Germany extended its range of information by setting up a Health Monitoring System and a system of Environmental-Economic Accounting. Not least of all, Hans Günther Merk enhanced the use of information technology in statistics production and dissemination.
The co-operation within Europe, too, was very important to Hans Günther Merk: First, he advanced the setting-up of the European Statistical System and, second, he initiated the active involvement of the Federal Statistical Office in the training of statisticians of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Already during his term, which ended in 1995, Hans Günther Merk made great efforts to get the 54th Session of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) to Germany. Following a successful application, the retired Hans Günther Merk took over the chair of the National Organising Committee. 2,400 statisticians participated in the conference in August 2003.