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Oct 1, 2026
September 2026 Ranking Germany
Carsten Maschmeyer loses #1 in Germany for the first time since whoranks launched. Thomas Kehl of Finanzfluss enters at the top with 41,260 average reactions, a 31.51% engagement rate and a Score of 8.8, half a point clear.
August's edition closed on compression. Seven tenths of a point separated first place from tenth, and at that spread, we wrote, one strong week is the whole ranking. September took that literally. Thomas Kehl, co-founder of Finanzfluss, enters the German Top 10 for the first time and goes straight to #1. That ends a run Carsten Maschmeyer has held in every month the ranking has existed.
Top Personal Brands Germany September 2026
Kehl's line reads 134,060 followers, 41,260 average reactions, 641 average comments and a 31.51% engagement rate. The smallest audience in the Top 10 produced roughly 13 times Maschmeyer's average reactions and an engagement rate 25 times higher than the next best on the board. His activity reads Quiet, so those averages rest on a small number of posts.
Behind him the board looks a lot like August. From Maschmeyer at 8.3 down to the 7.6 tie in the last two seats, the spread is the same seven tenths as last month. Kehl simply sits half a point above all of it at 8.8.
New Entrants & Drop-outs in the German Top 10
Ranking | August | September |
|---|---|---|
#1 | Carsten Maschmeyer | Thomas Kehl 🆕 |
#2 | Roland Busch | Carsten Maschmeyer (↓ from #1) |
#3 | Christian Klein | Thomas Müller (↑ from #10) |
#4 | Christian Lindner | Florian Palatini (↑ from #5) |
#5 | Florian Palatini | Roland Busch (↓ from #2) |
#6 | Ola Kaellenius | Herbert Diess ↩️ |
#7 | Oliver Bäte | Christian Klein (↓ from #3) |
#8 | Julia Jaekel | Friedrich Merz ↩️ |
#9 | Christian Bruch | Ola Kaellenius (↓ from #6) |
#10 | Thomas Müller | Christian Bruch (↓ from #9) |
Kehl is the only first-timer. The other two arrivals are familiar.
Herbert Diess returns at #6, and his record now alternates without a break. In March, out in April, in May, out in June, in July, out in August, in again in September. This time he comes back with 1,510 average reactions, 147 average comments and a Score of 7.8, all up from 987, 92 and 7.7 in July.
Friedrich Merz comes back at #8 a month after dropping out. The Chancellor posts on Quiet activity and still collects 298 average comments, the third highest count in the Top 10 behind Kehl and Maschmeyer.
Christian Lindner leaves straight from #4. He broke his own in and out pattern in August by staying, and September ended that. Oliver Bäte exits from #7 one month after leading the board on engagement at 1.86%. Julia Jaekel leaves after her first month at #8. With Bäte gone, four sitting DAX CEOs remain in the Top 10, one fewer than August's record five.
Biggest Movers of the Month
Carsten Maschmeyer loses #1 in a month where every one of his numbers improved. Average reactions rose from 2,430 to 3,134, comments from 319 to 385, engagement from 0.54% to 0.68%, and his Score from 8.2 to 8.3. Against August's board, 8.3 would have put him 0.3 clear.
Thomas Müller jumps seven places, #10 to #3, and his Score rises from 7.5 to 8.0. His average reactions tripled from 985 to 3,089 and his engagement rate went from 0.39% to 1.17%. From April to September his positions read #9, #4, #2, out, #10, #3.
Roland Busch falls from #2 to #5 while adding 14,146 followers to reach 381,350. Average reactions dropped from 2,747 to 1,677, comments from 144 to 64, engagement from 0.81% to 0.47%. His Score lost one tenth, 8.0 to 7.9, and that tenth cost him three places.
Florian Palatini climbs to #4, his highest placement since we started recording in April. 725,901 followers and a 0.23% engagement rate make him the largest audience and the lowest engagement rate in the Top 10, and he has now sat between #4 and #6 for four straight months.
Christian Klein drops from #3 to #7 with 1,555 average reactions, 42 comments and 0.49% engagement on 335,623 followers.
The Core Insight
For as long as whoranks has published a German ranking, the #1 seat went to the profile that showed up every month. Maschmeyer held it on a few thousand reactions per post, month after month.
Kehl took the seat the other way. A Quiet profile with a quarter of Maschmeyer's audience produced one month of numbers that nobody else in the German Top 10 comes close to, and the Score put him half a point clear.
The rest of the board shows how the Score corrects in both directions. Diess and Merz are back a month after falling out, Lindner is out a month after holding on, and Busch lost three places on a single tenth of a point. Below #1, September is August with the seats shuffled.
Whether Kehl holds the seat is the October question. Maschmeyer had a better month. Kehl had a bigger one.
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