Niclas Herbst was born on 28 February 1973 in Ratzeburg, Germany. In 1992, He graduated from Lauenburg Scholarship High School in Ratzeburg. He did his military service and trained as a reserve officer. Herbst joined the CDU (Christian Democratic Union of Germany) as a student in 1990. He was first involved in the Junge Union (JU). From 1992 to 1998, He was a JU-district Chairman in the district Lauenburg. From 1994 to 2000, he studied Political Science, Public Law and Psychology at the Christian Albrechts University Kiel. From 1994 to 2002, he also belonged to the JU-Landesvorstand of Schleswig-Holstein and was JU-Landesvorsitzender, from 2000 to 2002. In 2000, Herbst worked as an Economics Adviser at the Schleswig-Holstein CDU Parliamentary Group in the Regional Parliament, “Landtag Schleswig-Holstein”. He has been a Member of the State Executive Board of the Schleswig-Holstein CDU since then. From 1998 to 2003, Herbst belonged to the district council of the district of Lauenburg. From 2005 to 2012, he was a Member of the Regional Parliament of Schleswig-Holstein and thereby Vice-Chairman of the Committee on European Affairs and Speaker of the CDU Parliamentary Group for the areas of education, youth and sport. In the 2005 regional state election, Niclas Herbst obtained 45.3 percent of the votes in his Lauenburg-North Constituency and therefore became a directly-elected representative at the Regional Parliament. At the regional election in Schleswig-Holstein in 2009, he was re-elected with 37.7 percent of the votes. Niclas Herbst was Director of the party-affiliated Hermann Ehlers Academy. Since 2017, when the CDU won regional elections in Schleswig-Holstein, Herbst worked in the State Chancellery as a coordinator between government, party and the CDU political group. On 2 June 2018, Niclas Herbst was ranked number 1 in the Schleswig-Holstein country list of the CDU for the European elections. MEP since 2019.