Rüdiger Kruse

Education and early career

After attending elementary school in Hamburg, Kruse studied medicine at University, but did not complete the course. In the year 2000, he was appointed managing director of the Eimsbuttel Einfal Initiative for working and learning. He subsequently became managing director of the Hamburg National Association for the Protection of German Forests and CEO of the Foundation Company Forest Germany – two shareholders of the Einfal company with 60 employees and approximately 900 participants. In addition, he served as a member of the Advisory Board of HSH Nordbank in Hamburg.

Career in state politics

Kruse joined the CDU when he was 16. From 2001 until September 2009, he was a deputy in the Hamburg Parliament, where he was a technical spokesman for his group in the areas of policy development, finance, budget issues and sustainable development. He represented the CDU on several parliamentary committees, including the one on budgets, European affairs, environment and culture. In addition, he was a member of the Special Committee on Administrative Reform and two subcommittees, as well as finance areas and public companies. In 2007, Kruse was appointed to the City of Hamburg’s Council on Climate Protection by Mayor Ole von Beust.

Career in national politics

Kruse was selected to contest the constituency of Hamburg Eimsbüttel, which the CDU had never won and which the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) had held since the 1950s. However, the crisis in the SPD presented an opportunity and in the 2009 federal election, the SPD vote collapsed, with the party finishing third. Kruse gained the seat for the CDU, despite a slight drop in the party's vote share.

Kruse sits in the Bundestag as an ordinary member of the Audit Committee, the Budget Committee and a deputy member of the Committee on Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. A member of the Budget Committee since 2009, he serves as his parliamentary group's rapporteur on the budgets of the Federal Chancellery and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. In the Audit Committee, he serves as the rapporteur on the budget of the Federal Ministry of Defense (BMVg). He is also a member of the so-called Confidential Committee (Vertrauensgremium) of the Budget Committee, which provides budgetary supervision for Germany’s three intelligence services, BND, BfV and MAD. Between 2009 and 2013, he was also part of the Parliamentary Friendship Group for Relations with the Baltic States.

Kruse opposes the extension of nuclear power plants.

Other activities