Mayor of Stuttgart, Germany, from January 1997 to January 2013. He was the successor of Manfred Rommel and is a member of the CDU.

He studied law and political science in Tübingen, Geneva and Freiburg from 1969 to 1973. In 1975, he represented the CDU in the municipality of Ulm before acting as personal assistant to Manfred Rommel from 1985. During his studies he joined Guestfalia Tübingen .