Stefan Kaufmann (politician)

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Stefan Kaufmann
File:Stefan Kaufmann MdB.jpg
Member of the Bundestag
Assumed office
2009
Personal details
Born (1969-08-21) 21 August 1969 (age 54)
Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany
(now Germany)
Citizenship German
Nationality Germany
Political party CDU

Stefan Kaufmann (* 21. August 1969 in Stuttgart) is a German politician and member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Earlier life

Kaufmann was born as the youngest of three brothers to a family living in Stuttgart-Weilimdorf. His father, a confidential clerk, died in 1982. He received his Abitur in 1989 at the Solitude-Gymnasium and served during his Zivildienst at the Diakonisches Werk Württemberg. He attended university in Tübingen, majoring in Legal science, including a year at Leiden University. Afterwards, he worked as a scientific assistant at the University of Hohenheim. Kaufmann had a Konrad Adenauer Foundation scholarship since before he graduated from university and became a Doctor of law in 2001. He is a member of Phi Delta Phi.[1]

Political career

In 1992, Kaufmann founded the "Forum für Hochschul- und Bildungspolitik Tübingen e.V“ (Forum for Hochschul- and Education Politics Tübingen e.V) in Tübingen. This association's task was developing a general concept for educational politics that particularly targeted the contact points between the respective institutions. For his work in relation to this, he received an award from the Ministry of Science, Research and Arts of Baden-Württemberg.

From 1995 until 1998, Kaufmann was assistant to Doris Pack, CDU, then Speaker in Matters of Educational Politics for the EPP at the European Parliament. Later, he was assistant and speechwriter for MEP Renate Heinisch, also CDU.

Kaufmann joined the CDU in 1999. Between March 2001 and October 2009, he was a Speaker for the Party in the district advisory council of Stuttgart-Sillenbuch, since April 2003 he has been chairman of the local group of the CDU in "Stuttgart-Sillenbuch-Heumaden-Riedenberg".

In November 2005 he was elected secondary candidate for the Landtag in the Stuttgart I electoral district, and one year later he was elected member of the District Board of the CDU.

In 2008, the CDU in Stuttgart appointed him candidate for the Bundestag, again in Stuttgart I, after his predecessor on this appointment had died. In October of the same year he was elected Deputy District Chairman of the CDU in Stuttgart.

Member of the Bundestag

In the German federal election, 2009, Kaufmann won the direct mandate in Stuttgart I over the Federal Chairman of the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, Cem Özdemir, and hence became MdB (Member of the Bundestag). In his campaign, Kaufmann did not just cater to the bourgeois center. Being openly gay, he also campaigned in local hotspots of the homosexual scene and on Christopher Street Day.[2] At the same time being a devoted catholic, he also criticized the comparison with Nazism[3] the Society of St. Pius X published on the occasion of the Christopher Street Day in 2007.[4]

Stefan Kaufmann is a member of the Panel of Education, Research and Technological Impact Assessment, as well as deputy member of the Committee on Petitions and the Panel of Traffic, Construction and Urban Development.

Other activities

Private life

Kaufmann is openly gay.[5] He enjoys classical music and opera, also ballett and theater. He plays the Organ and gave lessons on the instrument, sang in a choir and directed a small chamber orchestra in Tübingen. 2005 he became chairman of the Friends of the Stuttgart Oratorio Choir.

In June 2010, Kaufmann was involved in a planecrash when a historical DC-3 he was riding in crashlanded shortly after take-off.

Publication

Das Europäische Hochschulinstitut: Die Florentiner Europa-Universität im Gefüge des europäischen und internationalen Rechts, (Tübinger Schriften zum internationalen und europäischen Recht 61; Berlin : Duncker & Humblot, 2003), ISBN 3-428-10753-5

References