Wolfgang Schuster

Wolfgang Schuster (born 5 September 1949 in Ulm) was the Lord Mayor of Stuttgart, Germany, from January 1997 until January 2013. He was the successor to Manfred Rommel and he is a member of the CDU.

Schuster studied law and political science in Tübingen, Geneva and Freiburg from 1969 to 1973. During his studies he joined Guestfalia Tübingen, one of Germany's largest Catholic student associations. From 1974 to 1976 he trained in Ulm before completing his doctorate in civil law.

From 1976 to 1977 Schuster studied at the Paris École nationale d'administration (ENA).

In 1975, he represented the CDU on Ulm city council before acting as personal assistant to Manfred Rommel from 1985 onwards. In 1986, he was elected mayor of Schwäbisch Gmünd where he was in office until 1993 before becoming burgomaster for the arts, education and sport in the Baden-Württemberg capital of Stuttgart in 1996.

In elections for the post of Lord Mayor of Stuttgart, he won the office in the second ballot on 10 November 1996, defeating Rezzo Schlauch, the candidate for the Alliance '90/The Greens on a relatively narrow margin of 43.1% versus 39.3%.

On 24 October 2004, Schuster was re-elected to the post in the second ballot with 53.3% of votes. His opponents were Ute Kumpf (SPD), who gained 45.2% of votes in the 2nd ballot, and Boris Palmer (Alliance '90/The Greens) - who withdrew his candidacy after the first ballot, indirectly recommending that his supporters should back Schuster instead.

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