Hans-Ulrich Rülke

Hans-Ulrich Rülke is a German teacher and politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) who has been a member of the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg from 2006 to 2016 and again since 2016. He has chaired his party's parliamentary group since 2009 and served as its deputy leader in Baden-Württemberg since 2013. He was the FDP's lead candidate for the state elections in 2016 and in 2021.

Early life and career Rülke was born on 3 October 1961 in Tuttlingen. He attended primary and secondary school in Singen before studying German language and literature, politics, history, and sociology in Konstanz. In 1993 he taught at Hilda-Gymnasium in Pforzheim, and from 2001 to 2005 he was specialist advisor for politics and economy at the high school office in Karlsruhe.

Political career Rülke became a member of the Free Democratic Party in 1985. In 1999 he became chairman of the Pforzheim FDP association. In July 2019 the council elected him deputy mayor of Pforzheim.

Rülke was elected to the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg in the 2006 state election as a member of the Free Democratic Party. After the retirement of Ulrich Noll in June 2009, he was elected the leader of the FDP parliamentary group. He became co-deputy leader of the state party association in 2013, and a member of the federal FDP executive in 2019.

In the negotiations to form a so-called traffic light coalition of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Green Party and the FDP following the 2021 federal elections, Rülke was part of his party's delegation in the working group on migration and integration, co-chaired by Boris Pistorius, Luise Amtsberg and Joachim Stamp.

After the FDP failed to re-enter the Baden-Württemberg state parliament for the first time in the 2026 state election, receiving only 4.5 percent of the vote, Rülke announced his resignation as state chairman of the FDP Baden-Württemberg. He explained that he wanted to take political responsibility for the election result.

Personal life Rülke is married and has three children.