Hans-Ulrich Rülke

Rülke became a member of the Free Democratic Party in 1985. In 1999 he became chairman of the Pforzheim FDP association.^[2] The same year, he was elected to the city council of Pforzheim, and has retained his seat ever since. He served as leader of the FDP group in the council from 2001 to 2011.^[1] In 2014, he became leader of the joint FDP/Free Voter group. After the 2019 local elections, the FDP formed a group with the Free Voters, Independent Citizens, and Parents List, of which Hans-Ulrich became leader.^[3] 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.^[1]

Rülke was the FDP's lead candidate for the 2016 Baden-Württemberg state election.^[1] The party achieved a 3.0-point swing, a marked improvement from its poor performance of 5.3% in 2011. The party's parliamentary group expanded from 7 to 12 members. Following the 2021 state elections, he led his party's delegation in the negotiations with Minister-President Winfried Kretschmann's Alliance '90/Greens on a potential coalition government.^[4]

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.^[5]

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.

Rülke is married and has three children.^[2]