Ole von Beust

Ole von Beust (born 13 April 1955) is a former German politician who was First Mayor of Hamburg from 31 October 2001 to 25 August 2010, serving as President of the Bundesrat from 1 November 2007 on for one year. He was succeeded as mayor by Christoph Ahlhaus. Life and work Born in Hamburg as Carl-Friedrich Arp Freiherr von Beust, he is the son of Achim Helge Freiherr von Beust and Hanna, née Wolff, who was considered half Jewish in Nazi Germany. The von Beust family is an old noble family from the Altmark, which appears in 1228 for the first time. Through his father he is a descendant of Saxon and Austrian statesman Count Friedrich Ferdinand von Beust. He had his nickname Ole registered as his first name. In 1971 von Beust became a member of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU). In 1973, after finishing high school, he worked for CDU parliamentary group in the Hamburg Parliament ("Hamburgische Bürgerschaft"), a position he held until he started to study law in 1975 at the University of Hamburg. From 1977 until 1983 he was Hamburg president of the youth organisation of his party. Since 1978 von Beust has been a member of the Hamburg city-state's parliament. In 1983 he successfully completed his studies and became an independent lawyer. He has been a member of the ruling council of the Hamburg Land CDU since 1992, and of the national ruling council of the CDU party since 1998.