Uli Grötsch | |
Office: | Member of the Bundestag |
Term Start: | 2013 |
Term End: | 2024 |
Birth Date: | 1975 7, df=yes |
Birth Place: | Weiden in der Oberpfalz, West Germany |
Party: | SPD |
Nationality: | German |
Successor: | Heike Heubach |
Uli Grötsch (born 14 July 1975) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as the German Bundestag's Federal Police Commissioner since 2024.[1] He previously was as a member of the Bundestag from the state of Bavaria from 2013 to 2024.[2] Grötsch has been police officer within the Bavarian State Police for 21 years.
After school, Grötsch completed training as a police officer with the Bavarian Police. He served in various districts. He last worked in the investigation department when he left the police department in 2013 after 21 years for his Bundestag mandate.
Grötsch first became a member of the Bundestag in the 2013 German federal election.[3] He is a member of the Committee on Home Affairs.[4] In 2014, he also joined the Parliamentary Oversight Panel (PKGr), which provides parliamentary oversight of Germany's intelligence services BND, BfV and MAD.[5]
From 2018, Grötsch was part of a cross-party working group on a reform of Germany’s electoral system, chaired by Wolfgang Schäuble.[6]
In early 2021, Grötsch was chosen to lead his party's campaign for the national elections.[7] Shortly after, he lost a vote to succeed Natascha Kohnen as chair of the SPD in Bavaria.[8] [9]
Grötsch was elected to the first Federal Police Commissioner in 2023.
The Federal Police Commissioner has the task of identifying and investigating structural deficiencies and undesirable developments in the Federal Police, the Federal Criminal Police Office and the police at the German Bundestag (federal police authorities). It also investigates misconduct by employees of the federal police authorities, in particular that which results in a violation of fundamental rights, in particular Article 3 of the Basic Law (prohibition of discrimination).The commissioner has a team of 18 employees working on his staff.[10]
Grötsch sees the compatibility of membership in the right-wing extremist AfD and serving as a police officer as problematic. The vigilance of emergency services against right-wing extremism must be heightened, he said in March 2024.[11]