After graduating from high school in 1959, Schmidbauer studied physics, chemistry and biology at theKarlsruhe Institute of Technology,[3] where he passed the scientific examination in 1967 and the pedagogical examination in 1969. He then worked as a teacher at the Boxberg Gymnasium inHeidelberg, most recently as director of studies.
Bernd Schmidbauer is married and has three children.
From 1971 to 1989, Schmidbauer was a member of the district council of theRhine-Neckar district and had been chairman of the CDU parliamentary group here since 1976.
From 1983 to 2009, he was a member of the GermanBundestag as a directly elected member of parliament for the Rhine-Neckar constituency.[4] From 1987 to 1990, he was chairman of theEnquête Commission on Precautions for the Protection of the Earth's Atmosphere. In addition, he headed the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety Working Group of theCDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag from 1988 to 1990.
Because of his tendency to become active himself in the field of intelligence, Schmidbauer was given the nickname "008" - a reference to James Bond alias 007.[7] In 1992, for example, two German hostages were released inLebanon, where Schmidbauer was involved in the tough negotiations. In 1994, he secured the release of Helmut Szimkus, a German sentenced to death inIran. Schmidbauer also had a role in thePlutonium affair.[8] Schmidbauer justified the deployment ofWerner Mauss, who negotiated the release of hostages ofELNguerrillas inColombia on behalf of the German government, as an "emergency humanitarian measure."[9]
He was a member of theParliamentary Oversight Panel (Parlamentarisches Kontrollgremium - PKGr) from December 2002[10] and was an assessor on the executive committee of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group from January 2006.
On 16 May 2006, Schmidbauer announced that he was suspending his work in the Parliamentary Control Committee until the allegations against the BND in the so-called journalist affair had been clarified.[11] As justification, Schmidbauer stated that some of the spying on journalists occurred during his time as intelligence coordinator. At the same time, Schmidbauer stated that he had "no knowledge of the events that are the subject of today's discussions."[12]
