Hans-Joachim Otto

Chairman of the Parliamentary Cultural Committee

Hans-Joachim Otto was born in Heidelberg in 1952, is married and has two daughters. He studied law and economics at the Universities of Munich, Heidelberg and Frankfurt am Main from 1971 to 1977. Between 1980 and 1983, he worked as a research assistant at the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe Universität in Frankfurt am Main, and since 1984, has been a joint partner of a law firm located in Frankfurt am Main. In 2000 he was appointed notary.
Otto joined the FDP in 1977. He held the office of federal chairman of the Young Liberals from 1980 to 1983. In addition to being chairman of the FDP in Frankfurt am Main (1985-1993), he was also a frequent member of the FDP federal board of directors (1982-1988, 1990-1995 and since 2005). He has been a member of the German Bundestag from 1990 to 1994 and again since 1998. Between 1998 and 2005, Otto was the FDP parliamentary speaker for media and cultural policies, and from 2005 to 2009, has chaired the parliamentary committee for cultural and media affairs. Since 2009 he is Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology.

His voluntary cultural-political activities include:
- membership in the NIFIS executive advisory committee (National Initiative for Internet Security, Frankfurt am Main)
- member of the curatorial panel at the Society for the Study of Structural Political Issues (Berlin)
- member of the curatorial panel at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe Foundation (Berlin)
- Honorary member of the Goethe-Institut (Munich)