Jürgen Todenhöfer

Who is Jürgen Todenhöfer?

Jürgen Todenhöfer is a German executive, author and former politician.

Todenhöfer studied law at the universities of Munich, Paris, Bonn and Freiburg. He graduated as a doctor of law in 1969 and worked as a judge from 1972 on. He became a member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany in 1970 and was a member of the German parliament from 13 December 1972 to 20 December 1990, where he represented Tübingen. He also acted as party spokesman for development policy and arms control.

In 1980 he visited Soviet-occupied Afghanistan and started to raise money for refugees. Todenhöfer is one of the most prominent German critics of the US-led wars against Afghanistan and against Iraq in 2001 and 2003, respectively. Till 2008 he has been vice chairman of the executive board at German media company Hubert Burda Media.

He claims that during the war in Iraq the Bush administration was deceiving the public and that the US war in Iraq has killed several hundred thousand Iraqi civilians. He has visited Iraq several times and did original research for his book Why do you kill, Zaid.