Willi Birkelbach

Willi Birkelbach CBE (12 January 1913 – 17 July 2008) was a West German politician (SPD). He was a member of the West German Bundestag (national parliament) between 1949 and 1964. Between 1952 and 1964 he also served as an increasingly prominent Member of the European Parliament (and its precursor body).

In 1971 he became the first ever Ombudsman for Data protection in the State of Hessen. The title of the post has changed, most recently in Germany, to Datenschutzbeauftragter (loosely, "Data Protection officer"). Hessen was the first state in West Germany to appoint a "Datenschutzbeauftragter", which means that Willi Birkelbach was the first Data Protection Officer/Commissioner/Registrar in the German Federal Republic.