Olaf Scholz ( ; born (1958-06-14)14 June 1958 in Osnabrück) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and Mayor of Hamburg since 7 March 2011.
From May to October 2001 he was Minister of the Interior (Innensenator) of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and from 2002 to 2004 he was general secretary of the SPD. Scholz succeeded Franz Müntefering as Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs of Germany, when the latter left office in 2007.
In 2010 Olaf Scholz participated in the annual Bilderberg Meeting in Sitges, Spain.
On 20 February 2011 the Social Democrats led by Scholz won the Hamburg state election, 2011 with 48.3% of the votes, resulting in 62 out of 121 seats in the Hamburg Parliament. Scholz resigned as a member of the seventeenth Bundestag on 11 March 2011 shortly after his election as First Mayor. He had represented Hamburg Altona in the Bundestag since the 1998 election.