Franz-Hermann Brüner

Who was Franz-Hermann Brüner?

Franz-Hermann Brüner was a German public official who was until recently director-general of OLAF, the European Union Anti-Fraud Office. He was first appointed to the post in 2000, and was reappointed to the post in 2006 over the European Parliament’s preferred candidate.

Brüner was born in Bad Nauheim in Hesse and began his working life as an apprentice businessman in Darmstadt in 1968. Three years later he went to the University of Munich to study law, economics and political science, and in 1976 joined the Ministry of Justice in Bavaria to train for the judiciary.

In 1979 he became an investigating and trial judge in criminal matters at the Municipal Court Weilheim in Oberbayern. He transferred to be public prosecutor in Munich in 1981, and because Deputy Head of the Criminal Law section of the German Federal Ministry of Justice from 1983 to 1986. He was then transferred back to be a full Judge in Weilheim, where he served for a further three years.

Brüner then became Deputy Head of the Criminal Law Department of the Public Prosecutor's office in Munich, and in 1991 was Senior Public Prosecutor at the Office of the General Prosecutor in Berlin.