Dr. Peter Kurz, born in 1962, has been the Mayor of the City of Mannheim since 2007. He has numerous functions in municipal subsidiaries, honorary posts in Committees of the German Association of Cities and Towns and the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region.

From 1999 to 2007 Peter Kurz was Mayor of Education, Culture, Sports and City Marketing in Mannheim. Peter Kurz studied law and completed his legal clerkship in Mannheim, Speyer, Heidelberg and in San Diego, USA. He worked in a law firm as a freelancer and was an academic employee for the Chair of Civial Law, Commercial and Business Law at the University of Mannheim and judge at the administrative court in Karlsruhe.

His political career began during his studies. He became a member of the District Advisory Council and worked as an assistant to a member of the state parliament. He was a member of the Mannheimer city councils and various supervisory boards, deputy district chairman of SPD, chairman of Mannheim’s SPD municipal council faction and member of the SPD state executive committee in Baden-Württemberg.

In 2013 he became a member of the European Committee of the Regions (AdR). From March 2017 he was Deputy Chairman of the Global Parliament of Mayors (GPM). In April 2018 Dr. Kurz was nominated for membership in the (European) Committee of the Regions of the German Association of Cities and Towns, and since July 2018 he has been President of the City Association of Baden-Württemberg and member of the board of the City Association of Baden Württemberg. In September 2018 his appointment as a full member of the World Council and Executive Committee of the UCLG (United Cities and Local Government) was announced by the German Association of Cities and Towns. At the annual general meeting of the GPM in November 2019, Peter Kurz was appointed Chair.