# Hülya Düber

# Hülya Düber

Hülya Düber (born 5 July 1978 in Miltenberg) is a German lawyer and politician of the [Christian Social Union in Bavaria](/organizations/christian-social-union-in-bavaria). She has sat in the Bundestag since the 21st electoral term opened on 25 March 2025, holding the direct mandate for constituency 250, Würzburg, in Bavaria.

Her parents came from Turkey, and she became a German citizen in 2001. She took the Abitur in 1998 at the Johannes-Butzbach-Gymnasium in Miltenberg and spent 1998–1999 in a voluntary social year in outpatient care for older and sick people with the German Red Cross in Wiesbaden. From 1999 to 2004 she studied law at the University of Würzburg, then earned a doctorate between 2004 and 2007 through the university’s Institute for Legal History and the Institute for Comparative Law at Ankara University. After a legal traineeship at the Higher Regional Court of Bamberg (2007–2009) and a short period as a lawyer in a Würzburg firm, she joined the city administration in 2010, heading building supervision and later general citizen services, including the public-order office and the foreigners’ authority.

From 2015 to 2025 she was Würzburg’s full-time, legally qualified city councillor and head of the youth, family and social-affairs department, and from 2019 to 2025 she chaired the social-affairs committee of the Bavarian Association of Cities. She has been a member of the district assembly of Lower Franconia since 2018 and was re-elected in 2023. The Bundestag notes that these biographical details are the member’s own statements.

At the federal election of 23 February 2025 she received 74,917 first votes, 39.1 percent, in a constituency of 222,633 eligible voters with turnout of 86.4 percent. Jessica Hecht of Alliance 90/[The Greens](/organizations/the-greens) was the runner-up on 19.1 percent. She succeeded Paul Lehrieder, who did not stand again on grounds of age, after a contested CSU nomination against a male rival. She told Bayerischer Rundfunk that the CSU had supported her municipal work while she was still without party membership, and that family policy and combining progress with tradition were important to her.

In the 21st Bundestag she is a full member of the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs and of the Petitions Committee, a deputy member of the Committee on Education, Family, Seniors, Women and Youth and of the Interior Committee, and a parliamentary secretary. She is a substitute member of the German delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the [Council of Europe](/organizations/council-of-europe). On 25 June 2025 the Petitions Committee elected her deputy chair in a secret ballot in which every member present voted for her. Because [Alternative for Germany](/organizations/alternative-for-germany) nominee Manfred Schiller had failed to win a majority for the chair at the committee’s constituent meeting in May, she has led the committee on an acting basis; Andreas Mattfeldt of the CDU/CSU had held the provisional chair until that day as the longest-serving member. Disclosures published by the Bundestag list her, from 4 May 2026, as a member of the Würzburg city council. She is married and has two children.

## Early life and education

### Family background and childhood

Hülya Düber was born Hülya Bandak on 5 July 1978 in Miltenberg am Main, in Lower Franconia, Bavaria. The German National Library authority file records Bandak as her earlier name, gives 1978 as her year of birth and names Miltenberg as her birthplace. The Bundestag biography, which the parliament notes is the member's own statement, supplies the full date.

She grew up in Bürgstadt, in the Miltenberg district. In a 2018 profile, the *Main-Echo* described her as coming from a Turkish guest-worker family and reported that her parents, unlike those of many girls from such families, supported her through the Gymnasium, the Abitur, university and a doctorate. She told the paper that her mother had been the pivot of the family and that she had grown up "quasi im Matriarchat." She has written that the family came from Turkey to Germany in the 1970s. Bayerischer Rundfunk reported in 2025 that her parents were from Turkey and that she was naturalized in 2001. The Bundestag biography also records that she is married and has two children.

### School and voluntary service

In 1998 she passed the Abitur at the Johannes-Butzbach-Gymnasium in Miltenberg am Main. She did not begin university at once. From 1998 to 1999 she completed a voluntary social year (*Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr*) in outpatient care of older and sick people with the German Red Cross in Wiesbaden (Deutsches Rotes Kreuz Wiesbaden e.V.). On her own account, the year stayed with her: the work, she has written, showed what care meant in practice and how much it depended on empathy, patience and working with others.

### Legal studies and doctorate

From 1999 to 2004 she studied law at the University of Würzburg. Between 2004 and 2007 she prepared a doctorate at the university's Institute for Legal History and at the Institute for Comparative Law of Ankara University. The dissertation, *Die Rezeption des schweizerischen Zivilgesetzbuches in der Türkei* ("The reception of the Swiss Civil Code in Turkey"), was accepted at Würzburg in 2007.

Gieseking Verlag in Bielefeld issued the book in 2008 under the name Hülya Bandak, as volume 247 of *Schriften zum deutschen, europäischen und vergleichenden Zivil-, Handels- und Prozessrecht*. The national bibliography records XXIV and 143 pages and the ISBN 978-3-7694-1018-1. In May 2008 the *Main-Echo* reported on the then 29-year-old Miltenberg-born jurist Dr. Hülya Bandak and her research into the application of Swiss law in Turkey since 1926.

The publisher's summary says the Turkish Republic decided in 1926, while modernizing its legal system, to adopt the Swiss Civil Code in full, and presents the book as the first single work to gather the main problems of that reception. The contents move from reform attempts in the Ottoman Empire, including the Tanzimat era and the Mecelle, through the founding of the republic, the role of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the Treaty of Lausanne, to the choice of the Swiss code. Headings in that contents list cover the decision not to write an original code, the reasons for selecting the Swiss text, translation from the French version, the early "Turkification" of legal language, errors and unwieldy wording, changed time limits and age thresholds, and departures from the Swiss original under the influence of Islamic law. Later chapters treat statutes after 1926, including the civil-law reform of 2002, the case law of the Turkish Court of Cassation, the role of the law school in Ankara and of professors in the law faculties, and a socio-legal view of reception. Düber states that the Unterfränkische Gedenkjahrsstiftung awarded the dissertation a prize in 2008.

From 2007 to 2009 she completed the *Rechtsreferendariat* at the Higher Regional Court in Bamberg. In Bavaria that traineeship is the preparatory service (*Vorbereitungsdienst*) served in a public-law training relationship. In 2009 she worked as a lawyer at the Würzburg office of a firm with more than one location.

## Municipal administration in Würzburg

### Building law and citizen services

According to her Bundestag biography, which the parliament states is drawn from members' own information, Düber worked in 2009 as a lawyer in a multi-office firm at its Würzburg site. She joined the city administration in the summer of 2010 and first headed the building-law unit and the building-supervision department; after parental leave she led the department of general citizen services until December 2014. A report published the day after the council meeting of 4 December 2014 still described her as head of that department. The same biography lists the public-order office and the foreigners' authority among the units then placed under general citizen services.

### Social-affairs director

On 4 December 2014 the city council, meeting in the Ratssaal of the town hall on Rückermainstraße, elected her by secret ballot as a professional councillor to head the department for youth, family and social affairs. She followed Robert Scheller, who had led the department and, after Christian Schuchardt became mayor, had become city treasurer; the same day's agenda already listed Scheller in that treasury role. Four names were before the council. Of 49 ballot papers one was invalid, and 33 of the 48 valid votes were cast for Düber, above the required majority of valid votes. The council fixed the term to begin on 1 January 2015 and to last six years, with salary group B 3 of the Bavarian scale for a first term and B 4 for any further term.

Under the municipal code of Bavaria, a municipality of more than 10,000 inhabitants may elect professional councillors. They have only an advisory vote, and only on business within their own portfolio. They are chosen for at most six years, appointed on that basis as fixed-term civil servants, and may be re-elected. Her Bundestag biography styles the office as legally qualified professional city councillor (*rechtskundige berufsmäßige Stadträtin*) and head of Würzburg's youth, family and social department.

The department was among the city's largest. In his address of 20 March 2025 Schuchardt recalled a budget of about 180 million euros and several hundred staff already at the start of her first term. The same address associated the portfolio, during her time in office, with family support and childcare, neighbourhood work, services for older people and for people with disabilities, accommodation of refugees and homeless people, integration, the housing-benefit reform, and the chair of the assembly of bodies sponsoring the municipal Jobcenter.

On 14 November 2019 the council re-elected her. She was the only formal nominee. Forty-eight ballots were cast, four of them invalid; 39 of the 44 valid votes went to her, and the other five were written in for named councillors. She accepted. The second term was to run from 1 January 2021 for six years, on group B 4 as a further term. From 2019 she also chaired the social committee of the Bavarian Association of Cities, according to the self-reported Bundestag biography, a role Schuchardt mentioned in March 2025. After she had entered the Bundestag, the committee on 21 May 2025 unanimously elected Elisabeth Ries, Nuremberg's councillor for youth, family and social affairs, to succeed her.

### Departure and succession

By the council sitting of 20 March 2025 Düber's municipal office was already suspended. She told the chamber that it had rested since the previous Friday because she was moving to the Bundestag, which was due to constitute itself the following Tuesday, and that Wolfgang Kleiner was running the social department in an acting capacity. Schuchardt delivered a farewell address; the agenda for 5 June still listed Kleiner, a legally qualified professional councillor, as acting on a social-affairs item. The March sitting set the procedure for a successor: applicants were to be heard in a non-public council meeting on 2 June 2025, with the public election on 5 June.

On 5 June 2025 the council elected Eva von Vietinghoff-Scheel with 26 of 45 valid votes. Three other candidates received 11, six and two votes; there were no invalid papers. The resolution set a six-year term from 1 July 2025, again as a fixed-term civil servant, on salary group B 3 unless the person elected was already paid at B 4. She accepted the election. Local reporting identified her as the Social Democratic candidate in Würzburg's early mayoral election that spring, and as the recent board member of the district of Würzburg's municipal enterprise, a post Robert Scheller had held since April.

## Party and regional mandates

### District assembly of Lower Franconia

The Bezirkstag of Lower Franconia is the elected assembly of the Bezirk Unterfranken, Bavaria's third tier of local government, above municipalities and counties. Members are chosen for five years, serve in an honorary capacity and receive an expense allowance. The assembly is the Bezirk's highest political organ and, within the Bezirksordnung, decides on the region's social, regional, historical, cultural and economic affairs. There is no five-percent threshold, and overhang and compensatory seats can enlarge the body. The 2018–2023 term had 24 members; the term from 2023 has 23 rather than the statutory 19.

Hülya Düber entered at the election of 14 October 2018. That January the *Main-Post* still described the Würzburg social-affairs officer as *parteilos*, while noting how often she appeared at events of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU). The preliminary Bezirk return listed her as a CSU candidate, list number 112, with 19,931 first votes, 3,597 second votes and 23,528 votes in all, among those declared elected. The new assembly sat on 6 November 2018, the date from which the Bezirk dates her mandate. In the Bezirk's account of that term the CSU group chair was Stefan Funk, not Düber. The CSU held 10 of the 24 seats; the returning officer later restated its 2018 share as 37.59 percent.

On 8 October 2023 she again won the direct seat in Stimmkreis 610, Würzburg-Stadt, covering the city and the part of Landkreis Würzburg inside the constituency. The official final result gave her 22,833 first votes, 32.2 percent of 70,947 valid first votes, ahead of Gerhard Müller of Alliance 90/The Greens on 26.7 percent. Turnout there was 68.9 percent. The Regierung von Unterfranken's preliminary Bezirk-wide table recorded the same 22,833 first votes, plus 19,871 second votes and 42,704 votes in total, and marked her elected from the constituency (CSU list number 102). Across Lower Franconia the CSU rose to 40.28 percent and again took all ten direct seats. Its total vote entitled it to only eight, so two were overhang mandates, and the Greens and [the Alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) for Germany each received one compensatory seat. Of the 23 members, the CSU had 10, the AfD 4 (15.34 percent), the Free Voters 3 (13.79 percent), the Greens 3 (12.77 percent), the Social Democratic Party 2 (9.99 percent) and the Free Democratic Party 1 (2.85 percent). Turnout was 74.28 percent, against 72.01 percent in 2018.

On 27 October 2023 the assembly elected Funk, CSU group chair for the previous five years, as Bezirkstagspräsident; one ballot was invalid and the rest were for him. The CSU Bezirksverband that day called Düber the new chair of its Bezirkstag group, with Marcus Grimm and Martin Wende as deputies, and the Bezirk's review of 2023 captions her as CSU *Fraktionsvorsitzende*. The Bezirk's later member directory instead names Wende, a member since 27 October 2023, as *Fraktionsvorsitzender*, and lists Düber without that title while still dating her mandate from 6 November 2018. Her profile places her on the Bezirksausschuss, the social-affairs committee, the election-review committee and the rules committee. In the Bundestag register of outside activities she declares the Bezirk seat at a gross 1,264.22 euros a month.

### CSU membership and local offices

No official biography dates her entry into the CSU. BR24, interviewing her on 25 March 2025, reported her account that she had chosen the party because it had backed her work as social-affairs officer even while she was still without a membership, and because she shared its stress on family policy. She was already its candidate for 2023. On 7 October 2022 the CSU organization for Würzburg, Gerbrunn and Rottendorf nominated her to defend the Bezirkstag seat; the *Main-Post* reported that choice the next day, together with Andrea Behr's nomination for the Landtag of Bavaria in the corresponding state constituency.

On 30 June 2025 a delegates' meeting of the CSU Kreisverband Würzburg-Stadt elected her Kreisvorsitzende. The *Main-Post* reported that Wolfgang Roth was stepping down and that she received 99 percent, and it described an almost complete change of the Kreisvorstand as following the CSU's defeat in the Würzburg mayoral election. The association dates the board from that day. Its deputy chairs are Claudia Adam, Landtag member Andrea Behr, city councillor Rena Wiesner (née Schimmer), Aron Schuster and Philipp Spiegel.

### Würzburg city council

Würzburg elected its 50-member council on 8 March 2026. Voters may cumulate and split votes, so personal totals rather than list order decide who sits. Düber stood at CSU list place 50. In the final result the CSU took 23.4 percent, down 5.8 points, and 12 seats. The Greens remained the largest group, with 31.2 percent and 16 seats. The other 22 seats were split among the Left and the SPD (four each), the AfD and the Free Voters (three each), the FDP, the ÖDP and Volt (two each), and the Würzburger Liste and Zukunft für Würzburg (one each). Turnout was 55.8 percent.

Düber's 14,808 votes placed her eleventh on the CSU list, inside the twelve seats the party won. The Bundestag disclosure records her as a member of the council from 4 May 2026, at a declared gross 1,012.96 euros a month, alongside the Bezirk seat and her Bundestag mandate. In May 2026 the *Main-Post* reported on that pairing of Bundestag and council, noting that her colleague Patrick Friedl of the Greens also sat in the Landtag.

## Nomination and the 2025 federal election

### The open CSU candidacy

The Christian Social Union in Bavaria direct mandate in Bundestag constituency 250, the independent city of Würzburg and the rural district of Würzburg in Lower Franconia, was open for the 2025 German federal election because the sitting member, Paul Lehrieder, chose not to stand again. At a CSU delegates’ conference in Unterpleichfeld on 27 June 2024, district chairman Thomas Eberth said that Lehrieder would not be available at the next federal election, then still expected in September 2025. Lehrieder, a lawyer from Gaukönigshofen, was due to turn 65 that November and wanted someone younger to take over. Bayerischer Rundfunk later described the decision as one taken for reasons of age.

The city and rural CSU associations did not settle on one successor. In March 2024 the executive of the Würzburg city association unanimously backed Hülya Düber, then the city’s head of youth, family and social affairs, while the executive of the Würzburg-Land association gave a similarly closed endorsement to its own candidate, Marc Zenner. Zenner, then 42, was a lawyer in Veitshöchheim, deputy chairman of the rural-district association and a member of the district council from 2014 to 2020. The *Main-Post* reported that the two associations were therefore entering the internal contest with competing nominations. On 18 July 2024 the contenders appeared together before delegates for the first time, at a meeting in Bergtheim.

### Contest in Eibelstadt

The nominating conference was held on the evening of Friday, 20 September 2024, in the sports hall at Eibelstadt. Returning officer Waldemar Brohm announced the result at 21:14. Of 160 votes cast, 88 went to Düber and 72 to Zenner. The *Main-Post* called the result unexpected: Düber’s position had been regarded as difficult because the rural association had put up its own candidate, yet she also drew delegates from the rural district. Bayerischer Rundfunk later noted that she had won a contested nomination against a male rival.

The public campaign was then compressed by the collapse of the federal coalition. Chancellor [Olaf Scholz](/people/mig-olaf-scholz) asked for a vote of confidence on 11 December 2024. On 16 December the Bundestag withheld it: 207 members voted for him, 394 against and 116 abstained. President [Frank-Walter Steinmeier](/people/frank-walter-steinmeier) dissolved the Bundestag and fixed the election for 23 February 2025, in place of the date of 28 September 2025 that had previously been planned. In Würzburg the CSU marked the start of its local effort at a New Year reception in early January 2025, before more than 700 guests, with Düber on the platform as the Bundestag candidate; the programme included statements on internal security, and the party was simultaneously preparing a campaign for the city’s mayoral election. Later that month she attended a carnival evening in Margetshöchheim and canvassed in the Würzburg city centre, where, the *Main-Post* reported, she encountered residents’ everyday concerns.

### Result in constituency 250

Constituency 250 comprises the independent city of Würzburg and the whole of Landkreis Würzburg. On 31 December 2023 it contained 53 municipalities and covered 1,055.9 square kilometres. It then had about 292,600 inhabitants, 11.2 percent of them foreign nationals, and a population density of 277 people per square kilometre. Settlement and transport used 16.1 percent of the land; vegetation and water accounted for 83.9 percent. The unemployment rate at the end of November 2024 was 3.5 percent.

Of 222,633 eligible voters, 192,406 cast a ballot on 23 February 2025, a turnout of 86.4 percent, 3.9 points above 2021. That was higher than the 84.3 percent in Bavaria and the 82.5 percent nationwide. There were 191,416 valid first votes. Düber, for the CSU, received 74,917 of them, 39.1 percent, up 2.3 points on 2021, and was elected. The Federal Returning Officer lists Jessica Berta Hecht of Alliance 90/The Greens as runner-up, with 36,587 votes and 19.1 percent, down 0.7 points, a gap of 20.0 points.

The same official first-vote totals, matched candidate by candidate in the result list published by Radio Gong Würzburg, were Katharina Räth of the [Social Democratic Party of Germany](/organizations/social-democratic-party-of-germany) with 26,349 votes (13.8 percent, down 4.3 points); Federico Beck of the Alternative for Germany with 24,817 (13.0 percent; the official table prints no comparison with 2021); [Aaron Valent](/people/aaron-valent) of [Die Linke](/organizations/die-linke) with 9,766 (5.1 percent, up 1.0); Andrew Ullmann of the Free Democratic Party with 8,012 (4.2 percent, down 6.4); Duncan Seitz of the [Free Voters](/organizations/free-voters) with 5,704 (3.0 percent, down 2.2); Christoph Schröder of [Volt Germany](/organizations/volt-germany) with 3,181 (1.7 percent); and Ulrike Kämmerer of dieBasis with 2,083 (1.1 percent, down 1.6).

On second votes the CSU led with 35.8 percent (68,679 votes, up 5.5 points), followed by the Greens on 16.4 percent (down 2.9), the SPD and the AfD level on 13.5 percent (the SPD down 6.6 points, the AfD up 6.9), Die Linke on 8.2 percent (up 4.4), the FDP on 4.4 percent (down 6.1), Bündnis [Sahra Wagenknecht](/people/sahra-wagenknecht) on 2.8 percent and the Free Voters on 2.3 percent.

Compared with Bavaria, the constituency was a little weaker for the CSU and the AfD and stronger for the Greens. Across the state the CSU took 41.2 percent of first votes and 37.2 percent of second votes, the AfD 19.0 percent of second votes and the Greens 12.0 percent. Nationally the CDU received 22.6 percent of second votes and the CSU, which stands only in Bavaria, 6.0 percent; the AfD followed on 20.8 percent, the SPD on 16.4, the Greens on 11.6 and Die Linke on 8.8. The new Bundestag has 630 members. The CSU won 44 seats, every one of them a constituency mandate, including Würzburg. The FDP, on 4.3 percent of the national second vote, was allocated no seats, and the BSW, on 4.981 percent, also stayed below the five-percent threshold.

## Roles in the 21st Bundestag

### Parliamentary group

Dr. Hülya Düber took her seat in the 21st Bundestag when the chamber constituted itself on 25 March 2025. She holds the direct mandate for constituency 250, Würzburg, in Bavaria, and the Bundestag lists her with the joint CDU/CSU parliamentary group. Within that group, the Landesgruppe of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) lists her as one of three deputy chairs of the CSU in the Bundestag, with [Artur Auernhammer](/people/artur-auernhammer) and [Florian Oßner](/people/florian-ossner), under chairman Alexander Hoffmann. On that page Auernhammer and Oßner are identified by policy portfolios, while Düber is described as a member of the Bundestag.

On 22 May 2025 the Bundestag, without debate, elected its parliamentary secretaries (*Schriftführerinnen* and *Schriftführer*) from proposals submitted by the parliamentary groups under § 3 of its rules of procedure. Drucksache 21/215 (neu) of 20 May 2025 placed Düber on the CDU/CSU slate of 21 names; the other groups named 15 (AfD), 12 (SPD), nine (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) and seven (Die Linke), and the Bundestag adopted the proposals. The Basic Law requires the Bundestag to elect the secretaries along with its president and vice-presidents. In each sitting, the presiding president and two secretaries form the *Sitzungsvorstand*. The secretaries assist the president, in particular by keeping the list of speakers, calling names, and collecting and counting ballot papers, and they handle other business of the Bundestag at the president's direction. Her official biography continues to list the office of *Schriftführerin*.

### Committees and the Petitions Committee

The same biography records her as a full member of the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs (*Ausschuss für Arbeit und Soziales*) and of the Petitions Committee (*Petitionsausschuss*), and as a substitute member of the Committee on Education, Family, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and of the Interior Committee (*Innenausschuss*). It also lists her as acting chair (*amtierende Vorsitzende*) of the Petitions Committee.

Article 45c of the Basic Law requires the Bundestag to appoint a Petitions Committee to deal with requests and complaints addressed to the Bundestag under Article 17. Article 17 gives everyone the right, alone or with others, to address written requests or complaints (*Bitten oder Beschwerden*) to the competent bodies and to the legislature. The committee's powers to examine complaints are laid down in a federal statute.

Under § 58 of the rules of procedure, the Council of Elders (*Ältestenrat*) assigns, according to the strength of the parliamentary groups, which group may propose the chair and which the deputy chair of each committee. The entitled group nominates a member of the committee, and the committee elects the chair and the deputy by a majority of the votes cast. Until a chair is elected, a member of the Presidium or the longest-serving full member of the committee presides. If a nominee fails, the entitled group may demand a further ballot and may change its nominee.

The Petitions Committee of the 21st Bundestag met for the first time on 21 May 2025, with Bundestag President [Julia Klöckner](/people/julia-klockner) in the chair. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) held the right to propose the committee's chair. Its candidate, Manfred Schiller, did not receive the required majority in a secret ballot, and the committee also postponed choosing a deputy chair. [Andreas Mattfeldt](/people/andreas-mattfeldt) (CDU/CSU), the longest-serving member of the committee, then took the chair on a provisional basis; the 21 May dispatch records that role under the spelling Mattfeld. The committee has 26 full members: nine from the CDU/CSU, six from the AfD, five from the SPD, and three each from Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and Die Linke.

On the morning of 25 June 2025 the committee elected Düber deputy chair in a secret ballot in which every member present voted for her. The parliamentary news service reported that, because Schiller had not obtained a majority in May, Düber would lead the committee until further notice, and that Mattfeldt's provisional chairmanship ended that day. The right to propose the chair remained with the AfD.

### Council of Europe

On 5 June 2025 the Bundestag adopted Drucksache 21/339, a joint proposal of the CDU/CSU, AfD, SPD, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and Die Linke for the German delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The legal basis cited for the election is Articles 1 and 2 of the statute on the election of the Federal Republic's representatives to the Assembly. In that proposal Düber was named as a CDU/CSU substitute, with [David Gregosz](/people/david-gregosz), Johannes Volkmann, [Tilman Kuban](/people/tilman-kuban), [Carl-Philipp Sassenrath](/people/carl-philipp-sassenrath) and [Ellen Demuth](/people/ellen-demuth); the group's full members on the paper were Knut Abraham, [Tijen Ataoğlu](/people/tijen-ataoglu), Inge Gräßle, [Jürgen Hardt](/people/jurgen-hardt), [Patricia Lips](/people/patricia-lips) and [Siegfried Walch](/people/siegfried-walch).

The Assembly records her as a German substitute from 23 June 2025. The Bundestag's published list of the German delegation includes her among the CDU/CSU members. Her individual Bundestag biography still omits the seat from the membership block, which otherwise sets out her committee seats, the acting chairmanship of the Petitions Committee and the office of *Schriftführerin*.

## Legislative focus

### Labour and social security

As a full member of the Bundestag Committee on Labour and Social Affairs, Düber, a Christian Social Union member of the CDU/CSU group, has argued for replacing Bürgergeld with a “new basic security” for job-seekers. In the 17 September 2025 budget debate she tied that change to the coalition principle of demanding and supporting (*Fordern und Fördern*): not arbitrary cuts, she said, but faster placement, so basic security was a bridge into work. Refusing reasonable work or appointments should have consequences, which she called fairness to taxpayers.

At first reading on 15 January 2026 she called the welfare state one of the country’s greatest achievements and summarised the bill as help where necessary and cooperation where possible. Citing the Seventh Poverty and Wealth Report, she said paid work is the best protection against poverty and that support was not unconditional. Alliance 90/The Greens member [Britta Haßelmann](/people/britta-hasselmann) interjected that benefits had never been unconditional. From more than ten years as Würzburg’s social-affairs director, she said the local change from the earlier Hartz IV benefit to Bürgergeld had coincided with fewer kept appointments.

On 5 March 2026, at second and third reading, she thanked the labour minister, Social Democratic Party (SPD) co-rapporteurs [Daniela Rump](/people/daniela-rump) and [Jens Peick](/people/jens-peick), and CDU/CSU colleague [Kai Whittaker](/people/kai-whittaker). She named three changes: stronger duties to cooperate and more discretion for job centres; what she called a first statutory basis for the Federal Employment Agency to pursue organised benefit abuse, with clearer employer liability; and safeguards where mental illness is relevant, plus a hardship rule on housing costs for families with children.

Die Linke member Cansin Köktürk said 1.8 million children lived on Bürgergeld and that every third sanction affected a child. Düber replied that housing costs would be reallocated inside the household to avoid homelessness, and that youth offices support families rather than punish them. Green member [Timon Dzienus](/people/timon-dzienus) cited a research-service survey finding no lasting employment effect from harsher sanctions; Düber said the evidence was mixed. Heidi Reichinnek quoted associations warning of a risk to children; Düber said notifying youth offices was meant to support families, not to take children into care.

The bill passed 320 to 268, with two abstentions. Düber is in the CDU/CSU yes column; the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the Greens and Die Linke voted no, and SPD members [Jan Dieren](/people/jan-dieren) and [Ruppert Stüwe](/people/ruppert-stuwe) abstained. On 25 September 2026, against a Left motion to drop sanctions, she said missed appointments or refused work should still affect benefits, and she rejected an AfD claim that sanctions had ended by citing section 65a of the Second Book of the Social Code.

### Family, migration and interior affairs

In the September 2025 budget speech she defended the mothers’ pension as recognition of child-rearing, especially for rural women whose pensions were small because childcare had been scarce. On 5 December 2025 she voted with the CDU/CSU for the government’s pension package, which holds the pension level at 48 percent of average earnings until 2031 and adds six months of credited child-rearing time, to three years, for children born before 1992, with the federal budget paying the cost.

She did not speak on 27 June 2025, but voted for the CDU/CSU–SPD bill suspending family reunification for people with subsidiary protection for two years, with hardship cases for spouses, minor children and, for unaccompanied minors, parents. Abgeordnetenwatch records 444 in favour and 133 against; the Greens, Die Linke and SPD members Hakan Demir and [Maja Wallstein](/people/maja-wallstein) voted no. Tagesschau described a heated sitting: Interior Minister [Alexander Dobrindt](/people/alexander-dobrindt) spoke of 12,000 fewer arrivals a year, SPD speakers called the bill a compromise they had not designed, and Green member [Marcel Emmerich](/people/marcel-emmerich) called it merciless for separated families.

On 14 November 2025 she opposed an AfD motion to end “analogue” benefits under the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act. She called it a simplification: analogue benefits already required three years of lawful residence, and the Federal [Constitutional Court](/organizations/constitutional-court) had held in 2012 and 2022 that a dignified subsistence minimum is owed to every person. The CDU/CSU and SPD rejected the motion. Asked about people from Ukraine, she said EU temporary protection had put them in the job-seeker system. Associations called that a two-class system; she said job centres had helped when she housed refugees in Würzburg.

She also voted with the group to end naturalisation after three years (8 October 2025), to allow safe countries of origin to be set by statutory instrument and to drop mandatory counsel in detention pending deportation (5 December 2025; passed 457 to 130), against visas for Afghans who already had an admission promise (3 December 2025), and for the EU asylum adaptation (27 February 2026).

### Petitions practice and recorded votes

Düber is acting chair of the Petitions Committee. On 16 October 2025, debating the 2024 report, she called the committee a “seismograph of society” and the only committee with a task in the Basic Law. It recorded 9,260 petitions, just under 19 percent fewer than in 2023. She blamed the fall on social media and private platforms. Only the Bundestag, she said, accepts, examines and decides a petition so that it can affect legislation. Handing the report to President Julia Klöckner the day before, she told parliamentary television that only petitions to the Bundestag have a legislative effect.

Interior matters, including security and migration, drew 1,526 submissions, labour and social affairs 1,279, and justice 1,203. She cited a petition, forwarded with the committee’s strongest recommendation, that sought maternity protection after a miscarriage before the 24th week; she said the Maternity Protection Adjustment Act of early 2025 closed that gap. She noted that a 2024 cut in the public-hearing threshold, from 50,000 to 30,000 co-signatures, had not yet changed practice: all four petitions heard in public that year still cleared 50,000.

On 10 June 2026 she gave Klöckner the 2025 report: 12,399 petitions, up 34 percent. She called the rise evidence that people still write to the Bundestag. Interior again led (1,606), ahead of labour and social affairs (1,581) and justice (1,571). AfD member Manfred Schiller said petitions could not replace referendums, because the coalition voted as a bloc.

Abgeordnetenwatch lists 85 roll-call votes for her 2025–2029 mandate. On the labour, pension, family and interior decisions above she voted with the CDU/CSU.

## Civic offices and disclosures

Under sections 45 and following of the Members of the Bundestag Act, a member of the Bundestag must tell the President of the Bundestag, within three months of taking the seat and of any later change, of the last occupation and any right to return to it, posts in companies and public-law bodies, paid work beside the mandate, and leading or advisory roles in associations and foundations that are not purely local. What must be published appears on the member's biography, including the gross income from a notifiable activity once it exceeds 1,000 euros in a month or, if not, 3,000 euros in a year.

### Public bodies and the abuse commission

The biography lists her on the administrative committee of the Agentur für Arbeit Würzburg, a local office of the Federal Employment Agency. Book III of the Social Code gives every agency such a committee, with equal numbers of employee, employer and public-body representatives—four of each in Würzburg—to monitor the agency and advise it, and the members serve in an honorary capacity. Until 31 December 2025 she also sat on the Independent Commission for the Investigation of Sexual Abuse in the Diocese of Würzburg, which the diocese set up in December 2020, under a joint declaration of the German Bishops' Conference, to contribute to that investigation. In 2022 it commissioned the Wiesbaden lawyer Hendrik Schneider to review cases from 1945 to 2019; his report and the commission's recommendations have been public since April 2025. The only published payments are 1,264.22 euros gross a month for the district council of the Bezirk of Lower Franconia, Bavaria's third municipal tier, and, from 4 May 2026, 1,012.96 euros gross a month for the Würzburg city council.

### Foundations and associations

Seven association and foundation roles are listed, none with an income figure. She is a trustee of the Birgit Werner Stiftung in Würzburg, founded in 2019 by the parents of the surgeon Birgit Simone Werner to support young women in education and with cancer. From 9 September 2025 she has been a deputy trustee of the Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlin for the CDU/CSU Bundestag group. The Federal Republic, through the Ministry of Justice, founded that body on 27 October 2011 and named it after the physician Magnus Hirschfeld; its unpaid board of trustees oversees education and research against discrimination of queer people. Since 13 November 2025 she has been a trustee of the Elly Heuss-Knapp Stiftung – Deutsches Müttergenesungswerk, founded by Elly Heuss-Knapp, wife of the first federal president Theodor Heuss, whose unpaid board supervises convalescence for mothers, fathers and carers.

She chairs HALMA e.V. in Würzburg, which since 1992 has counselled relatives caring for people with gerontopsychiatric illness so that those people can remain at home. She is a council member of the Stiftung Hör-Sprachförderung, which in Würzburg runs boarding, day care, a cochlear-implant centre and therapy; deputy chair of the advisory board of the Stiftung Offene Behindertenhilfe, which houses people with disabilities or learning difficulties; and a council member of the Würzburger Kinderfonds-Stiftung GLÜCK IM UNGLÜCK, created in 2003 to fund the SPIELI children's centre in Würzburg-Zellerau.

### Outside income and return rights

The only pre-mandate occupation published is head of Würzburg's Department for Youth, Family and Social Affairs, with a right of return. For a paid civil servant the Act suspends service rights and duties during membership, and for a fixed term only for that term; public employees are covered by analogy. Reinstatement in an equivalent office, at not less than the former final basic salary, requires an application within three months. Düber states that she held the Würzburg post from 2015 until early 2025. No other outside income, company office, shareholding or future-activity agreement is published.

## Public reception

### Regional and national coverage

Regional papers set the early picture. In June 2018 *Main-Echo* presented the Bürgstadt-raised "gebürtige Miltenbergerin", by then head of Würzburg's social-affairs department, as someone whose parents had backed grammar school, the Abitur and a doctorate, unlike "andere Mädchen aus türkischen Gastarbeiterfamilien". She told Pat Christ she had grown up "quasi im Matriarchat". The same day's "Die Sache mit der Integration" said she had been told, "Sie haben sich aber toll integriert!", a line the paper treated as potentially "höchst befremdlich" for someone born in Germany and living there nearly forty years.

*Main-Post* has carried the political story. It called the September 2024 CSU nomination in Eibelstadt a "Wahlkrimi" decided "trotz starker Konkurrenz und innerparteilicher Spannungen", from a start that was "alles andere als gut", after she won over rural-district delegates. A letter it printed read the result as the failure of a "billigen Werbeschreiben" for Marc Zenner and noted that 106 rural delegates had disadvantaged her. In the 2025 campaign the paper reported red dots sprayed on the foreheads of numerous posters — a "Kopfschuss"-Symbol in the headline — which Düber called a targeted action and for which police sought witnesses; a later letter called that a "regelrecht brutale Form der versuchten Wahlbeeinflussung". In March 2025, after a video of her and other CSU politicians at Knauf's disputed planned mine in Altertheim, the paper asked whether it was "sachliche Information oder Lobbyarbeit"; she and Landtag members Andrea Behr and Björn Jungbauer rejected the impression of "Lobbyarbeit für Knauf". In May 2026 it asked how she would keep a new council seat and the Bundestag "unter einen Hut", and reported that she and Green deputy Patrick Friedl saw advantages in the dual mandate.

Outside Franconia the record is thinner. On 25 March 2025 BR24 followed her to the Bundestag's opening sitting alongside new Alternative for Germany member Andreas Mayer, quoting her sense that "ein neuer Lebensabschnitt beginnt". It sketched a 47-year-old, naturalized in 2001, who had taken the nomination against a male rival and the constituency by twenty percentage points over Jessica Hecht of the Greens, and who credited local CSU support while she was still non-partisan. *Main-Post*'s October visit to Berlin opened with "Das Einarbeiten fiel ihr leicht, die Orientierung schwer." The *Süddeutsche Zeitung* item that month was a Munich-section awards report, not a parliamentary profile.

### Awards and public image

On 31 October 2025 the *Süddeutsche* reported merit plaques for integration from the liberal Türkische Gemeinde Bayerns, chaired by Vural Ünlü, for Munich SPD councillor Cumali Naz, Green Landtag member Cemal Bozoğlu, and Düber. Ünlü had previously honored Horst Seehofer and Barbara Stamm; the laudators were Günther Beckstein and former mayor Christian Ude. Set against [Friedrich Merz](/people/friedrich-merz)'s "Stadtbild" remark, which Ünlü said left communities asking "Sind wir auch gemeint?", Beckstein called it a great thing that a woman with Turkish roots sat in the Bundestag for the CSU — expected, he said, of the SPD and the Greens — and said she deserved the greatest respect for entering "den politischen Kampf", "wo man ja nicht nur gelobt wird". Düber said, "Ich bin stolz darauf, eine Frau mit türkischen Wurzeln zu sein und in Bayern meine Heimat gefunden zu haben." The paper added that prejudices persisted toward a woman with a migration biography from a Muslim background, that she reported appreciation in the rural constituency, and that she wanted democratic parties to "verbal abrüsten" before 2029. *Main-Post* headlined the honor "Brückenbauerin für gute Integration" and attributed to the community the view that political engagement shows a home has been found. What remains is a first-term member from Lower Franconia, noticed for the Würzburg record and one shared honor rather than a national profile of her own.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/hulya-duber