# Tobias Ebenberger

# Tobias Ebenberger

Tobias Ebenberger (born 2 August 1990 in Gütersloh) is a German politician of [the Alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) and a member of the Bundestag. He took his seat on 25 March 2025, at the start of the 21st electoral term, after election on the party's North Rhine-Westphalia state list. At the 2025 German federal election he was the AfD candidate in constituency 96, Rhein-Sieg-Kreis I. In the Bundestag he is a full member of the Committee on Health and the Committee on Digital Affairs and State Modernization, a deputy member of the Committee on Education, Family, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, and a deputy member of the board of trustees of the Federal Agency for Civic Education. Since 2025 he has been spokesperson of the AfD state group for North Rhine-Westphalia.

In 2010 he received the Allgemeine Fachhochschulreife at the Gymnasium Nepomucenum in Rietberg. He then did basic military service in the Bundeswehr from 2010 to 2011 and served as a soldier on a fixed-term contract from 2012 to 2015, completing a commercial vocational qualification in 2015. From 2015 to 2018 he was self-employed as an actor and media professional (content creator).

In 2014, while associated with the Bundeswehr, he auditioned for Deutschland sucht den Superstar with his parrot, Kito, performing Florence and the Machine's "Shake It Out" for a jury that included Dieter Bohlen. Bohlen did not send him through, saying the voice was too idiosyncratic for the show. FOCUS reported that he appeared a week later on the dating programme *Take Me Out*, and that later screen work included a 2015 role as a criminal investigator in the Sat.1 series *In Gefahr* and parts in the ZDF series *Wilsberg* and *Heldt* and in *Alarm für Cobra 11*.

Ebenberger joined the AfD in 2018. From 2018 to 2022 he was office manager for Iris Dworeck-Danielowski of the AfD group in the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia, and from 2022 to 2025 he produced video and social-media material for that group. Since 2024 he has been co-spokesperson of the AfD in the Rhein-Sieg district and deputy spokesperson of the party's Cologne regional association (Bezirksverband Köln). On 23 February 2025 he received 34,564 first votes in Rhein-Sieg-Kreis I, 17.5 percent, behind [Elisabeth Winkelmeier-Becker](/people/elisabeth-winkelmeier-becker) of the CDU (70,350 votes, 35.6 percent) and Sebastian Hartmann of the SPD (44,274 votes, 22.4 percent). The AfD's second-vote share in the constituency was 17.4 percent (34,453 votes), and Ebenberger stood in eighth place on the North Rhine-Westphalia list, the route by which he was elected. The Bundestag biography states that he is married.

## Early life, education and military service

### Childhood and schooling

Tobias Ebenberger was born on 2 August 1990 in Gütersloh, in the east of North Rhine-Westphalia. Published accounts say almost nothing about his childhood. The Bundestag biography, which the parliament states is drawn from members' own information, records the date and place of birth and does not name parents, siblings, or a childhood address.

He finished secondary school at the Gymnasium Nepomucenum in Rietberg, a town in the district of Gütersloh, in Ostwestfalen-Lippe. In 2010 he obtained the Allgemeine Fachhochschulreife there. Rietberg covers 110.31 square kilometres. Residents with their main home in the town numbered 25,155 at the end of 1990, the year of his birth, and 30,335 at the end of 2010. The Nepomucenum is a school of the town. It dates its foundation to 1 March 1743, when Maximilian Ulrich, Count of Kaunitz and Rietberg (styled Rittberg in the deed), signed a charter in Brno for a Progymnasium, at first run by Franciscans. The name refers to John of Nepomuk, venerated locally since the eighteenth century as patron of the County of Rietberg. The school places the present Gymnasium from 1966 and describes itself as a full Gymnasium since 1972, with a differentiated upper secondary stage; it currently lists about 980 pupils and about 95 teachers.

That leaving certificate is not the Abitur (Allgemeine Hochschulreife). In North Rhine-Westphalia the Fachhochschulreife, the right to study at a Fachhochschule, consists of a school part and a vocational-practical part. Pupils who leave the gymnasiale Oberstufe may receive the school part at the end of the first year of the qualification phase, or later from two consecutive rising half-years, if course and grade conditions are met. The school part alone is not treated as completion of the upper secondary school. The full qualification also requires completed vocational training or a one-year guided internship. Except in Bavaria and Saxony, that combination is recognised as the Fachhochschulreife. North Rhine-Westphalia treats completed military service, and the federal volunteer service, as equivalent to the internship, and shorter service may be credited. The Bundestag entry states the 2010 date for Ebenberger's Allgemeine Fachhochschulreife but not whether he left after the first qualification year or how the practical part was met.

### Bundeswehr service and vocational training

From 2010 to 2011 he performed Grundwehrdienst in the Bundeswehr, and from 2012 to 2015 he served as a Soldat auf Zeit, a soldier on a fixed-term engagement. Grundwehrdienst was the basic term of conscription in Germany. Section 5 of the Wehrpflichtgesetz provides that it lasts six months, is served in one block, and is performed by men who at entry have not yet reached 23, with statutory exceptions for later call-up. On 24 March 2011 the Bundestag suspended compulsory service in peacetime from 1 July 2011, about 55 years after conscription began, while leaving Article 12a of the Basic Law in force so the obligation can be restored in a state of tension or defence. The same law created a voluntary term of six to 23 months, open to men and women, beside career and fixed-term soldiers. His recorded basic service in 2010–2011 therefore fell in the last phase in which young men were still liable to be called up.

A Soldat auf Zeit is not a conscript. Under the Soldatengesetz, a person who voluntarily agrees to serve for a limited time may be appointed to that status, while a Berufssoldat undertakes service for life. The fixed-term appointment may run for up to 25 years, but not ordinarily past the age of 62, and service already performed in the Bundeswehr counts toward it. On his own website Ebenberger summarises the years after school as four years of military service stationed in Augustdorf, followed by a commercial qualification. Augustdorf is the station of Panzerbrigade 21 "Lipperland" of the German Army; the brigade staff is at the Generalfeldmarschall-Rommel-Kaserne. Published biographies do not name his unit, rank, or trade.

The Bundestag biography dates a kaufmännischer Berufsabschluss, a commercial vocational qualification, to 2015, the year his fixed-term service is recorded as ending. Under the Bundeswehr scheme of zivilberufliche Aus- und Weiterbildung, fixed-term soldiers may take a recognised civilian vocational qualification during their contract. That training is part of military specialist training, usually begins in the ninth month, and is mostly given by civilian providers. The public record does not say whether his 2015 certificate was obtained that way, or which occupation it covered.

## Acting and media work

### Television appearances

Ebenberger's first television appearances were in 2014, while he was still a Bundeswehr soldier from Gütersloh. In the eleventh season of Deutschland sucht den Superstar he auditioned, with his grandmother present, beside his yellow-breasted macaw Kito, singing "Shake It Out" by Florence and the Machine. That season's panel was Dieter Bohlen, Marianne Rosenberg, Mieze Katz and Kay One.

An oe24 report of 9 February 2014 said Kito sat first on Ebenberger's shoulder and then on Katz's while he sang. Katz and Kay One both voted no, after which the bird defecated on Katz's shoulder. Ebenberger was quoted: "Er hat die Mieze angekackt? Na, sie hätte mir ja ein 'Ja' geben können!" Later accounts of the broadcast quote his introduction — "Ihr werdet nicht mit diesem Gesang rechnen. Meine Stimme ist anders, wenn ich rede, als wenn ich Florence + The Machine performe" — and Katz's reply that expectations were rising "ins Unermessliche." Bohlen's rejection, as reported by FOCUS, t-online and Hörzu, was: "Deine Stimme ist super speziell, finde ich. Man sucht ja immer nach Speziellem. Aber die ist mir zu speziell. Dankeschön." He received no recall.

About a week later he was a contestant on RTL's dating show Take Me Out. FOCUS wrote in 2025 that he did not find a relationship there. The *Neue Westfälische* of 19 February 2014, headlined "Die Damen mögen ihn auch ohne Papagei," reported that the then 23-year-old temporary soldier had appeared on the show, hosted by Ralf Schmitz, and had chosen a date with 21-year-old ballet dancer Marie from four women still in contention; he afterwards called the date fruitless ("Da wird nichts draus"). March 2025 headlines describing him as a standing RTL guest go beyond the appearances those articles actually name: the audition, Take Me Out, one 2017 episode of *Alarm für Cobra 11*, and several 2018 episodes of *Unter uns*.

### Acting training and screen roles

In 2014 he won a place at the private Internationale Akademie für Filmschauspiel in Cologne and trained there until 2016. He told *Die Glocke* that the fees were a large personal outlay, that students dramatised their own memories for the camera, and that the course included stunt work and comedy and presentation classes. The Bundestag biography records self-employment from 2015 to 2018 "als Schauspieler und Medienschaffender"; the member page lists his occupations as "Medienschaffender, Schauspieler."

A November 2021 snapshot of his Crew United profile credits him for 2015 as Kriminalkommissar Konstantin Gerber, an episode lead, in the [Sat.1](/organizations/sat-1) series *In Gefahr – Ein verhängnisvoller Moment*. In an April 2017 interview he called that part a Kriminalhauptkommissar and said he had also worked on the ZDF series Wilsberg and *Heldt*. The database lists *Heldt* (2016) as the inmate Petr, an episode supporting role, and does not list *Wilsberg*. For Westdeutscher Rundfunk films it gives day-player parts: a neo-Nazi in *Toter Winkel* (2016) and a therapy-group participant in *Das Leben danach* (2016). He told *Die Glocke* he had just shot *Das Leben danach* with Jella Haase, then due on ARD in May 2017, and that *Toter Winkel* was expected on [Das Erste](/organizations/das-erste) that spring or summer.

Season 22 of *Alarm für Cobra 11 – Die Autobahnpolizei* opened on 6 April 2017 and ran on Thursdays until 11 May. He was in one episode as a Verfassungsschutz officer, beside Erdoğan Atalay. Hörzu later described the part as a villain.

The same database profile also lists a day role as a client in the web series *Kuntergrau* (2016), a young hipster on the ZDF show *Mann, Sieber!* (2016), the lead Mike in the 2017 showreel *Die letzte Hürde*, and the lead Romano in the 2017 feature *Nie wieder*. In March 2025 the *Express*, citing Castforward, reported a further part as a CDU employee in the satire *Kroymann*.

From 25 April 2018 the *Unter uns* fan club said he would be seen for several episodes as Patrick Kruppke, a protection-racket extortionist, whom he described as rough, clever and cold, and as someone who manipulated people for gain. t-online and Hörzu also reported several 2018 episodes of *Unter uns*. The Bundestag biography ends the self-employed acting and media period in 2018.

## Entry into the AfD and Landtag staff work

### Joining the party

Tobias Ebenberger has been a member of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) since 2018. That date, and the posts that followed it, appear in the biography published by the [German Bundestag](/organizations/german-bundestag), which notes that its biographical entries rest on information supplied by the members themselves. The same text places the start of his membership in the year he stopped working on his own account as an actor and media professional and took a staff job with the party's group in the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia. No official notice gives a day of admission or names the local branch he joined.

The state party was already inside the parliament in Düsseldorf. At the Landtag election of 14 May 2017 the AfD won 7.4 percent of the second votes and 16 seats, its first representation in North Rhine-Westphalia. All 16 came from the state list. The returning officer's file of successful list candidates places Iris Dworeck-Danielowski tenth, recorded as an insurance employee living in Cologne.

### Office of Iris Dworeck-Danielowski

Dworeck-Danielowski was born on 16 February 1978 in Wesel. The Landtag's notice on former members, based on her own details, records training as a tax clerk and as a non-medical practitioner, and employment in an insurance company from 2006. She joined the AfD in 2014, was an assessor and press spokesperson of the Cologne district association in 2014–15, and its deputy chair from 2015 to 2017. She sat in the Landtag from 1 June 2017 until 1 June 2022.

She did not enter through a constituency. In Cologne III the AfD received 3,162 first votes, 4.6 percent of the valid vote, and the seat went to Gabriele Hammelrath of the SPD; the City of Cologne's count for the same constituency names Dworeck-Danielowski as the AfD candidate on exactly those 3,162 votes, 4.55 percent. During the term, Abgeordnetenwatch's compilation of committee posts lists her as spokesperson of the AfD group on the committee for family, children and youth and as spokesperson on the petitions committee, a full member of the committee for equality and women, and a substitute on the committees for labour, health and social affairs and for the economy, energy and state planning, and on the enforcement commission of the legal committee. In February 2022 the Landtag's own magazine, *Landtag Intern*, introduced her in the same terms, as the group's spokesperson for family, children, youth and women.

Ebenberger was her *Büroleiter*, the head of that parliamentary office, from 2018 to 2022. The post belonged to a member's personal staff, not to the group. Under the North Rhine-Westphalia Members of Parliament Act, each member is reimbursed, against proof and through the Landtag administration, for employing staff to help with parliamentary work; spending that is not for that work is not reimbursable. No public source itemises what he did in the office beyond that title.

### Media work for the state parliamentary group

Her mandate ended at the [2022 North Rhine-Westphalia state election](/facts/2022-north-rhine-westphalia-state-election), held on 15 May 2022. The AfD's second-vote share fell to 5.4 percent, and the returning officer's seat table gives the party 12 seats, against 16 in 2017. Dworeck-Danielowski stood again. In Cologne VII the AfD took 2,154 first votes, 4.6 percent, and the constituency went to Carolin Kirsch of the SPD. Westdeutscher Rundfunk, in its candidate check for that election, identified her as the AfD candidate in Cologne VII, gave her occupation as member of the Landtag and previously an insurance employee, and marked her as not elected. A 24RHEIN overview of the AfD state list placed her 15th, after Thomas Röckemann and Helmut Seifen and behind the twelve names, from Markus Wagner through Zacharias Schalley, who match the returning officer's file of AfD candidates actually elected from the list. The Landtag dates the end of her membership to 1 June 2022.

Ebenberger stayed with the AfD group in a different job. From 2022 to 2025 the Bundestag biography describes him as a media professional, for video and social media, employed by the group rather than by an individual member. Since a recast in force from 3 June 2020, state law has counted a group's own public-relations work among its tasks: informing the public about parliamentary proceedings and about the group's initiatives, concepts and positions, and discussing parliamentary questions with citizens. A group chooses the means, is not bound by political neutrality, and must show that the material is its own. Money and benefits granted to a group may be used only for its own purposes, not for party tasks. The February 2022 issue of *Landtag Intern* listed Michael Schwarzer as the AfD group's press spokesperson on its editorial board, separate from members' personal offices. The biography records Ebenberger's function in that operation; it does not name particular films, accounts or campaigns as his.

## 2025 Bundestag election

### Candidacy in Rhein-Sieg-Kreis I

At the 2025 German federal election on 23 February 2025, Tobias Ebenberger was the direct candidate of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in constituency 96, Rhein-Sieg-Kreis I, in North Rhine-Westphalia. The constituency comprises ten municipalities of the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis—Eitorf, Hennef (Sieg), Lohmar, Much, Neunkirchen-Seelscheid, Niederkassel, Ruppichteroth, Siegburg, Troisdorf and Windeck—while the district’s remaining municipalities form constituency 97. On 31 December 2023 it covered 660.7 square kilometres and had a population of about 320,400.

The North Rhine-Westphalia returning officer listed eight candidates for the constituency. Ebenberger, eighth on the AfD state list, stood against Sebastian Hartmann of the [Social Democratic Party of Germany](/organizations/social-democratic-party-of-germany) (SPD; list place 3), Elisabeth Winkelmeier-Becker of the [Christian Democratic Union of Germany](/organizations/christian-democratic-union-of-germany) (CDU; list place 2), Rebecca Stümper of Alliance 90/[The Greens](/organizations/the-greens) (list place 49), Niko Gräfrath of the Free Democratic Party (FDP; list place 43), Jason Pascal Osterhagen of [Die Linke](/organizations/die-linke), who had no state-list place, Martin Wunschock of the [Free Voters](/organizations/free-voters) and Marcel Landsberg of [Volt Germany](/organizations/volt-germany).

Of 238,140 people eligible to vote, 199,347 did so. Turnout was 83.7 percent, 4.8 percentage points above the federal election of 26 September 2021, when 188,217 of 238,627 eligible voters had participated. Winkelmeier-Becker took the constituency on the final count, with 70,350 of 197,596 valid first votes (35.6 percent), 3.0 points above the CDU share in 2021. Hartmann was second with 44,274 votes (22.4 percent, down 6.1 points). Ebenberger was third with 34,564 (17.5 percent), 10.5 points above the AfD’s 2021 first-vote share of 7.0 percent, or 13,045 votes. Stümper received 22,219 (11.2 percent, down 2.8 points), Osterhagen 11,331 (5.7 percent, up 2.4) and Gräfrath 8,438 (4.3 percent, down 4.6). Wunschock and Landsberg received 3,319 (1.7 percent) and 3,101 (1.6 percent).

On the second ballot the CDU led the constituency with 63,303 votes (31.9 percent, up 4.4 points), ahead of the SPD with 35,483 (17.9 percent, down 8.6) and the AfD with 34,453 (17.4 percent, up 10.1). Alliance 90/The Greens received 24,783 (12.5 percent, down 3.2), Die Linke 13,446 (6.8 percent, up 3.4) and the FDP 9,908 (5.0 percent, down 7.4). The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which had no constituency candidate, polled 8,503 second votes (4.3 percent). Valid second votes numbered 198,279.

### List election and entry into the 21st Bundestag

Ebenberger did not win the direct seat. Both the federal and the state returning officers recorded Winkelmeier-Becker as elected in the constituency. The electoral system used in 2025 fixes the Bundestag at 630 members and distributes those seats according to second votes. Within each Land, a party’s seats go first to its candidates who finished first in a constituency, ordered by their share of the valid first vote, and only so far as the party’s second-vote allocation in that Land covers them. Seats still left are filled in the order of the closed state list, whose ranking the parties set and voters cannot change.

In the federal returning officer’s seat calculation, the AfD received 26 of its seats in North Rhine-Westphalia, from 1,770,379 second votes there. The same calculation records no AfD first-vote majority in any North Rhine-Westphalian constituency, so all 26 seats remained for the state list. The state returning officer likewise reported 26 AfD seats in the Land. Place 8 therefore fell inside the allocation. The federal returning officer lists Ebenberger, born in 1990, as elected for the Land of North Rhine-Westphalia at list place 8, and as having also stood in constituency 096. The Bundestag biography states the same mode of election: via the North Rhine-Westphalia state list, with a candidacy in Wahlkreis 096. The 21st Bundestag met for its constitutive sitting on 25 March 2025.

## Bundestag membership

Tobias Ebenberger has been a member of the Bundestag since 25 March 2025, the start date recorded for his seat in the 21st electoral term and for the committee appointments that have framed his work.

### Committees and other bodies

From 25 March 2025 he has been a full member of the Committee on Digital Affairs and State Modernization (Ausschuss für Digitales und Staatsmodernisierung) and of the Committee on Health (Ausschuss für Gesundheit), and a deputy member of the Committee on Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. Abgeordnetenwatch lists the same three assignments for the 2025–2029 Bundestag.

The Bundestag biography also names him as a deputy member of the board of trustees (Kuratorium) of the "Zentrale für politische Bildung", the Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung). The agency describes that board as 22 members of the Bundestag, with the parliamentary groups represented according to their strength, reviewing the agency's work for effectiveness and political balance. A Bundestag list of deputy members dated 11 September 2025 places him among the AfD deputies, with [Birgit Bessin](/people/birgit-bessin), Nicole Hess, [Kerstin Przygodda](/people/kerstin-przygodda) and [Sven Wendorf](/people/sven-wendorf).

In the digital committee he was a rapporteur on the AfD motion against a European digital-identity wallet and on the government's Digital Identity Act. The committee report of 14 October 2026 on the motion, Drucksache 21/8610, names him as Berichterstatter with Dr. [Markus Reichel](/people/markus-reichel) (CDU/CSU), [Parsa Marvi](/people/parsa-marvi) (SPD), [Rebecca Lenhard](/people/rebecca-lenhard) (Alliance 90/The Greens) and [Sonja Lemke](/people/sonja-lemke) ([The Left](/organizations/the-left-slovenia)). The report of the same day on the government bill, Drucksache 21/8617, lists the same five rapporteurs.

### Initiatives, questions and plenary speeches

In the Bundestag documentation system DIP, activities linked to him as of 30 October 2026 comprised 17 plenary speeches, one short intervention and one question to a speaker, 50 individual questions to the government, and authorship entries on 282 minor interpellations (Kleine Anfragen), 198 motions, 36 bills, 12 amending motions and 10 motions for a resolution from the Alternative for Germany group. Group papers carry many names, so those figures are not texts he drafted alone. Of 538 such Drucksachen in that set, DIP shows him as the first named member on two.

The first is the minor interpellation of 4 August 2025, Drucksache 21/1117, with him as first signatory. It asks whether the German European Digital Identity Wallet, under Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 (eIDAS), would let an issuing authority trace use of a digital identity.

The second is the motion of 23 June 2026, Drucksache 21/6650, with 39 named authors and Ebenberger first. It calls on the government to seek repeal at European Union level of Articles 5a to 5f of the eIDAS Regulation, to stop the national EUDI-Wallet project, to build a national wallet limited to voluntary administrative use, and to keep analogue alternatives equally valid.

The House debated the motion on 25 June 2026 and referred it to the digital committee as lead committee, with the interior, legal, finance, labour and European Union committees in an advisory role. On 14 October the lead committee, and each advisory committee, recommended rejection, with the CDU/CSU, SPD, Greens and Left against the AfD. On 15 October the plenary adopted that recommendation. In the same item it passed the government bill, Drucksache 21/7408 as amended in Drucksache 21/8617, by show of hands in the second and third readings: SPD and CDU/CSU in favour, the Left, Greens and AfD against, and no abstentions. The committee had recommended that amended text by the same coalition majority, and had asked for a pseudonym function soon if it was missing at launch.

On 25 June he moved the text, arguing that a wallet due on 2 January 2027 would cover prescriptions, certificates, bank accounts and loyalty schemes, and he asked Markus Reichel about age checks for social media. On 5 March 2026 he said age limits online would force checks on every user and drive wallet uptake, and on 15 October he said voluntariness would not hold, quoting epicenter.works on a "creeping obligation" and citing Austria's ID Austria. In the 84th sitting on 12 June 2026 he criticised plans he attributed to Health Minister [Nina Warken](/people/nina-warken) to cut pension credits for home care, and on 16 October he said he had cared until 2021 for a neighbour with care grade 4. DIP also ties speeches of his to the 2025 and 2026 budgets, the NIS-2 bill (11 September 2025), a modernisation agenda (17 October 2025), "chat control" (17 December 2025), bureaucracy reduction (15 January 2026), the bill's first reading (23 September 2026) and AI systems (25 September 2026), and a short intervention on 7 November 2025 during the debate on 80 years of the [United Nations](/organizations/united-nations).

Written questions from May 2025 to October 2026 cluster on digital identity, age checks, artificial intelligence, cash and the digital euro, with others on health, migration and spending. He is recorded as a co-signatory, not first author, of motions on the electronic patient record (Drucksache 21/6932), EU "chat control" (Drucksachen 21/2240 and 21/3296) and a moratorium on authorised mRNA COVID-19 vaccines (Drucksache 21/4283).

On abgeordnetenwatch his profile showed 8 of 13 public questions answered (62 percent). Replies dated 10 July 2026 say that, with the AfD group, he rejected cuts in statutory psychotherapy; that the German Ethics Council in 2019 had not found a general vaccination mandate justified; and that the AfD sought emergency-care reform. Recorded roll-call votes include support on 15 October 2026 for extending the UNMISS and EUNAVFOR Aspides mandates, opposition on 16 October 2026 to a Fuel Emissions Trading Act amendment linked to the CO₂ price, and, on 8 October 2026, votes to keep certain property and inheritance tax advantages and the existing statutory scope of non-invasive prenatal testing.

### Role in the AfD parliamentary group

The Bundestag biography, whose biographical text rests on members' own statements, says that since 2025 he has been spokesperson of the AfD Landesgruppe for North Rhine-Westphalia. His page on the AfD Bundestag group's site uses the same title, "Sprecher der Landesgruppe Nordrhein-Westfalen". The post is an internal function of the parliamentary group, distinct from the committee seats and the Kuratorium deputy membership above.

## Political positions

### Digital policy

In the Bundestag, Tobias Ebenberger has argued that a digital identity should stay voluntary, be limited to public authorities, and keep an analogue alternative. In his first speech, on 10 July 2025, on the budget of the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and State Modernisation, he said putting forms online was not cutting bureaucracy. He called a European wallet a route to data extraction and control, cited the [American Civil Liberties Union](/organizations/american-civil-liberties-union) on a “checkpoint society”, and recalled that in the [COVID-19 pandemic](/drivers/covid-19-pandemic) a government QR code had governed access to ordinary services.

On 23 June 2026 he was the first named signatory of an [Alternative for Germany](/organizations/alternative-for-germany) motion, Drucksache 21/6650, “Keine digitale Identität und Geldbörse durch die EU”. It asked the Bundestag to seek repeal of Articles 5a to 5f of the eIDAS Regulation, to stop Germany’s European Digital Identity Wallet, to build a national wallet only for voluntary official business, and to keep paper documents equally valid. The text said the wallet was due on 2 January 2027 and, in the group’s account, would extend from identity papers to a health card, a vaccination record and private uses such as banking. It likened that reach to EU COVID certificates and quoted the government formula “digital first, analog möglich”.

At the readings on 15 October 2026 he said the statute would not stop use becoming obligatory in practice. He quoted the Austrian group epicenter.works on “creeping obligation”, pointed to Austria’s ID Austria and the dismissal of Vienna teacher Elisabeth Thaler, and cited the Federation of German Consumer Organisations on profiling. He tied the wallet to measures the World Health Organization had “recommended” in the pandemic and said the EU articles should be repealed, not amended. The digital-affairs committee recommended rejection, with every group but the AfD in favour of rejecting the motion. The Bundestag passed the government’s Digital Identities Act with the SPD and CDU/CSU for and the Left, the Greens and the AfD against, and rejected the AfD motion on the same split. CDU/CSU speaker Konrad Körner said the law took nothing away. Heise online reported Ebenberger’s charge that the wallet was surveillance tied to a digital euro and amounted to “autoritärer Bürgerentmündigung”, and noted that the ministry had already narrowed the January 2027 launch.

### Health policy

On pandemic review and the WHO, the record is mainly AfD texts he co-signed rather than speeches he led. On 24 June 2025 he signed Drucksache 21/573, seeking a committee of inquiry into COVID-19 policy. The motion called lockdowns interferences with constitutional rights and cited disputed claims of harm from the measures and the vaccines. On 10 July 2025 the Bundestag instead created a study commission, “Aufarbeitung der Corona-Pandemie und Lehren für zukünftige pandemische Ereignisse”, on a CDU/CSU–SPD motion backed by the Greens and the Left and opposed by the AfD, with some AfD abstentions. The inquiry demand lost a recorded vote, 450 to 146 with one abstention. On the recommendation to reject it, the AfD cast 145 votes against rejection and none in favour.

On 4 November 2025 he co-signed, after Martin Sichert and [Christina Baum](/people/christina-baum), “Austritt Deutschlands aus der WHO und Neuausrichtung internationaler Gesundheitskooperation” (Drucksache 21/2554). It said a pandemic agreement adopted on 20 May 2025, which the United States and Argentina did not join, shifted authority to a body not chosen by elected parliaments; that the European Union had negotiated for Germany; that about 80 percent of WHO finance was voluntary and earmarked; and that the organisation’s COVID-19 role had not been independently reviewed. It asked the government to begin withdrawal and to seek what the motion called a democratically legitimated and sovereignty-compatible system, and said the International Health Regulations would have to be denounced separately.

On 7 July 2026 he co-signed Drucksache 21/6932, an AfD motion with [Ruben Rupp](/people/ruben-rupp) first on the list, on the electronic patient record. It criticised the opt-out model—about 5 percent had objected by mid-May 2025, the motion said—and cited the [Chaos Computer Club](/organizations/chaos-computer-club). On 14 January 2025 the Club wrote that flaws shown at its congress meant the record did not then deserve trust; spokesperson Calvin Baus called rollout in that state the wrong decision. The motion sought consent rather than objection for new records; a shielded compartment for diagnoses it treated as especially sensitive, including depression, HIV, addiction, abortion and eating disorders; explicit consent, limited to medical research bodies, before anonymised data are reused; and seizure protection under criminal procedure.

### Family and social policy

German law restricts surrogacy. The Embryo Protection Act penalises fertility treatment aimed at a woman prepared to hand the child permanently to third parties. The Adoption Placement Act bans arranging surrogate motherhood and public advertising for surrogates or commissioning parents.

In a written opinion to the family committee of the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia on the state AfD motion of 28 April 2026, “Kinder sind keine Bestellware” (Drucksache 18/19019), Ebenberger wrote that he and his husband visited the “Wish for a Baby” fair in Cologne on 18 October 2025 and, on a referral, the “Men Having Babies” conference in Brussels on 14–16 November 2025, pretending to be clients. He said a Utah Fertility Center representative approached them within minutes and would not discuss price on the floor in case they were police. In Brussels, he wrote, he was told of costs up to €250,000 and was later shown an egg-donor database. He called the fair a first step toward a “commercially acquired child” abroad, said §§ 13c and 13d did not expressly forbid every such approach, and supported tighter control of the fairs and a review of the law. The queer-rights association LSVD⁺, in a statement to the same committee that did not name him, accepted surrogacy—it preferred the term “Leihschwangerschaft”—as a route to parenthood, including for queer families, but only if altruistic. It said a total ban shifted the practice abroad, and that “diffamierende Bezeichnungen” of women and queer people blocked a factual debate.

## Local politics in the Rhein-Sieg district

### District and regional party offices

Since 2024 Tobias Ebenberger has been co-spokesperson of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis and a deputy spokesperson of the AfD Bezirksverband Köln, the association for the Cologne government region. The Bundestag biography, which the parliament says rests on members' own information, dates both offices from 2024. In a February 2025 profile the *Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger* described the Lohmar resident as one of two speakers of the AfD Rhein-Sieg and as vice-speaker of the Cologne regional association. The district association's website names Ebenberger and Edgar Lenzen as Kreissprecher in its legal notice.

On his own site Ebenberger writes that, after several years with his main residence in Cologne, he has lived with his husband in Lohmar since 2022. Lohmar is one of the towns in Bundestag constituency 96, Rhein-Sieg-Kreis I, for which the *Stadt-Anzeiger* presented him as the AfD direct candidate before the February 2025 federal election. In a May 2026 Instagram post he referred to his husband by the first name Dominik.

### Events and local reporting

On Friday, 7 August 2026, the AfD branch in Hennef hosted Ebenberger at the Gasthaus Steinhof in Hennef-Stein. The *Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger* reported that about 70 counter-demonstrators from democracy initiatives across the district, including groups from Siegburg, Much, Troisdorf and Niederkassel, stood across the street with rainbow flags and placards. The AfD said about 60 people attended its meeting, which required registration.

Anna Seidel of the Hennefer Bündnis für Vielfalt called that registration a deliberate exclusion of the public. The paper reported only brief exchanges when a few AfD supporters crossed the street. The AfD treated the protest as extra attention; Seidel called that a distortion. The same article described a separate action the previous evening in Siegburg, where participants held a “Remigration jetzt” poster and a large German flag while “Siegburg zeigt Haltung” stood opposite with banners citing human dignity and reading “Kein Ort für Rassismus.” It did not place Ebenberger at that action.

Later that month Bonn state security investigated the suspected use of symbols of an unconstitutional organisation after a video from an AfD stand in Siegburg. The *Stadt-Anzeiger* reported that one of four men at the stand used the banned Sturmabteilung slogan “Alles für Deutschland,” and that the others, including district spokesperson Edgar Lenzen, laughed. A complainant from the Dürener Bündnis gegen Rechts said the context was political. Lenzen said he would comment only with a lawyer, and no statement had arrived by deadline. An action set for 20 August in Siegburg-Wolsdorf was cancelled; Kirsten Georg of Siegburg zeigt Haltung suspected the investigation. Uwe Neuser of the initiative said an AfD Stammtisch in Lohmar that day was still expected to include a speech by Ebenberger, with a counter-event planned. The report did not say Ebenberger had used the slogan.

Before the 2025 federal election the *Stadt-Anzeiger* printed Ebenberger’s answers for constituency 96. He named a “Migrationswende” and a review of pandemic policy as first projects if the AfD entered government, and said Berlin should stop shifting new costs onto municipalities. On the night of 10–11 February, unknown persons made a hole about 30 centimetres across in the door of his campaign office on Kaiserstraße in Siegburg and threw in a glass of clear liquid. Police spokesman Michael Beyer said a smell of faeces was clearly noticeable, and state security investigated the damage. Ebenberger called it a “cowardly attack” and said he assumed the liquid was butyric acid. The day after the 23 February vote, the paper reported that eighth place on the AfD list in North Rhine-Westphalia — which the article called the far right — was enough for Ebenberger, from Lohmar, to enter the Bundestag.

After the 14 September 2025 municipal election, the *Kölnische Rundschau*, WDR and the Bonn *General-Anzeiger* reported a one-vote contest in Lohmar voting district V: of 626 ballots cast, CDU candidate Doris Kyri had 170 and AfD candidate Dominik Ebenberger 169. A public recount on 12 November at Lohmar town hall, after submissions from the AfD, left the result unchanged. The city told the *Rundschau* that an AfD win there would not have changed the seat totals, and that Dominik Ebenberger, fifth on the list, still entered the council. WDR reported 17 seats for the CDU and six for the AfD, and said he attended the recount and was satisfied. The coverage did not describe him as Tobias Ebenberger’s husband.

## Personal life and public image

### Private life

The Bundestag biography, which the parliament says rests on members' own statements, records that Tobias Ebenberger was born on 2 August 1990 in Gütersloh and is married, without naming a spouse or describing children or a household.

Local papers have been more specific about place. In April 2017 the Gütersloh daily *Die Glocke* described him as a native of Gütersloh who had spent much of his life in Rietberg. On 10 February 2025 the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger and the *Kölnische Rundschau* ran the same candidate profile and, in a short background note, called him "der Lohmarer," their label for a resident of Lohmar in the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis. The note gave his age as 34 and said he was working in graphic design after earlier work as an actor and as an office manager in the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament.

### Media reception

Before he joined the Alternative for Germany, hometown coverage treated the screen work as an acting career in progress. On 6 April 2017 *Die Glocke* wrote that the then 26-year-old, trained from 2014 to 2016 at the private Internationale Akademie für Filmschauspiel in Cologne, wanted a steep career and named Hollywood as the goal. It reported a guest part as a domestic-intelligence employee in the RTL series *Alarm für Cobra 11*, beside Erdoğan Atalay, and earlier appearances in Sat.1's *In Gefahr* and the ZDF series *Wilsberg* and *Heldt*.

After the 2025 election, national outlets recast those years as an unlikely route into parliament, often derisively. On 25 March 2025 FOCUS online published "Von Dieter Bohlen abgewatscht: AfD-Politiker war Dauergast in RTL-Sendungen," contrasting an Instagram image it called serious—tie, and slogans against "Wokeness" and diversity—with the earlier television work. It reconstructed a 2014 audition on season 11 of *Deutschland sucht den Superstar*: then a Bundeswehr soldier, he arrived with his yellow-breasted macaw, Kito, and his grandmother, and sang "Shake It Out" by Florence and the Machine for Dieter Bohlen, Marianne Rosenberg, Kay One and Mieze Katz. FOCUS quoted Bohlen calling the voice "super speziell" but "zu speziell," so there was no recall, and wrote that a week later on *Take Me Out* he did not find "the great love." It listed parts in *In Gefahr* (2015), *Wilsberg* and *Heldt* (2016/2017) and *Alarm für Cobra 11*, dated his joining the AfD to 2018, and quoted an Instagram post hailing the party's 20.8 percent as a "sensationelles Rekordergebnis."

t-online, updated the same day, added that Katz carried the parrot and afterward had droppings on her back, that the bird cried out during the song, and that she said expectations were rising "ins Unermessliche." It also reported 2018 episodes of *Unter uns* and described shirt, jacket and striped tie beside lines against "Wokeness" and diversity as the later public image. *Hörzu* on 27 March 2025 headlined a "DSDS-Pleite" and a *Wilsberg* role, repeating that account. The Berliner Zeitung headlined that a parrot had destroyed his singing career and, in the text not behind its subscription wall, called him unusually young in a group it said had the Bundestag's highest average age, and, by his own account, a content creator from 2015 to 2018 who had also appeared in RTL formats.

The February questionnaires in the *Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger* and *Kölnische Rundschau* did not mention the casting shows. They printed answers on migration, coronavirus policy, municipal finance, rural care, transport and energy, and limited biography to the graphic-design note and his AfD posts in Rhein-Sieg and the Cologne district association.

On 24 February 2025 queer.de, in "So queer ist der neue Bundestag," placed him on a list of queer members of the 21st Bundestag compiled "soweit uns bekannt," among first-time entrants, without a profile or any account of reaction. A later roundup, "Queere Mitglieder des 21. Deutschen Bundestages," marked as certainly incomplete, named him again with Kay Gottschalk and [Alice Weidel](/people/alice-weidel).

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/tobias-ebenberger