Born in 1954 in the coastal region of East Frisia in Lower Saxony, Reinhold Robbe comes from a working class family. He obtained his secondary-school leaving certificate in 1970, and joined the Social Democratic Party later that year. For many years, Reinhold Robbe was the spokesman for the “Seeheimer Circle,” the party’s conservative wing. When the SPD-Green coalition government under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder took over the helm in 1998, Reinhold Robbe became a member of the parliamentary Defense Committee. He was appointed committee chairman in 2002, and his calm and careful leadership won wide-ranging trust, including from the political opposition. In 2005, the former conscientious objector was named Commissioner for the Armed Forces to the German Bundestag. When the new coalition government under Chancellor Angela Merkel took power, Reinhold Robbe had to give up his plans for a second term as commissioner. He was appointed President of the German-Israeli Friendship Society in October 2010. Reinhold Robbe lives in Berlin and plans to marry his partner, an opera director, in April.