Bernd Schmidbauer (born 29 May 1939 in Pforzheim) is a former German politician and member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU).

[6] Because of his tendency to become active himself in the field of intelligence, Schmidbauer was given the nickname "008" - a reference to James Bond alias 007.

[8] Schmidbauer justified the deployment of Werner Mauss, who negotiated the release of hostages of ELN guerrillas in Colombia on behalf of the German government, as an "emergency humanitarian measure.

On 16 May 2006, Schmidbauer announced that he was suspending his work in the Parliamentary Control Committee until the allegations against the BND in the so-called journalist affair had been clarified.

[11] As justification, Schmidbauer stated that some of the spying on journalists occurred during his time as intelligence coordinator.