Friedrich Ludwig "Fritz" Bauer (10 June 1924 – 26 March 2015) was a German pioneer of computer science and professor at the Technical University of Munich.

He completed his habilitation thesis Über quadratisch konvergente Iterationsverfahren zur Lösung von algebraischen Gleichungen und Eigenwertproblemen ("On quadratically convergent iteration methods for solving algebraic equations and eigenvalue problems") in 1954 at the Technical University of Munich.

For ALGOL 58, Bauer was with the German Gesellschaft für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik (GAMM, Society of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics) which worked with the American Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).

[5] Bauer was an influential figure in establishing computer science as an independent subject in German universities, which until then was usually considered part of mathematics.

In 1967, NATO had been discussing 'The Software Crisis' and Bauer had suggested the term 'Software Engineering' as a way to conceive of both the problem and the solution.

"[10] Since 1992, the Technical University of Munich has awarded the Friedrich L. Bauer Prize [de] in computer science.