Ole von Beust (born 13 April 1955) is a former German politician who was First Mayor of Hamburg from 31 October 2001 to 25 August 2010, serving as President of the Bundesrat from 1 November 2007 on for one year.

[4] As host of Hamburg's annual St. Matthew's Day banquet for the city's civic and business leaders, von Beust invited several high-ranking guests of honour to the city, including Queen Silvia of Sweden (2003), King Abdullah II of Jordan (2005), Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark (2006), President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania (2008).

In the (preassigned) press conference Schill held minutes after he had heard of his own dismissal, he spoke vaguely of "homosexual relationships", a "flat in an infamous hustler district" and "certain things happened that let one infer the occurrence of love acts" between von Beust and Roger Kusch, who von Beust had appointed minister (in German city-states "senator") of justice.

[7] Von Beust himself considers his sexual orientation a private matter; when asked directly he usually ironically refers the interviewer to his father.

[8] Second term The Hamburg elections of 29 February 2004, ended with an unprecedented landslide victory for Ole von Beust and the CDU, with the party achieving an overall majority in the city-state's parliament.

Under von Beust's leadership, the Hamburg state government made the decision to commence construction of the Elbphilharmonie, a concert hall in the HafenCity quarter.

[10] In February 2009, von Beust and Minister President Peter Harry Carstensen of Schleswig-Holstein agreed on a €13 billion bailout of state-owned shipping financier HSH Nordbank.

[11] The two states were forced to intervene after the SoFFin fund, which had been set up by the federal government in 2008 to stabilize the financial markets, said it could not help out HSH Nordbank until it got rid of all its bad debts.

[12] Ahead of the 2009 national elections, von Beust was tipped as potential Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development in the cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel; in the negotiations on a coalition agreement with the FDP, however, the position went to Dirk Niebel.

[17] Upon leaving active politics, von Beust opened his own law firm and joined consultancy Roland Berger as advisor.

[32] For the 2021 national elections, von Beust endorsed Markus Söder as the Christian Democrats' joint candidate to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel.