Rudolf Albert Scharping (born 2 December 1947) is a German lawyer and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

In a party-internal vote, Scharping won against Gerhard Schröder, the centrist Minister-President of Lower Saxony, and Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, a representative of the party's left wing.

Scharping's opponent in the elections was the CDU's Helmut Kohl, who then had been Chancellor for twelve years, had forged German reunification in 1990 but whose popularity had taken hits due to ailing economic recovery in East Germany.

While he preferred a centrist course aiming at capitalising on mistakes made by the Christian Democrats, more left-wing members and others sought a more confrontative approach, dubbing Scharping's line a Schmusekurs (cuddling course).

His tenure saw the first time that the German Bundeswehr fully participated in a war, as NATO bombed Yugoslavia to stop Serbian policies in the Kosovo region.

In 1999, Scharping established a government-appointed independent commission headed by former President Richard von Weizsäcker to develop recommendations on the reform of the Bundeswehr.

[12][13][14] During a visit to United States Secretary of Defense William Cohen in 2000, Scharping was injured and briefly hospitalized after a steel security barrier sprang up beneath his motorcade as it arrived for an honors ceremony at the Pentagon.

[15] In 2001, Scharping was criticized publicly by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld when he was found to be the source of a report that the United States would intervene in Somalia as part of the campaign against terrorism.

[16] In what was later called Majorca Affair, Scharping had his picture taken in the swimming pool in company of his girlfriend Kristina Countess Pilati while the Bundeswehr was about to begin a difficult mission in Republic of Macedonia.

[18] Ahead of the 2002 elections, Schröder dismissed Scharping after weekly magazine Stern reported that he had accepted some $71,000 from a Frankfurt public relations company in 1998 and 1999, while he was minister.

In addition, he took on a variety of paid and unpaid positions, including as member of the board of trustees at the Bonner Akademie für Forschung und Lehre praktischer Politik (BAPP).