Iris Stalzer
Iris Stalzer (born 1968) is a German politician with the Social Democratic Party (SPD). She serves as the mayor of Herdecke, a town in the southeast Ruhr area, after taking office in November 2025.
She grew up in Herdecke as the daughter of a steelworker. Stalzer studied law and works as a specialist lawyer for labor law in Herdecke. She was a member of the Herdecke city council until 2020, initially with Alliance 90/The Greens until 2014, then joined the SPD.
In the 2025 local elections, she won the mayoral race. She prevailed in the runoff on September 28, 2025 with 52.2% of the vote (first round: 42.5% for her; 39.2% for Fabian Haas of the CDU).
Stalzer is married and has two adopted children, a girl from Mali (born 2007/2008) and a boy from Haiti (born 2009/2010).
On October 7, 2025, Stalzer was stabbed outside her home and seriously injured. The attacker was identified as her adopted daughter after the son was briefly detained. The incident led to the children being placed in care. Prosecutors described the case as dangerous bodily harm rather than attempted murder. Stalzer recovered and was sworn in as mayor on November 4, 2025.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 03:09 (CET).