Franz Kroppenstedt was born in Marburg in 1931. He studied law in Marburg, too.
Before being appointed President of the Federal Statistical Office, Franz Kroppenstedt worked at the Federal Administrative Court and at the local authorities of the town of Eschwege. In 1962, he joined the Federal Ministry of the Interior.
Mr. Kroppenstedt’s term as President of the Federal Statistical Office and Federal Returning Officer lasted about three and a half years, from 1 January 1980 to 15 May 1983.
Already during the terms of Patrick Schmidt and Dr. Hildegard Bartels, bottlenecks occurred in dealing with the workload, which was caused by the extended federal statistics programme. Consequently, the field of official statistics was checked and the first law on the adjustment of statistics was adopted in 1980. In addition to the cuts required by that law, Franz Kroppenstedt initiated organisational measures to create scope for new activities despite the reduction of budget funds. As an experienced administrative official, he also was very much committed to the timely production of statistics and set up a deadline controlling system.
In the early 1980s, official statistics became an issue of public controversy because of the population census scheduled for 1983. Due to the so-called population census judgment, the census was postponed from 1983 to 1987.
In May 1983, Mr. Kroppenstedt was appointed State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Interior.