Antje Vollmer (born 31 May 1943) is a German politician of the

Alliance 90/The Greens Alliance 90/The Greens (german: Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, ), often simply referred to as the Greens ( ), is a Green politics, green List of political parties in Germany, political party in Germany. It was formed in 1993 as the merger of The Greens ...

. From 1994 to 2005, she was one of the vice presidents of the German parliament, the ''

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Commons ...

''.

Education and early career

Vollmer was born in

Lübbecke Lübbecke (; wep, Lübke) is a town in northeast North Rhine-Westphalia in north Germany. This former county town lies on the northern slopes of the Wiehen Hills (''Wiehengebirge'') and has around 26,000 inhabitants. The town is part of district ...

(

Westphalia Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants. The territory of the regio ...

). After graduating from Wittekind-Gymnasium Lübbecke in 1962, she studied Protestant theology in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in thr ...

and

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, completing her first theological exam in 1968, her second in 1971 and received her doctorate in 1973. From 1969 to 1971, she was a research assistant at the

Kirchliche Hochschule Berlin The Kirchliche Hochschule Berlin (Church University Berlin) was a theological university in Berlin, Germany, from 1945 to 1992, a facility of the Protestant Church in Berlin, Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia. History The university dates b ...

. In 1971 she started a postgraduate course in adult education, which she completed in 1975. From 1971 to 1974 she worked as a pastor in Berlin-Wedding, later as a teacher in an adult education center from 1976 to 1982.

Political career

In the 1970s, she was politically active in the

Maoist Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...

Anti-imperialist League (''Liga gegen den Imperialismus'') but did not join the party. In 1985 Vollmer joined the Green Party, even though she already had been in the Bundestag since 1983 for that party. Due to the party principle of ''rotation'' she had to give up the parliamentary seat in 1985, but was reelected in

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, k ...

and again in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

and

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

. Vollmer was the first politician of the Green Party to be elected into the

Presidium of the Bundestag The Presidium of the Bundestag is responsible for the routine administration of the Bundestag, including its clerical and research activities. The presidium consists of the President of the Bundestag and a variable number of Vice Presidents, curr ...

, in November 1994. She remained vice president of the Bundestag until the 2005 elections, when she did not run for re-election.

Life after politics

In 2009 Vollmer was awarded the Mercator Visiting Professorship for Political Management at the Universität Essen-Duisburg's

NRW School of Governance The NRW School of Governance is a central institution within the '' Institute for Political science'' at the University Duisburg-Essen and was founded in 2006 under the direction of Karl-Rudolf Korte. It aims, through research and teaching, to ...

. She gave both seminars and lectures at the university. Vollmer was one of the first signers of the Open Letter to the German Position on Russo-Ukraining War in April 2022, who demanded not to support Ukraine with arms in order to "prevent a third world war".

Other activities

* Opera Village Africa, Member of the Board of TrusteesBoard of Trustees
Opera Village Africa. * , Member *

Jewish Museum Berlin The Jewish Museum Berlin (''Jüdisches Museum Berlin'') was opened in 2001 and is the largest Jewish museum in Europe. On of floor space, the museum presents the history of Jews in Germany from the Middle Ages to the present day, with new focuses ...

, Member of the Board of Trustees (2002–2005) * Federal Cultural Foundation, Member of the Board of Trustees (2002–2005) * Heinz Galinski Foundation, Member of the Board of Trustees (1998–2005) * Deutsche Nationalstiftung, Member of the Board of Trustees (1998–2002) * Theodor Heuss Foundation, Member of the Board of Trustees (1998–2002)

Recognition

German Council on Foreign Relations The German Council on Foreign Relations (german: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik e. V. (DGAP)) is Germany's national foreign policy network and policy research institute. As an independent, private, non-partisan and non-profit org ...

(DGAP), Honorary Member

References

External links

* * **Author of
''Stauffenberg's companions, The fate of the unknown conspirators''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vollmer, Antje 1943 births Living people People from Lübbecke Alliance 90/The Greens politicians Members of the Bundestag for Hesse Members of the Bundestag for North Rhine-Westphalia Members of the Bundestag 2002–2005 Members of the Bundestag 1998–2002 Members of the Bundestag 1994–1998 Aufstehen Studienstiftung alumni Female members of the Bundestag 20th-century German women politicians 21st-century German women politicians Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Recipients of the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk