Katharina Fegebank (born 27 February 1977) is a German politician for the Alliance '90/The Greens, who has served as Second Mayor of Hamburg and Senator for Science, Research and Equality since 2015. She briefly served as acting First Mayor in March 2018.

Background

Fegebank grew up in

Bargteheide Bargteheide (West Low German: ''Bartheil'') is a town in the district of Stormarn, Schleswig-Holstein state, Germany. It is situated between the cities of Ahrensburg and Bad Oldesloe, on the Hamburg to Lübeck rail line and is part of the Hambu ...

, as the daughter of two teachers.

Political career

On 22 June 2008, Fegebank was elected chair of the Green-Alternative List (GAL) in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

, and became the youngest ever leader of a Green state association. Since 15 April 2015 she serves as Second Mayor of Hamburg as well as Senator for Science, Research, and Equal Rights in the

Senate Scholz II The Senate of Hamburg, Senate Scholz II (Senat Scholz II) was the government of the German city-state of Hamburg from 15 April 2015 to 28 March 2018 following Senate Scholz I. The Cabinet was, for the second time, headed by Mayor of Hamburg, First ...

. In this capacity, she is one of the state's representatives at the Bundesrat. Fegebank was a Green Party delegate to the

Federal Convention The Constitutional Convention took place in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. Although the convention was intended to revise the league of states and first system of government under the Articles of Confederation, the intention fr ...

for the purpose of electing the

President of Germany The president of Germany, officially the Federal President of the Federal Republic of Germany (german: link=no, Bundespräsident der Bundesrepublik Deutschland),The official title within Germany is ', with ' being added in international corres ...

in 2017 and in

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

. On 14 March 2018, Fegebank became the acting head of the government of Hamburg after

Olaf Scholz Olaf Scholz (; born ) is a German politician who has served as the chancellor of Germany since 8 December 2021. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Social Democratic Party (SPD), he previously served as Vice Chancellor of German ...

moved to the new Federal Government, until Peter Tschentscher was elected new Mayor of Hamburg on 28 March 2018. She continued to serve as Second Mayor and Senator for Science, Research, and Equal Rights in his government. In the negotiations to form a so-called

traffic light coalition In German politics, a traffic light coalition (german: Ampelkoalition) is a coalition government of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and Alliance 90/The Greens. It is named after the parties' tra ...

of the

Social Democrats Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...

(SPD), the Green Party and the FDP following the 2021 federal elections, Fegebank led her party's delegation in the working group on innovation and research; her co-chairs from the other parties are

Thomas Losse-Müller Thomas Losse-Müller (born 3 April 1973) is a German politician. He is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and Leader of his Party in the Landtag of Schleswig-Holstein. Career Between 1992–1999, Losse-Müller studied Economic ...

and

Lydia Hüskens Lydia ( Lydian: ‎𐤮𐤱𐤠𐤭𐤣𐤠, ''Śfarda''; Aramaic: ''Lydia''; el, Λυδία, ''Lȳdíā''; tr, Lidya) was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern western Turkish prov ...

Other activities

* Aby Warburg Foundation, Chairwoman of the Board * Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Hamburg, Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Trustees * Alexander Otto Sportstiftung, Member of the Advisory Board * Hamburgische Regenbogenstiftung, Member of the Board of Trustees * Institute for the History of the German Jews ( Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden, IGdJ), Hamburg, Chair of the Advisory Board (Kuratorium) * Hamburg Marketing Gesellschaft mbH (HMG GmbH), Ex-Officio Member of the Supervisory Board * Hamburg Media School (HMS), Member of the Supervisory Board *

Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres The Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres (german: Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren) is the largest scientific organisation in Germany. It is a union of 18 scientific-technical and biological-medical research centers. ...

, Ex-Officio Member of the Senate *

Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law The Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law (''Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht'', MPIPRIV) is a legal research institute located in Hamburg, Germany. It is operated by the Max Pla ...

, Member of the Board of Trustees *

Max Planck Institute for Meteorology The Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (''Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie''; MPI-M) is an internationally renowned institute for climate research. Its mission is to understand Earth's changing climate. Founded in 1975, it is affiliated w ...

, Member of the Board of Trustees *

University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf The University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (german: Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE)) is the teaching hospital of the University of Hamburg and the largest hospital in Hamburg, Germany. The UKE has 1,738 beds and 121 day-care p ...

, Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees

Political positions

Fegebank supports a ban on full-face veils in schools, arguing that the

burqa A burqa or a burka, or , and ur, , it is also transliterated as burkha, bourkha, burqua or burqu' or borgha' and is pronounced natively . It is generally pronounced in the local variety of Arabic or variety of Persian, which varies. Examp ...

and the

niqāb A niqāb or niqaab (; ar, نِقاب ', "aceveil"), also called a ruband, ( fa, روبند) is a garment, usually black, that covers the face, worn by some Muslim women as a part of an interpretation of '' hijab'' (i.e. "modest dress"). Musli ...

are "symbols of oppression".

Personal life

Fegebank has been in a relationship with businessman Mathias Wolf since 2015. In 2018, she became a mother of twin daughters. The family lives in Hamburg's

Eilbek (former Eilbeck) is a quarter of the German city of Hamburg and part of the Wandsbek borough. It originated as a small village on the outskirts of Hamburg and was eventually incorporated when the city expanded. In 2020 the population was 22,235. ...

district. In July 2019, the family's house was vandalized.Farbanschlag auf das Haus von Katharina Fegebank
''

Die Welt ''Die Welt'' ("The World") is a German national daily newspaper, published as a broadsheet by Axel Springer SE. ''Die Welt'' is the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer publishing group. Its leading competitors are the ''Frankfurter Allg ...

'', July 8, 2019.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fegebank, Katharina 1977 births Living people Alliance 90/The Greens politicians Women members of State Parliaments in Germany Senators of Hamburg Members of the Hamburg Parliament Women ministers of State Governments in Germany 21st-century German women politicians