My Background

I was born in Lübeck in 1971. My parental home was characterised by Christian, middle-class and classically liberal values. After an apprenticeship as a bank clerk in Hamburg, I studied law in Heidelberg and Lausanne. My focus was on competition and antitrust law as well as inheritance and family law. In 1998, in the last year of the Kohl government, I completed my studies with the 1st State Examination in Law. This was followed by my legal clerkship in Potsdam and then my work as a lawyer in the field of insolvency law.

Even as a student I was politically active. I was outraged by the breaches of law committed by the Kohl government against those who were politically persecuted in the Soviet Zone between 1945 and 1949. Therefore, together with other students, I founded the group “Students for the Rule of Law”. At that time, we were particularly proud that we had succeeded in winning Michael Gorbachev as a speaker for one of our major events. The opening speech I wrote at that time still reflects my principles and convictions today:

“If law is no longer the regulating factor, but power alone points the way, then everyone should be on the alert. Then the rule of law is in danger.

 

That is why we must treat this precious commodity with the utmost care. Even the slightest suspicion must set alarm bells ringing. The rule of law means:

 

We need three powers in this republic. Three powers that are independent of each other.

 

We need a strong parliament in which every member has a free mandate, not only in theory but also in practice.

 

We need a government that is guided by values, not just by power and influence.

 

And we need courts that pass judgements which are beyond any doubt of political influence.

 

Democracy means that the people rule. And in a representative democracy, such as we have in the Federal Republic, they rule via elected representatives.

 

However, the basic prerequisite for the functioning of this system is that the voters can freely form their convictions before the election. Those who know only half the truth cannot form a picture of reality. It is therefore of fundamental importance that the media present the full picture of reality and that they provide complete and comprehensive information. In a free media landscape there are no taboos […]

 

Dear Mr Gorbachev, you have shown that each individual can make a difference. That you don’t have to leave your backbone with the cloakroom attendant to be in politics. That with courage and heart this world can still be improved.”

 

In 1996 I did an internship at the US Congress with Congressman Lee Hamilton, who sat on the International Relations Committee for the Democrats. This is how I gained an insight into the political system of the USA during the Clinton administration. Whereas in Germany the parties alone set the tone, in the USA I was able to observe how strong the liberal-conservative base was there – perfectly normal citizens, not members of any particular party; but equipped with the entitlement and the conviction to be able to participate in decision-making and to help shape the future. That made a great impression on me.

Later, I continued my political involvement alongside my main occupation as a lawyer. I eventually founded the Civil Coalition together with my future husband and other comrades-in-arms, including the well-known FAZ journalists Karl Feldmeyer and Klaus Peter Krause. We were a small group of rebellious citizens, who took historian Arnulf Baring’s call “Citizens on the Barricades” seriously and wanted to put it into practice.

We were united by our belief in values such as freedom, justice and the family as well as our commitment to more direct democracy and citizen participation. The strategies of the liberal-conservative grassroots movements in the USA during the time of Ronald Reagan, from which the Tea Party movement later emerged, were a model for this. We wanted to make our contribution towards dissolving the “reform backlog” in Germany and to strengthen the rule of law and democracy.

Our activities included writing to MPs at both the federal state parliaments and the Bundestag, collecting signatures and organising citizens’ alliances within the constituencies. We made extensive use of the Internet, as we still do now, as a powerful new tool to wake up citizens and raise awareness of pressing issues. We also took to the streets and organised demonstrations. Hundreds of thousands of citizens took part in our protests against the euro bailout fund and the ESM.

The support of this protest movement was then also extremely helpful in founding the AfD as a new liberal-conservative force. I dedicated all my energy to the development of our party and was later elected to the EU Parliament, to the Federal Executive Committee and as spokeswoman for the Berlin AfD. At the EU Parliament I concentrated on confronting the established parties and forcing them to show their colours. My political focus is on domestic and legal policy in addition to euro and European policy.