Dagmar Enkelmann | |
|---|---|
 Enkelmann in 2009 | |
| Born | Dagmar Gertraud Elsa Ebert (1956-04-05)5 April 1956 (age 69) |
| Alma mater | Karl Marx University, Leipzig |
| Political party | SED PDS Die Linke |
| Spouse | Bernd Jaiser |
| Children | 3 |
Dagmar Enkelmann (néeEbert; 5 April 1956) is a German politician ofDie Linke ("The Left") party.
In 2005 she becameParliamentary Party Manager ("Chief Whip") for Die Linke in theBundestag (national parliament),[1] a position from which she resigned in 2013 after losing her seat.[2] In December 2012 she took on the chair of theRosa Luxemburg Foundation, a position to which she was elected in succession toHeinz Vietze.[3]
Dagmar Gertraud Elsa Ebert was born inAltlandsberg, a small historic town a short distance to the east ofBerlin and at that time in theBezirk Frankfurt ofEast Germany. She attended school in nearbyStrausberg, passing herschool leaving exams (Abitur) in 1974, which opened the way to a university level education. Between 1974 and 1979 she was a student of theHistory faculty atKarl Marx University (as it was known at that time) in Leipzig. She emerged with an extensive knowledge ofMarxist sociology and a degree in 1979. After that she taught history between 1979 and 1985 at the "Wilhelm PieckFDJ Youth Academy" atBogensee, nearBernau and just outsideBerlin.[4]
From 1985 till 1989 she was apost-graduate student ("Aspirantin") at theruling partycentral committee'sAcademy for Social Sciences. It was here that she submitted her doctoral dissertation, entitled "Analysis and critique of concepts of the bourgeois ideologues in West Germany: Identity Crises of East German youth" ("Analyse und Kritik des Konzepts bürgerlicher Ideologen der BRD: Identitätskrise der Jugend der DDR"). The modalities of what happened next were affected by thepolitical changes that followed the breach of theBerlin Wall by protestors in 1989, but Dagmar Ebert nevertheless received what amounted to a doctorate, though probably not the form of doctorate she would have been anticipating when she embarked on her researches for the work four years earlier.[1]
Enkelmann joined theSocialist Unity Party ("Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands"/ SED) in 1977.[4] The SED was the ruling party in what many people thought of as aone-partydictatorship. She engaged in trades union and women work.[4] Afterreunification the party rebranded itself as theParty of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and scrambled to reinvent itself for a democratic future. Enkelmann stayed with the party. She served between 2003 and 2006 as deputyleader of the PDS.[1]
Inregional elections in Brandenburg in 2004 she put herself forward as an alternative to the regional minister presidentMatthias Platzeck of the centre-leftSocial Democratic Party.[5] The PDS' share of the vote increased to 28%, ranking a strong second to theSocial Democratics. It was the best result the PDS had achieved inBrandenburg since reunification and the restoration in 1990 ofBrandenburg as a state withits own regional legislature. However, it was not enough to overturn the governing coalition.[6]
As a result of the 2007 merger between the PDS and the (much smaller, but briefly influential)WASG movement, Enkelmann became a member of the party now branded simply asDie Linke ("The Left").[1]
At a time when her youngest child was still a young baby, Enkelmann came to national politics through active participation in theRound table movement.[7] BetweenMarch andOctober 1990 she wasa member ofEast Germany's first - and as matters turned out last - freely electednational parliament ("Volkskammer").[8] She became co-leader (withBernd Meier) of the PDS group in the chamber, and one of twoPDS party members elected by party colleagues to the chambers' Präsidium.[4]Reunification took place formally in October 1990, at which point the East German Volkskammer and theWest GermanBundestag were effectively merged. In order to respect demographic fairness, only 143 members of the 400 seat East German chamber retained seats in the combined assembly. Enkelmann was one of these, however.[4] She was re-elected to the Bundestag, representing theBrandenburg electoral district, later in1990, and again in1994, leaving the Bundestag in 1998, still aged only 42.[4] She told an interviewer that "eight years in such an exposed position" had been enough, although she never expressly ruled out a return to national politics.[7]
In July 2008 Enkelmann captured the headlines, triggering a "media moment" when a television interviewer asked her, "Are you satisfied with how democracy works in Germany today?"
She answered:
- " ... also I do not think this democracy resolves people's problems."
- " ... auch ich finde, diese Demokratie löst die Probleme der Menschen nicht."[9]
Later she expanded a little on that answer in a letter:
- "It would certainly have been better if the East German people had had more time to fashion the transfer to a market economy for themselves ... As a member of the last East Germanparliament I was one of those working on a transfer process for many laws - for instance on a new set of labour laws, a new criminal code ... and many more besides. [But] unfortunately most of that was nullified because the decision of the majority made East Germany's entry [to the reunificed Germany] a virtually overnight [transition]."
- "This [headline grabbing comment] came in the context of a discussion on the clear democratic deficit, which featured in that programme as transmitted which also covered things like popular decision making and plebiscites. .... Whether today's bourgois democracy really can become the ultimate vision for a democratic socialist reality is a question that certainly will not be answered except in the future."
- "Es wäre sicher besser gewesen, wenn die Bevölkerung der DDR mehr Zeit gehabt hätte, den Übergang in die Marktwirtschaft aus eigener Kraft zu gestalten. .... Als Mitglied der letzten DDR-Volkskammer habe ich selbst an vielen Gesetzen mitgearbeitet, die Übergangsregelungen z.B. für ein neues Arbeitsgesetzbuch, ein Strafgesetzbuch ... und vieles andere mehr beinhalteten. Leider hat die Entscheidung der Mehrheit für einen Beitritt der DDR vieles davon quasi über Nacht zunichte gemacht."
- "Das hat seine Ursachen eben auch in den deutlichen Demokratiedefiziten, auf die ich in der Sendung hingewiesen habe, und denen unter anderem mit Volksentscheiden und Volksbegehren auch auf Bundesebene beizukommen wäre. ... Ob die bürgerliche Demokratie tatsächlich das Nonplusultra ist oder die Vision eines demokratischen Sozialismus Realität werden könnte, ist eine Frage, die wohl erst in der Zukunft beantwortet wird."[10]
Between September 1999 and October 2005 she was a member of theBrandenburg regional parliament ("Landtag"), serving till 2004 as a member of the regional party executive, spokesperson on environment and energy policy and a member of the committee for agriculture, environmental protection and planning.[7] During 2004–2005 Enkelmann was the leader of the PDS group in the Brandenburger Landtag.[1][11]
At the2005 general election Enkelmann returned to theNational Parliament ("Bundestag"). She served asParliamentary Party Manager ("Chief Whip") forDie Linke between 2005 and 2013.[1] In order to avoid the distortions arising in wholly constituency based systems, theGerman electoral system allocates some seats on a list basis, shared between the parties according to their overall vote shares. In 2005 Enkelmann was elected because her name was sufficiently high up on the regional PDS party list. In the Bundestag she became a member of the chamber'sCouncil of Elders, also serving on the committee for election verification, parliamentary immunity and procedure. In the2009 general election she stood successfully as a "direct candidate" for theBarnim II electoral district. However, in the2013 general election, when she stood for re-election in the same constituency, she lost out to theCDU candidate,Hans-Georg von der Marwitz.[12] Unlike von der Marwitz, Enkelmann had rejected the idea of simultaneously having her name placed on her party list as insurance against not securing direct election in the Barnim constituency,[13][14] and accordingly in 2013 she left the Bundestag for a second time.[2]
On 26 February 2010, Enkelmann was one of a large number of PDS Bundestag members to be expelled from the chamber during a debate on prolonging German military involvement inAfghanistan. This arose from members standing up in the chamber and holding up to the cameras placards which showed names of victims of theKunduzair attack. The proposal ofBundestag president Norbert Lammert that the excluded members should be permitted to participate in the vote at the end of the debate was nevertheless followed.[15]
It became known in January 2012 that Enkelmann was one of 27 Bundestag members from Die Linkeplaced under surveillance by thesecurity authorities.[16] The surveillance drew criticism and condemnation from across the political spectrum.[17]
Since 1998 Enkelmann has been alocal council member for the municipality ofBernau bei Berlin, and in this capacity a member of the local development agency.
She has also, since November 2008, been an alternate forJan Korte in the third board of parliamentary trustees of the"Bundesstiftung Aufarbeitung", a federal agency mandated with helping Germany come to terms with the East Germandictatorship.[18]
Enkelmann married her longstanding life-partner, meteorologist Bernd Jaiser, in 2005. It was her third marriage.[19] She has three recorded children, born in 1976, 1981 and 1989.[7][20] Since 2013 she has had four grandchildren.[21]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
