Frauke Heiligenstadt | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of theBundestag forGoslar – Northeim – Osterode | |
| Assumed office 26 September 2021 | |
| Preceded by | Roy Kühne |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1966-03-24)24 March 1966 (age 59) |
| Political party | Social Democratic Party |
| Occupation | Politician |
Frauke Heiligenstadt (born 24 March 1966 inNortheim) is a German politician of theSocial Democratic Party who has been serving as amember of theBundestag since 26 October 2021. She was a member of theLower Saxony state parliament from 2003 to 2021, and Lower Saxony's Minister of Education from 2013 to 2017.
Heiligenstadt was born in the West German town ofNortheim. After graduating from the Gymnasium Corvinianum in Northeim in 1985, Heiligenstadt studied at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts for Administration and Administration of Justice inHanover.[1] She graduated in 1988 and worked as agraduate in administration at the Northeimcity administration until her election to thestate parliament.[2]
From 1994 to 2003, Heiligenstadt was head of the Office for Economic Development and Real Estate at the City of Northeim.[1] Heiligenstadt was a member of theState Parliament of Lower Saxony from2003 to 2021.[3]
From2013 to2017, Heiligenstadt served as State Minister of Education in thegovernment ofMinister PresidentStephan Weil ofLower Saxony. In October 2017, she announced her intention to leave the government after the2017 elections.[4]
Heiligenstadt was elected to the Bundestag directly in 2021, representing theGoslar – Northeim – Osterode district.[5] In parliament, she has since been serving on the Finance Committee.[6] Since the2025 elections, she has been her parliamentary group's spokesperson on financial regulation.[7]
Within her parliamentary group, Heiligenstadt belongs to theParliamentary Left, a left-wing movement.[8]
In addition, Frauke Heiligenstadt is involved in numerous local associations, including thefire department and the Heimat- und Verkehrsverein.[12]
Heiligenstadt is married and lives with her husband and daughter inGillersheim, a district of the municipality ofKatlenburg-Lindau. Her father was a roofer.[13]
Frauke Heiligenstadt has been a member of theSPD since 1982. From 1993 to 2001, she was chairwoman of the SPD local associationGillersheim (municipality of Katlenburg-Lindau). Since 2003, she has been a member of theexecutive committee of the SPD district of Hanover,[14] and since 2019, she has been chairwoman of the SPD sub-district ofNortheim-Einbeck.[15]From 1986 to 2011 she was a member of the local council Gillersheim, from 1999 to 2006 local mayor. From 1991 to 2013 she was a member of the municipal council of Katlenburg-Lindau, from 1996 to 2011 she was analderman and from 2006 to 2011deputy mayor. Since 2006 she has been a member of the district council of the Northeim district and since 2018 its chairwoman.[2]For the electoral district of Northeim, Frauke Heiligenstadt has been a member of the Lower Saxony state parliament since2003. There she was until 2013 spokeswoman for cultural and school policy.[16] Since 2017 she is spokeswoman for budget and fiscal policy.From 2013 to 2017, she was Lower Saxony's Minister of Culture in theWeil I cabinet,[17] a member of the Bundesrat and Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of the Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation inCelle.
In the2021 Bundestag election, Heiligenstadt stood as a direct candidate in the constituency ofGoslar - Northeim - Osterode and in 10th place on the SPD state list. She won the direct mandate for her constituency[18] and thus belongs to the 20th German Bundestag. She resigned her state parliament mandate; Renate Geuter moved up for her.In the wake of theCOVID-19 pandemic, Heiligenstadt was among the supporters of ageneral vaccination requirement in Germany.[19]
The state government's school policy increasingly brought Heiligenstadt into the media from August 2013. One particularly controversial measure was the increase in the number of compulsory hours for grammar school teachers by one lesson, which brought her criticism from teachers' associations, especially as she rejected investigations into teachers' actual working hours on the grounds that "you can't gain any insights withbookkeeping". As a result, the high school teachers refused to continue to organize free class trips, which they are not obliged to do under Lower Saxony school law. With the support of the Philologists' Association and the Education and Science Union (GEW) several teachers successfully sued against the controversial decree before the Higher Administrative Court of Lüneburg. The reason given for the ruling against the state of Lower Saxony on 9 June 2015, was the lack of an investigation into the actual workload of teachers; the increase in working hours for Lower Saxony's high school teachers issued by Heiligenstadt was declared unlawful, as the state of Lower Saxony had violated its duty of care toward teachers.[20] Since then, there has also been sporadic internal criticism of the Red-Green state government's course in school policy.[21]
Also at odds with Heiligenstadt's controversial decree on working hours was her own earlier criticism as an opposition politician in 2009: at that time, she was still denouncing the overwork of Lower Saxony's teachers by the CDU and urgently calling for teachers' workloads to be reduced.[22]
In May 2015, when students from the Gymnasium inBrake protested Heiligenstadt's school policies on theirschool's homepage, criticizing the shortage of teachers, the devaluation of theAbitur, and the increase in the number of compulsory hours for Gymnasium teachers,[23] the Lower Saxony state education authority intervened and, by official order, had the article on the school homepage and a link to an article in the local press reporting on the Brake students' protest against the hours increase deleted.[24][25] This censorship by the school board, which had been coordinated with the Minister of Education, was only withdrawn after massive protests and critical reports in the national press. The principal was nevertheless summoned to a disciplinary meeting.[24]
