Heike Baehrens | |
|---|---|
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| Member of theBundestag | |
| In office 2013–2025 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1955-09-21)21 September 1955 (age 70) |
| Citizenship | German |
| Nationality |  Germany |
| Party | SPD |
| Children | 2 |
Heike Baehrens (born 21 September 1955) is a Germandeaconess, religious educator and politician of theSocial Democratic Party (SPD) who served as a member of the GermanBundestag from 2013 to 2025.[1]
After training as a bank clerk, Baehrens studied religious education. She worked as a deaconess in various church fields from 1977 to 1985. From 1996 to 2013 she has been managing director of theDiakonisches Werk Württemberg, and from 2002 to 2013 a member of the full-time board of directors of social policy fields and deputy chairman of the board.[1] As a church councilor, she was a deputy to Dieter Kaufmann in the college of the Upper Church Council of theEvangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg.
Baehrens joined the SPD in 1988. From 1989 to 1996 she was a member of theStuttgart municipal council. There she was first youth and social policy spokeswoman for the SPD group. From 1992 to 1996 she was deputy chairman of the SPD group in the Stuttgart municipal council.[1]
In the2013 federal elections, Baehrens moved to the German Bundestag via the SPD state listBaden-Württemberg for theBundestag constituency Göppingen. In parliament, she was a member of the Committee on Health, where she was her parliamentary group'srapporteur oninclusion and European affairs. From 2018 to 2021, she also served as chairwoman of its Sub-Committee on Global Health.
In addition to her committee assignments, Baehrens served as Deputy Chairwoman of the German-Korean Parliamentary Group[1] as well as Deputy Speaker of the Baden-Württemberg State Group of the SPD parliamentary group. She was a member of the non-partisanEuropa-Union Deutschland, which is committed to a federal Europe and a far-reaching European unification process.
From the2021 elections, Baehrens served as her parliamentary group's spokesperson for health.[2] Amid theCOVID-19 pandemic in Germany, she joined forces with six other parliamentarians –Dirk Wiese,Dagmar Schmidt,Janosch Dahmen,Till Steffen,Katrin Helling-Plahr andMarie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann – on a cross-party initiative in 2022 to support legislation that would have required all adults to be vaccinated.[3][4]
In April 2024, Baehrens announced that she would not stand in the2025 federal elections but instead resign from active politics by the end of the parliamentary term.[5]
Baehrens is married since 1977 and has two adult daughters and three grandchildren.
