Annalena Baerbock

Annalena Charlotte Alma Baerbock (born 15 December 1980) is a German politician of the Alliance 90/The Greens party serving as Germany's minister for foreign affairs since 2021.

Born in Hanover, West Germany, in 1980, Baerbock attended the University of Hamburg and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

From 2000 to 2004, Baerbock studied political science and public law at the University of Hamburg.

She also worked as a journalist for the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung from 2000 to 2003.

She completed internships at Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Deutsche Presseagentur and the Council of Europe.

In 2005, Baerbock completed a one-year master's course in public international law at the London School of Economics (LSE).

During her time at LSE, she stayed at Carr-Saunders Hall in Fitzrovia.

In 2005, she was a trainee at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL).

She also started a dissertation on natural disasters and humanitarian aid at the Free University of Berlin, but did not finish it.

After her studies, Baerbock worked from 2005 to 2008 in the office of MEP Elisabeth Schroedter.

Baerbock became a member of Alliance 90/The Greens in 2005.

In 2008 and 2009, she worked as an adviser on foreign and security policies for the parliamentary group of the Alliance 90/The Greens in the Bundestag.

In October 2008, she was elected to the executive board of her party's state group in Brandenburg.

Baerbock served as the national spokesperson for the Green Party's working group on European affairs from 2008 to 2013.

From 2009 to 2012, she was a member of the executive board of the European Green Party, under the leadership of co-chairs Philippe Lamberts and Monica Frassoni.

In 2009, Baerbock unsuccessfully ran for a place on her party's electoral list for the federal elections.

From 2012 to 2015, she was a member of the party council of Alliance 90/The Greens and from 2009 to 2013, the leader of her party's group in the state of Brandenburg.

Baerbock is the daughter of a social worker and a mechanical engineer who worked for WABCO Vehicle Control Systems.

After initially living in Nuremberg for several years, she moved to live in an old reconstructed farmhouse that her family owned in Schulenburg, which is part of Pattensen, near Hanover in Lower Saxony.

There, she grew up with her two sisters and two cousins.

As a child, she joined her parents at anti-war and anti-nuclear power protests organized or supported by the Green Party.

She attended the Humboldt School in Hanover and at the age of 16, spent an exchange year at Lake Highland Preparatory School in Orlando, Florida.

As a teenager, Baerbock was a competitive trampoline gymnast, taking part in German championships and winning bronze three times.

She was first elected to the Bundestag in 2013.

The next year she succeeded Ska Keller as co-chair of the board (with Benjamin Raschke), an office she held until 2013.

In 2013, she was the Green Party candidate in the constituency of Potsdam – Potsdam-Mittelmark II – Teltow-Fläming II and also secured the leading spot on the party's electoral list for the State of Brandenburg.

Through the electoral list, she became a member of the Bundestag.

During her first term, Baerbock was a member of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy and the Committee on European Affairs.

In her parliamentary group, she served as speaker for climate policy.

In the latter capacity, she participated in the United Nations Climate Change Conferences in Warsaw (2013), Lima (2014), Paris (2015) and Marrakesh (2016).

In addition to her committee assignments, Baerbock served as deputy chair of the Berlin-Taipei Parliamentary Circle of Friends and a member of the German-Polish Parliamentary Friendship Group from 2014 until 2017.

In the 2017 election, Baerbock was again the leading candidate in the state of Brandenburg, retaining her seat in Parliament.

After the election, she was a member of the Green Party party's negotiating team in the (unsuccessful) coalition talks with the CDU/CSU and FDP.

She has since been a member of the Committee on Families, Seniors, Women and Youth.

From 2018 to January 2022, Baerbock served as co-leader of Alliance 90/The Greens, alongside Robert Habeck.

She was the party's candidate for chancellor in the 2021 federal election.

However, after the backlash she received due to a series of scandals involving her acts of plagiarism and exaggeration of her professional background in her CV, Olaf Scholz from SPD secured the chancellery instead.

After the election, the Greens formed a traffic light coalition led by Olaf Scholz, and Baerbock was sworn in as Germany's first female foreign minister on 8 December 2021.

On 27 January 2018, at the Green Party's national convention in her hometown of Hanover, Baerbock was elected as one of two equal chairpersons of her party at the federal level, with Robert Habeck.

She won 64% of the vote, more than her challenger, Anja Piel.