Johanna Wanka

Early life and education

Wanka was born on 1 April 1951. She attended the Polytechnic Secondary School in Großtreben and the advanced school in Torgau before studying mathematics at Leipzig University in the GDR. From 1974 on, she was a research assistant at Merseburg University of Applied Sciences, where she received her doctorate in 1980. In 1993 she became professor of engineering mathematics at Merseburg University of Applied Sciences. In March 1994, she was elected rector of that university, a position she retained until taking office as minister in October 2000.

Political career

Wanka joined the East German citizens' movement in early 1989. She was a founding member of the Neues Forum in Merseburg and was a member of the Kreistag Merseburg from 1990 until 1994.

Wanka joined the CDU in 2001, the CDU executive in Brandenburg in May 2003, and became Chair of the Dahme-Spreewald district in December 2003. She was appointed Deputy National Chair of the CDU Brandenburg in January 2007, Acting National Chair in October 2008, and National Chair by January 2009.

From 2000 to 2009 Wanka was the State Minister for Science, Research and Cultural Affairs of Brandenburg, first in the government of Minister-President Manfred Stolpe (2000-2002) and later under his successor Matthias Platzeck (2002-2009). As such she was president of the Kultusministerkonferenz, an association of all state ministers for this area, in 2005.

From 2010 to 2013 Wanka served as State Minister of Science and Culture of the state of Lower Saxony, in the Cabinet McAllister; she became the first East German to become a minister in a state government in the former West Germany. She was also a CDU delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2010.

In February 2013, Wanka succeeded Annette Schavan as Federal Minister of Education and Research in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel. During the negotiations to form a coalition government following the 2013 federal elections, she led the CDU/CSU delegation in the working group on education and research; her co-chair from the SPD was Doris Ahnen.

Other activities

Political positions

During Wanka's term as president of the Kultusministerkonferenz, the controversial German orthography reform was put into place. After continued discussion in July 2005 about the reform which was to be put into force by August 2005, Wanka pushed the state ministers to go ahead without delays. However, few months after her term as president had ended, she was quoted by the influential German journal Der Spiegel as follows: "The Ministers of Culture have long known that the spelling reform was wrong. For reasons of state, it has not been withdrawn."

Selected publications

Personal life

Wanka is married to mathematics professor Gert Wanka with whom she has two children.