Steffi Lemke


Steffi Lemke is a German politician of Alliance 90/The Greens who has been serving as a member of the Bundestag from the state of Saxony-Anhalt from 1994 till 2002 and since 2013.

Education and early career

After attending a polytechnic secondary school in Dessau, Lemke initially trained as a zoo technician from 1984 to 1986. Afterwards she worked as a letter carrier from 1986 to 1988. She also attended a secondary school leaving certificate course at the Philanthropinum in Dessau. After graduating from high school in 1988, she studied agricultural science at the Humboldt University of Berlin, graduating in 1993 with a degree in agricultural engineering.

Political career

Lemke was one of the co-founders of the Green Party in the GDR in 1989. She first served as a member of the German Bundestag from 1994 to 2002, representing the Dessau-Roßlau and Wittenberg districts. During that time, she was part of the Committee on Food and Agriculture.
From 2002 to 2013 Lemke worked as the Green Party’s managing director, under the leadership of co-chairs Angelika Beer, Reinhard Bütikofer, Claudia Roth and Cem Özdemir. In this capacity, she managed her party’s campaigns in three successive national elections.
Since the 2013 elections, Lemke has been a member of the German Bundestag again, where she serves as one of four whips of her parliamentary group. In this capacity, she is a member of the parliament’s Council of Elders, which – among other duties – determines daily legislative agenda items and assigns committee chairpersons based on party representation.
Lemke is also a member of the Committee on the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. She serves as her parliamentary group’s spokesperson for nature conservation policy. In addition to her committee assignments, she is part of the German Parliamentary Friendship Group for Relations with the States of Central America.
Following the 2016 state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, Lemke was part of her party’s delegation in the negotiations on forming Germany’s first-ever coalition government between the Christian Democratic Union, the Social Democratic Party and the Green Party. She was briefly considered to join the government subsequently formed under the leadership of Minister-President Reiner Haseloff and became State Minister for the Environment and Agriculture; however, the position instead went to Claudia Dalbert.

Other activities