Katherina Reiche

Who is Katherina Reiche?

Katherina Reiche is a German politician. She has been deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU's parliamentary group since 2005.

After receiving her Abitur in 1992, she studied chemistry at the University of Potsdam, Clarkson University in New York and the University of Turku in Finland. In 1997 she received her Diploma.

In 1992 Reiche was one of the founding members of the Ring Christlich-Demokratischer Studenten in Potsdam and in the same year she joined the Junge Union. Since 1996 she has also been member of the CDU. In 2000 Katherina Reiche became a member of the federal executive of the CDU and she also is part of the party's executive board in the state of Brandenburg.

Since 1998 she has been a member of the Bundestag. There she was chairman of the working group Bildung und Forschung in the years 2002 to 2005. In November 2005 she became deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU's parliamentary group in the sectors Bildung und Forschung and Umwelt, Naturschutz und Reaktorsicherheit.

During the election campaign in 2002 she was conscripted into the CDU/CSU's competence team by then chancellor candidate Edmund Stoiber, as an expert on women, youth and family policies.This decision was criticized by conservative circles inside the two parties, because Reiche was an unmarried mother at that point of time.