Wiebke Esdar (born 11 February 1984) is a German psychologist and politician of the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Form ...

(SPD). She has been a member of the

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet (assembly), Diet") is the lower house of the Germany, German Federalism in Germany, federal parliament. It is the only constitutional body of the federation directly elected by the German people. The Bundestag wa ...

since the 2017 election, when she won the constituency of Bielefeld – Gütersloh II with 33.2% of the votes.

Early life and education

Esdar was born in Bielefeld. She studied

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

social sciences Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among members within those societies. The term was former ...

and

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

at the

University of Bielefeld Bielefeld University () is a public university in Bielefeld, Germany. Founded in 1969, it is one of the country's newer universities, and considers itself a "reform" university, following a different style of organization and teaching than the e ...

and received her PhD degree in psychology in 2015.

Political career

Career in local politics

Esdar has been a member of the SPD since 2005 and became the chairwoman of the SPD in Bielefeld in 2016.

Member of the German Parliament, 2017–present

Esdar has been a member of the German

since the 2017 elections, representing Bielefeld and

Gütersloh Gütersloh () is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, in the region of Ostwestfalen-Lippe and the administrative region of Detmold (administrative region), Detmold. Gütersloh is the administrative centre for a Gütersloh (distric ...

. In parliament, served on the Finance Committee and the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment from 2018 to 2021. In this capacity, she was her parliamentary group's

rapporteur A rapporteur is a person who is appointed by an organization to report on the proceedings of its meetings. The term is a French-derived word. For example, Dick Marty was appointed ''rapporteur'' by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Eur ...

universities A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

. Since 2021, she has been part of the Budget Committee and the Audit Committee. In 2022, she also joined the parliamentary body charged with overseeing a 100 billion euro special fund to strengthen Germany’s

armed forces A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a ...

. Within the SPD parliamentary group, Esdar belongs to the Parliamentary Left, a left-wing movement; she has been co-chairing the group since 2022, alongside Matthias Miersch and Sönke Rix. Since 2023, she has been leading the Bundestag group of SPD parliamentarians from

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...

, the largest delegation within the party’s parliamentary group, alongside Dirk Wiese. In the negotiations to form a so-called

traffic light coalition In German politics, a traffic light coalition () is a coalition government of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and Alliance 90/The Greens. It is named after the parties' traditional colours, respectively red, y ...

of the SPD, the

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as environmentalism and social justice. Green party platforms typically embrace Social democracy, social democratic economic policies and fo ...

and the Free Democrats (FDP) following the 2021 German elections, Esdar was part of her party's delegation in the working group on innovation and research, co-chaired by Thomas Losse-Müller,

Katharina Fegebank Katharina Fegebank (born 27 February 1977) is a German politician for the Alliance '90/The Greens, who has served as Second Mayor of Hamburg since 2015. She has been serving as Senator for the Environment, Climate Action, Energy and Agricultu ...

and Lydia Hüskens. Since 2025, Esdar has been serving as deputy chair of her parliamentary group, under the leadership of chairman Matthias Miersch. In this capacity, she oversees the group’s legislative activities on the

national budget A government budget is a projection of the government's revenues and expenditure for a particular period, often referred to as a financial or fiscal year, which may or may not correspond with the calendar year. Government revenues mostly include ...

, research, media and cultural affairs.

Other activities

Corporate boards

* Stadtwerke Bielefeld, Member of the Supervisory Board * Stadtwerke Gütersloh, Member of the Supervisory Board

Non-profit organizations

Leibniz Association The Leibniz Association (German: ''Leibniz-Gemeinschaft'' or ''Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz'') is a union of German non-university research institutes from various disciplines. Funding and Structure As of 2020, 96 non-u ...

, Member of the Senate (since 2022) * Vietnamese-German University (VGU), Member of the University Council (since 2022) * Business Forum of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Member of the Advisory Board on Economic Policy (since 2020) * Education and Science Workers' Union (GEW), Member *

IG Metall IG Metall (; IGM; German: , "Industrial Union of Metalworkers'") is the dominant metalworkers' union in Germany, making it the country's largest union as well as Europe's largest industrial union. Analysts of German labor relations consider i ...

, Member *

Arminia Bielefeld DSC Arminia Bielefeld (; full name: ; commonly known as Arminia Bielefeld (), also known as ''Die Arminen'' or ''Die Blauen'' ), or just Arminia (), is a German sports club from Bielefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia. Arminia is most well known as ...

, Member

Personal life

Esdar is married to fellow SPD politician Veith Lemmen. They have a son.Wiebke Esdar zieht’s nach Werther
''Westfalen-Blatt'', 30 September 2020.

References

External links

Personal homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Esdar, Wiebke 1984 births Living people Members of the Bundestag 2021–2025 Members of the Bundestag 2017–2021 Members of the Bundestag for North Rhine-Westphalia Members of the Bundestag for the Social Democratic Party of Germany Members of the Bundestag 2025–2029