Karin Wolff (politician)

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Karin Wolff (2016)

Karin Wolff (born February 23, 1959 in Darmstadt ) is a German politician ( CDU ).

From 1999 to 2008 she was the Hessian Minister of Education and Culture and from 2003 to 2008 Deputy Prime Minister of the State of Hesse.

Life

education and profession

After graduating from high school in 1977, Wolff studied history , Protestant theology , philosophy and ethnology at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and Philipps University in Marburg . In 1984 she passed the first and in 1986 the second state examination for teaching at grammar schools . She then worked until 1995 as a teacher of history, Protestant religion and social studies at the Edith Stein School in Darmstadt. She received a grant from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation .

Party career

Wolff became a member of the CDU as a student in 1975. Since 1980 she has been on the board of the CDU district association in Darmstadt. From 1981 to 1982 she was a member of the student parliament in Marburg. Since 1996 she has been a member of the CDU state executive in Hesse, from 2002 to 2008 as deputy state chairwoman.

Wolff was a member of the federal executive committee of the Evangelical Working Group of the CDU and CSU (EAK) from 1995 to 2006 . From 1996 to 2004 she was state chairwoman of the EAK in Hesse.

From April 2000 to December 2008 she was a member of the CDU federal executive committee .

She is a member of the Christian Democratic Workforce (CDA).

Member of Parliament

From 1989 to 1999, from 2001 to 2003 and from 2016 to 2019, Wolff was city councilor in Darmstadt and during this time from 1993 to 1999 chairwoman of the CDU city council group.

From 1995 to 2019 she was a member of the Hessian state parliament . In 1995, 1999 and 2008 she was elected via the state list. In the state elections in Hesse in 2003 , she succeeded in winning the mandate as a directly elected member of the constituency of Darmstadt-Stadt II . She achieved 44.0% of the constituency votes and replaced Bernd Riege (SPD). In the state elections in Hesse in 2008 , she lost her constituency to the SPD candidate Dagmar Metzger , but moved back into the state parliament via the state list. In the early elections in 2009 , she was able to win back her constituency. She defended him in 2013 . In the state elections in 2018 , she lost her direct mandate to Bijan Kaffenberger (SPD) and thus left the state parliament.

Public offices

On April 7, 1999, Wolff took over the leadership of the Hessian Ministry of Culture as Minister of State .

In this office, she mainly worked on the implementation of one of the central election campaign promises of the CDU, the so-called teaching guarantee or the teaching guarantee (plus), which was developed later, with which the loss of lessons at the general schools in Hesse was reduced.

Wolff advocates the maintenance of the structured school system .

In the dispute over federalism reform , she was in favor of preserving state competence in matters of school education.

Under her leadership, a test of German language skills was also introduced one year before school enrollment, combined with appropriate language support programs for those children with language problems before they started school. In addition, the schooling time up to the Abitur, which now takes place as the state high school diploma, has been shortened to twelve years .

The quality of the schools is to be assured by a review by external auditors ("school TÜV"). "SchuB" ("School and Work") classes with special support programs have been created for low-performing secondary school students.

From April 5, 2003, Wolff was also Deputy Prime Minister of the State of Hesse. On February 13, 2008, four weeks after the state elections in Hesse , she announced that she would no longer be available for a new government from April 5, 2008. Justice Minister Jürgen Banzer took over her department .

She has been the managing director of Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain gGmbH since 2019.

Creationism debate

The Arte documentation "Of Gods and Designers" by the filmmakers Frank Papenbroock and Peter Moers accused the Hessian Ministry of Culture of tolerating creationist teaching methods in Hesse. At the private Christian Hermann Francke School in Giessen and at the state Liebig Gymnasium in Giessen, the biblical doctrine of creation is said to have been taught in biology classes. An unapproved book published by a creationist association is said to have been used. Wolff stated, according to Spiegel, that private schools could "expand the school system through special content and forms of education and teaching". In a dpa conversation in October 2006, she further explained,

“I think it makes sense to raise interdisciplinary and interdisciplinary questions, so that one doesn't just confront students in biology with the theory of evolution and students in religious education with the doctrine of creation in the Bible. But that you occasionally look to see whether there are opposites or convergences. "

Thereupon she was accused by the evolutionary biologist Ulrich Kutschera of " using the language of the creationists ". Alliance 90 / The Greens called for clarification. Elsewhere too, Wolff had stated that she did not see any contradiction between the biological theory of evolution and the explanation in the Bible. In June 2007, in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, she described the treatment of the biblical doctrine of creation in biology classes as "modern". Both the Association of German Biologists and the faction of the Greens in the Hessian state parliament criticized these statements.

The Catholic theologian Hans Küng defended Karin Wolff's statements in the culture interview of Deutschlandradio on July 9, 2007: “I mean, biology lessons must of course be conducted on the level of evolutionary theory. But if, for example, a question arises, […] what was before the Big Bang ? Or what can explain the Big Bang? Yes, that is a question of where, after all sensible natural scientists, natural science has reached its limits. And that's actually where the questions of faith begin. Immanuel Kant already said that. ”Wolff also received clear support from Prime Minister Roland Koch (CDU) and CDU parliamentary group leader Christean Wagner .

Church and social engagement

Wolff was a member of the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau (EKHN) from 1992 to 2010 and a member of the Chamber for Education of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) from 2002 to 2010 . For a long time she was a member and chairwoman of the board of trustees of the EKHN Volunteer Academy. Today she is a member of the board of trustees of the Protestant University of Darmstadt and the Protestant Central Office for Weltanschauung .

Wolff has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Schader Foundation since 2014, and has been Deputy Chairwoman since 2018. She is a member of the board of the Entega Foundation. Since 2018 she has been a member of the board of the Institute for Media Education and Communication Hessen eV (MuK). She is also a member of the "Education and Honorary Office" committee in the State Sports Association of Hesse.

Private

Wolff lives in Seeheim. On July 4, 2007 , she publicly professed her sexual orientation; she is married to an osteopath from Wiesbaden.

Cabinets

Publications

  • (Ed.): No future without education: are our educational concepts still up to date? Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-89843-048-0 .
  • Great school - strong children. Ideas, projects and perspectives for Hessen. Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-89869-197-0 .

Web links

Commons : Karin Wolff  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Discover talent, promote talent. Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, 2005, accessed on January 13, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Bijan Kaffenberger: SPD-YouTuber chases CDU direct mandate . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed November 3, 2018]).
  3. ↑ Criticism of school policy: Hesse's minister of education Wolff resigns . In: Spiegel Online . February 13, 2008 ( spiegel.de [accessed December 5, 2015]).
  4. ↑ Of Gods and Designers ( Memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Hessian schools: "Minister of Culture falls for creationists". In: Spiegel Online . October 31, 2006, accessed May 15, 2020 .
  6. ↑ a b Creationists in Hessian biology classes . In: Welt Online . November 1, 2006 ( welt.de [accessed December 5, 2015]).
  7. ^ Creationists on the rise , Zeit-Online, October 27, 2006
  8. ↑ Arno Widman: The Bio-Bible ( Memento from July 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ God and Science: With the Bible in Biology Class? In: Spiegel Online . June 29, 2007 ( spiegel.de [accessed December 5, 2015]).
  10. ↑ Pro media magazine: Minister of Education Wolff wants creation theory in biology lessons ( Memento from July 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ Hans Küng: Nobody wants to introduce creationism. In: Deutschlandradio Kultur. July 9, 2007, accessed December 5, 2015 .
  12. ↑ CSU politician supports Wolff's theory of organic creation. In: Welt Online. July 7, 2007, accessed December 5, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Wolff, Karin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (CDU), MdL
DATE OF BIRTH February 23, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Darmstadt