Sabine Sütterlin-Waack (born 15 February 1958, in Reinbek as Sabine Schwarz) is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). She currently serves as State Minister of the Interior, Municipal Affairs, Housing and Sports in the State of Schleswig-Holstein.
Early life and career
Sabine Sütterlin-Waack comes from a Schleswig-Holstein politician family. Her father was the longtime state minister Henning Schwarz (1928-1993), who was also acting Minister-President in 1987/88; her grandfather Werner Schwarz (1900-1982) was a Member of Parliament and from 1959 to 1965 Federal Minister of Agriculture. She is married for the second time and has two sons from her first marriage.
From 1990 to 1993 Sütterlin-Waack worked as a research assistant to the CDU parliamentary group in Hesse. In 1994 she joined a law firm in Schleswig as a lawyer.
Political career
Sütterlin-Waack joined the CDU in 1976. From 1992 to 1994 she worked as deputy local chairman of the CDU in Budenheim(Rhineland-Palatinate) and, after her move to Schleswig-Holstein in 2004, became deputy chairman of the CDU local association Schuby/Lürschau. Since 2009, she is chairwoman of the CDU-Amtsverband Arensharde. At the state party convention of the CDU on 19 November 2016, Sütterlin-Waack was elected deputy state chairman of the CDU Schleswig-Holstein.[1]
From 1994 to 2002, Sütterlin-Waack also volunteered for the school parish council of the elementary and secondary school Schuby.
Career in local politics, 2003–2013
In the municipal elections in Schleswig-Holstein in 2003, Sütterlin-Waack was elected as a community representative in Lürschau and vice-mayor there. As such she was a member of the Bureau of the Amt Schuby and chairwoman of the local School and Culture Committee. In the Schleswig-Holstein local elections of 2008, she was elected in the district council of Schleswig-Flensburg. From 2009 to 2013, she was Deputy CDU Parliamentary Group Leader and, from 2011 to 2013, Chairwoman of the Main Committee. In September 2013, she was elected to the Bundestag and resigned from the municipal offices that she had been re-elected to in May of the same year.
From 2011 until her entry into the Bundestag, Sütterlin-Waack was also honorary mayor of the municipality of Lüschau.
Member of the Bundestag, 2013–2017
Sütterlin-Waack was nominated as a candidate for the federal elections on 5 February 2013 after the original candidate, Jost de Jager,[2] had resigned.[3] She was nominated with 224 out of 231 votes.[4]
In the 2013 general election, Sütterlin-Waack won the direct mandate with 42.5 percent of the direct votes and thus moved into the 18th Bundestag. She was a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Consumer Protection, where she served as her parliamentary group’s rapporteur on family law.
In November 2016, Sütterlin-Waack was elected one of the four deputy state chairmen of the CDU Schleswig-Holstein.[5] In November 2018 she no longer took up this post;[6] she was succeeded by State Minister of Education Karin Prien.[7]
In 2020, Sütterlin-Waack was appointed State Minister of the Interior, Rural Areas, and Integration. After assuming office, the Ministries name was changed to "Ministry of the Interior, Rural Areas, Integration and Equality".[9]
As one of the state’s representatives at the Bundesrat, Sütterlin-Waack is a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs; the Committee on European Affairs; the Committee on Women and Youth; and the Committee on Agricultural Policy and Consumer Protection. She is also a member of the German-Russian Friendship Group set up by the Bundesrat and the Russian Federation Council.
