Background
She grew up in rural Swabia (East Württemberg) as the daughter of a kindergarten teacher (mother) and a skilled labour worker (father).
She grew up in rural Swabia (East Württemberg) as the daughter of a kindergarten teacher (mother) and a skilled labour worker (father).
After graduating high school (German Abitur) in Schwäbisch Gmünd, she studied German studies and Scandinavian studies at the University of Göttingen.
After graduating with an Master of Arts, she worked at her university as the equal opportunity commissioner. In the early and mid-1980s, as a school girl and a young student, she was actively involved in the German peace movement, specifically in the protest against the stationing of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer-31 Pershing missiles at a United States Armed Forces Missile Storage Area at Mutlanger Heide ("Mutlangen heathland") near her hometown (as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Double-Track Decision). In the 1990s, she worked as a freelance journalist at a local radio station as well as for several regional newspapers.
She did her traineeship at Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine newspaper.
There, she was gradually promoted up the ranks, being leading editor for politics within ten years. In 2004/2005, she spent a year at Harvard University on a scholarship of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism.
In 2008, she went to Berlin to work as a correspondent for the Ippen publishing house. From July 2009 until September 2015 she was editor in chief of the left-wing newspaper Die Tageszeitung.