Angelika Gramkow

[1] Her higher education concluded successfully, involving by a period of vocational study at Schwerin focusing on the construction industry (residential).

[1] In 1978 she had joined East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands / SED).

In June 1991 she became a member of the Regional parliament ("Landtag"),[1] allocated the seat made available by the resignation of her party colleague Helmut Thiel [de].

Within the assembly, she served between 1999 and 2006 as chair of the Left (party) group, having taken over from Caterina Muth [de] who had resigned in bizarre circumstances that involved a shoplifting incident.

She was also helped by the circumstances and scale of her predecessor's defeat: the CDU (centre-right) Norbert Claussen [de] Lord Mayor was rejected by 82.7% of those voting, having been discredited by the death of a five year old child in her parents' home (the "Lea-Sophie affair") and his subsequent attempts to down-play the tragedy and alleged failure of co-ordination between and within the local government departments that it was said to have highlighted.