In 1920 she was one of the first group of women elected to the Senate, remaining in parliament until 1925.
Perthen was born Anna Nickel in Eulau in the Austrian Empire (today Jílové in the Czech Republic) in 1866.
She became involved with the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria, chairing the Imperial Women's Social Democratic Committee and becoming a member of Bodenbach municipal council.
[1] Following the independence of Czechoslovakia at the end of World War I, Perthen became a member of the German Social Democratic Workers' Party (DSAP) and chair of its women's committee.
[1] After World War II she was deported to Germany, where she settled in the Soviet occupation zone, later East Germany.