Contemporary sources describe her as a highly educated, intelligent and forceful political player.

She was the older daughter of Henry the Fowler, king of Germany,[1] and his second wife, Matilda of Ringelheim.

She reached an agreement with her brother-in-law Hugh the Great, who had been an adversary to Lothair's father.

Along with their brother, Bruno, who was both archbishop of Cologne and duke of Lotharingia, Gerberga and Hadwig ruled the kingdom, until Lothair came of age.

[7] In 959, after Lothair had come of age, Gerberga became abbess of the Benedictine monastery of Notre Dame in Soissons.

In 965 she was present at the imperial court in Cologne, when her son Lothair married Emma of Italy, the step-daughter of her brother Emperor Otto I.