Johanna Wanka (née Müller; born 1 April 1951) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as federal minister for education and research in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2013 until 2018.

[2] From 2000 to 2009 Wanka was the state minister for science, research and cultural affairs of Brandenburg,[3] first in the government of Minister-President Manfred Stolpe (2000–2002) and later under his successor Matthias Platzeck (2002–2009).

In February 2013, Wanka succeeded Annette Schavan as federal minister of education and research in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

During the negotiations to form a coalition government following the 2013 federal elections, she led the CDU/CSU delegation in the working group on education and research; her co-chair from the SPD was Doris Ahnen.

However, few months after her term as president had ended, she was quoted by the influential German journal Der Spiegel as follows: "The ministers of Culture have long known that the spelling reform was wrong.