Derya Türk-Nachbaur

Derya Türk-Nachbaur (born 10 April 1973 in Paderborn) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from Baden-Württemberg and a member of the Bundestag. She has sat in parliament since October 2021, elected on the SPD state list, and was returned to the 21st Bundestag in 2025 in list position 11 for Baden-Württemberg, while also standing in constituency 286, Schwarzwald-Baar. The Bundestag’s official biography describes her as Alevi, married, and the mother of four children.

She passed the Abitur in 1992 at the Pelizaeus-Gymnasium in Paderborn and from 1993 to 1998 studied modern German literature and media studies at the Philipps University in Marburg. The same biography records journalistic work, including for the Turkish daily Milliyet, and training as an insurance specialist (Versicherungsfachfrau) at Sparkassen Versicherung in Freiburg. She then worked for years in child and youth welfare, as a teacher in preparatory vocational classes and as a school-management assistant at Mutpol – Diakonische Jugendhilfe in Tuttlingen, and until October 2021 as a pedagogical specialist in the youth, education, integration and sport office of the city of Villingen-Schwenningen.

At the 2021 federal election the SPD was runner-up on first votes in constituency 286, with 21,996 votes (18.1 percent), behind the CDU on 44,188 (36.4 percent); turnout was 75.5 percent. She entered the 20th Bundestag on the state list rather than by winning that seat. In 2025 Thorsten Frei of the CDU won the constituency with 55,044 first votes (42.3 percent), Sebastian Zacharias van Ryt of the AfD was runner-up with 29,143 (22.4 percent), and the SPD received 19,396 (14.9 percent), with turnout at 81.8 percent. Türk-Nachbaur remained a member through list position 11.

In the 20th electoral term she was a full member of the Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid and of the Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development, and she was the SPD’s spokesperson on the study commission on lessons from Afghanistan. In the 21st term she has been a full member of the Foreign Affairs Committee since 21 May 2025 and a deputy member of the human-rights committee. The Bundestag lists her as a member of the Council of Elders, as deputy foreign-policy spokesperson of the SPD group, and as deputy chair of the SPD state group for Baden-Württemberg. Since 7 May 2025 she has been a parliamentary managing director of the SPD Bundestag group. She is a deputy member of the German delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and, since 15 September 2025, deputy chair of the parliamentary friendship group for East Africa. The Bundestag also records her, from 8 November 2025, as president of the Bundesmusikverband Chor und Orchester.

Early life and education

Family background

Derya Türk-Nachbaur was born on 10 April 1973 in Paderborn, in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia. The Bundestag biography, which the parliament states is drawn from members' own information, lists her as an Alevi. She writes that she was born the daughter of Turkish Alevi parents, and that both her father and her mother worked so the family could make a life in Germany.

In a February 2023 interview she said that her mother came from Kahramanmaraş and her father from Elbistan, in the same province in southern Turkey. A profile published that May described her as having grown up in eastern Westphalia (Ostwestfalen) as the child of a Turkish guest-worker family, and as keeping close contact with relatives in southern Turkey. Gastarbeiter was the everyday term for foreign workers recruited to West Germany under bilateral agreements, including a 1961 agreement with Turkey; by 1973 about 14 million people had come to work and a little more than 11 million had gone back. These accounts do not state when her parents arrived or what jobs they held.

She kept Turkish citizenship into adulthood. In 2007, at the age of 34, she became a German citizen and had to give up her Turkish passport. She told the Social Democratic Party newspaper vorwärts that she had felt an inner reluctance to naturalise, because it meant giving up "a part of the identity of my parents," even though she wanted to take a fuller part in German society and to be able to vote. She called dual citizenship a milestone above all for the guest-worker generation, "for example my parents," who she said had worked themselves to the bone for the country and had so far received little recognition.

Schooling and university

In 1992 she passed the Abitur, the school-leaving certificate required for university entrance, at the Pelizaeus-Gymnasium in Paderborn.

The school, at Gierswall 2, is named for Johanna Pelizaeus, a teacher from Rietberg who in 1859, with support from church circles, was permitted to open a private Catholic höhere Töchterschule with a boarding house for girls over 14, at a time when Paderborn had no further school for them. It remained her private property for nearly 50 years and was then run by a private sponsoring body until the state took it over in 1929. Until 1974 its main branch was a state modern-language girls' Gymnasium, beside a domestic-science Frauenoberschule (1930–1974) and a pedagogical-musical branch (1965–1974). Since 1974 it has been a Gymnasium of the city of Paderborn, open to boys and girls; the school says it is the largest of the six Gymnasien in the city.

For 1993 to 1998 the Bundestag biography records studies in modern German literature (Neuere Deutsche Literatur) and media studies at the Philipps University of Marburg, in Hesse, together with journalistic work including for the Turkish daily Milliyet. It does not record a degree. The May 2023 profile reported that she began a humanities course in Marburg, ended it without a qualification, and afterwards worked on the culture desk of a Turkish newspaper.

Professional career

Journalism and insurance

The Bundestag biography of Derya Türk-Nachbaur, which the parliament notes is drawn from members' own information, records journalistic work, including for the Turkish daily Milliyet, and training as a Versicherungsfachfrau (insurance specialist) at Sparkassen Versicherung in Freiburg im Breisgau. In a curriculum note the Südkurier published on 31 August 2021, during her first Bundestag campaign, she wrote that while studying modern German literature, media studies and American studies at the Philipps University in Marburg she had begun writing for newspapers and magazines, and that she decided to work as a culture editor for Milliyet in İzmir; private reasons, she wrote, brought her back to Germany. The parliamentary text dates the Marburg course, described there as modern German literature and media studies, to 1993–1998, and does not specify the Milliyet assignment, its place or its dates. On her own website she calls the Milliyet work the start of her career and a post as foreign correspondent, and states that she afterwards worked in gastronomy and, after further training, at a savings bank (Sparkasse) until 2015.

Neither the hospitality work nor employment at a savings bank is itemized in the Bundestag biography, which instead records the Freiburg insurance training. Disclosures reproduced by Abgeordnetenwatch give her professional qualification as "Versicherungsfachfrau und Pädagogische Fachkraft". In the archived biography for the 20th electoral term, "Versicherungsfachfrau" appears under her name as the occupational title, while the job listed immediately before she entered parliament is the later municipal post of pedagogical specialist. The Social Democratic Party group in the Bundestag currently lists her profession as pedagogical specialist.

Youth welfare and municipal education work

The same Bundestag biography describes a long stretch in child and youth welfare: Türk-Nachbaur worked as a teacher for VABO classes and then as a school-management assistant (Schulleitungsassistentin) at Mutpol – Diakonische Jugendhilfe in Tuttlingen.

In Baden-Württemberg the state education ministry defines VABO, the Vorqualifizierungsjahr Arbeit/Beruf mit Schwerpunkt Erwerb von Deutschkenntnissen, as preparation at a vocational school for young people of compulsory vocational-school age, especially recent immigrants and refugees, aimed primarily at the German they will need for later vocational preparation or training. Pupils who already have enough German take a work placement arranged by the school, and a language assessment, usually at level A2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, is certified. Mutpol – Diakonische Jugendhilfe Tuttlingen e.V. is a provider of child, youth and family welfare; its Gotthilf-Vollert-Schule is a state-recognized special-education centre (SBBZ ESENT) whose stated focus is support for children and young people with emotional and social needs. The school's vocational courses include the Vorqualifizierungsjahr Arbeit/Beruf. The parliamentary biography gives no start date for the Tuttlingen work. On her website she writes that, when many people from crisis regions came to Germany, she taught German there to children and young people of various nationalities and helped them find their way in society. A self-description carried by Abgeordnetenwatch says that before she entered politics she had worked in journalism and in child and youth welfare, and that the work with young people newly arrived in Germany shaped her.

Until October 2021 she was a pedagogical specialist (pädagogische Fachkraft) for the city of Villingen-Schwenningen, in the Amt für Jugend, Bildung, Integration und Sport, the municipal office for youth, education, integration and sport. That city post is the employment both the Bundestag and Abgeordnetenwatch record as her work immediately before she became a member of the Bundestag in October 2021.

Party membership and local politics

Joining the SPD

Public reporting does not fix the year Derya Türk-Nachbaur joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany. The local record is clearer about her husband. A Schwarzwälder Bote article of 9 March 2018, reproduced by the Bad Dürrheim SPD, states that Andreas Nachbaur joined in 2013 and had already opposed a grand coalition with the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union. After members voted in 2018 to renew that coalition, he left the SPD on 4 March. He told the Bote that, having been elected on the SPD list, he was also resigning his council seat and his post as speaker of the SPD group, and would not campaign for what he called a “GroKo-SPD”. The paper reported that Türk-Nachbaur stayed in the party, remained chair of the Bad Dürrheim local branch, and was expected to follow him onto the council. She had already stood for the SPD at the municipal election of 25 May 2014; a later council template recorded 905 votes for her.

Bad Dürrheim council

The succession was not a direct handover of his seat. Nachbaur held a direct seat for the central district (Kernstadt), won with 1,325 votes in 2014. Beate Schrenk, the next substitute on that district list, moved from a compensatory seat into the direct seat, and Türk-Nachbaur took the compensatory seat for the rest of the term. She accepted the unpaid mandate. The agenda for 22 March 2018 listed his resignation, her entry, and her oath; the next meeting treated the succession as completed.

On 19 April 2018 the council unanimously appointed her, for the rest of that term, to the administrative committee and the urban-development and environment committee. It also named her substitute for Schrenk on the technical committee, the personnel commission, and the supervisory board of the municipal spa company Kur- und Bäder GmbH, and withdrew Nachbaur’s seat on that board. She was still a councillor in the term the minutes call the tenth electoral period. The 1/2020 newsletter of the Association of Social Democratic Women (AsF) in Baden-Württemberg described her as spokesperson of the SPD group and as local-branch chair.

By letter of 24 May 2022 she asked to leave. The administration cited the municipal code’s provision for release where professional duties keep a councillor away from the town for long periods, and said that applied to her as a member of the Bundestag. On 30 June 2022 the council agreed unanimously. Can Zileli, the next SPD substitute to accept, took the seat, and the same agenda recorded the group chairmanship under his name. Her archived Bundestag biography, based on her own information, lists her as chair of the SPD group in Bad Dürrheim until 2022.

District and state party offices

In August 2017 Jens Löw told the Südkurier that he had been SPD district chair in the Schwarzwald-Baar-Kreis since 2012. Türk-Nachbaur writes that she took the chair from him in 2018. The AsF profile of early 2020 still called her deputy district chair. By 7 May 2021 Vorwärts identified her as district chair and as a member of the Baden-Württemberg state executive.

At the state conference in Sindelfingen on 24 November 2018 she was elected a Beisitzerin on the state executive, with 130 votes on the second ballot after 121 on the first. The party’s current executive list still includes her in that role. At a conference in Ulm in June 2026, the Schwarzwälder Bote reported that delegates confirmed her and that she had the highest total among candidates for the Beisitzer posts. It also reported that she and the district association had backed the new dual leadership of Isabel Cademartori and Robin Mesarosch.

On 28 April 2026 the Südkurier reported that district delegates in Schönenbach had elected an equal dual leadership: Türk-Nachbaur, described as the incumbent chair, with Raphael D’Avis, chair of the Schonach branch. The state directory spells his surname Davis. The deputies were Oliver Freischlader of St. Georgen and Nadine Wittner and Nicola Schurr of Villingen-Schwenningen.

In autumn 2019 an AsF conference confirmed her as press officer of its state executive, a post she already held; the newsletter called the margin overwhelming. The archived Bundestag biography calls her a former member of that board. The current biography, from her own information, lists her as winner of the SPD Basispreis for 2023. On 8 September 2023 Vorwärts reported that the local-branch network “Wir sind viele” was offering the prize for the first time, for a parliamentarian close to the base and responsive to local branches; a “Basis-Kuratorium” of the network was to choose the winner.

Bundestag elections

2021 election

Bundestag constituency 286, Schwarzwald-Baar, is in Baden-Württemberg. It covers the whole Schwarzwald-Baar-Kreis and, from the Ortenaukreis, the municipalities of Gutach (Schwarzwaldbahn), Hausach, Hornberg, Oberwolfach and Wolfach. The same boundary was in force for the 2025 election. At a Bundestag election each voter has two votes: a first vote for a constituency candidate and a second vote for a party’s state list, which determines how many seats the party receives.

The election was held on 26 September 2021. Of 162,800 people eligible to vote, 122,862 cast ballots, a turnout of 75.5 percent. Among 121,492 valid first votes, Thorsten Frei of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won the seat with 44,188 votes (36.4 percent), 10.6 points below the CDU share in 2017. Derya Türk-Nachbaur of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) was second with 21,996 votes (18.1 percent), 1.4 points above the SPD result of 2017. The gap was 22,192 votes, or 18.3 points. The Federal Returning Officer’s final results name Frei as the elected constituency candidate and Türk-Nachbaur as the leading unsuccessful candidate.

The next first-vote totals were 16,747 (13.8 percent) for the Free Democratic Party (FDP), 14,692 (12.1 percent) for Alliance 90/The Greens, 12,795 (10.5 percent) for the Alternative for Germany (AfD), 4,871 (4.0 percent) for dieBasis, 3,306 (2.7 percent) for the Free Voters and 2,757 (2.3 percent) for Die Linke. The Südkurier identified the constituency candidates of the FDP, the Greens, the AfD and the Left as Marcel Klinge, Thomas Bleile, Martin Rothweiler and Heinrich Alexandra Hermann. On the second vote the CDU led the constituency with 32,309 votes (26.6 percent), ahead of the SPD on 25,814 (21.2 percent), the FDP on 19,696 (16.2 percent), the Greens on 16,181 (13.3 percent) and the AfD on 13,097 (10.8 percent).

Across Baden-Württemberg the SPD received 1,287,934 second votes, 21.6 percent. Losing the constituency did not by itself decide membership: a candidate could still be seated from the state list if that place fell within the seats allocated to the party. The Federal Returning Officer’s table of members elected from state lists records Türk-Nachbaur at place 19 of the SPD list in Baden-Württemberg, and as a candidate in constituency 286; the highest SPD list place returned from the Land in that table is 22. The state SPD had adopted a list of 36 places on 8 May 2021. The 20th electoral term began with the Bundestag’s constituent sitting on 26 October 2021. The Bundestag biography for that term records her mandate as one obtained over the state list.

2025 election

On 27 December 2024 the Federal President dissolved the 20th Bundestag and set the next election for Sunday, 23 February 2025. From this election a candidate of a party wins the constituency seat only with both a plurality of first votes and Zweitstimmendeckung: the seat must also be covered by the seats the party’s second votes produce in that Land. Seats that are not filled by constituency winners go down the closed state list, so a defeated direct candidate can still enter in list order. Türk-Nachbaur again stood in constituency 286. The SPD list for Baden-Württemberg, adopted at a state delegate assembly on 15 December 2024, placed her 11th.

Turnout was 81.8 percent, with 131,135 ballots cast by 160,376 eligible voters. Of 130,078 valid first votes, Frei again won the constituency for the CDU, with 55,044 votes (42.3 percent). Sebastian Zacharias van Ryt of the AfD was second with 29,143 (22.4 percent). The SPD received 19,396 first votes (14.9 percent) and finished third, 3.2 points and 2,600 votes below Türk-Nachbaur’s 2021 total. The Federal Returning Officer’s result names Frei as elected in the constituency and van Ryt as the runner-up. The next first-vote totals were 9,979 (7.7 percent) for the Greens, 5,295 (4.1 percent) for Die Linke, 4,524 (3.5 percent) for the FDP, 2,933 (2.3 percent) for the Free Voters, 2,264 (1.7 percent) for the independent candidate Weißer and 1,500 (1.2 percent) for Volt.

On the second vote the CDU took 44,338 votes (34.0 percent) and the AfD 30,953 (23.8 percent). The SPD fell to 16,814 (12.9 percent), 8.3 points below 2021, ahead of the Greens on 12,895 (9.9 percent), the FDP on 6,874 (5.3 percent), Die Linke on 6,591 (5.1 percent) and the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht on 5,817 (4.5 percent). In the alphabetical register of members elected in 2025, Türk-Nachbaur is listed for the SPD from Baden-Württemberg at list place 11, with constituency 286 as the district in which she also stood; unlike constituency winners, the entry carries no first-vote percentage. The 21st Bundestag held its constituent sitting on 25 March 2025.

Roles in the Bundestag

Twentieth electoral term

The archived biography records Derya Türk-Nachbaur’s membership of the twentieth Bundestag as running from 26 October 2021 to 25 March 2025. For that term the Bundestag lists her as an ordinary member of the Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid and of the Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development, and as a deputy member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and of its subcommittee on the United Nations, international organisations and civilian crisis prevention.

The same list names her an ordinary member, and the SPD group’s Obfrau, of the study commission “Lehren aus Afghanistan für das künftige vernetzte Engagement Deutschlands”, and of that commission’s project group on civilian reconstruction and peacebuilding and its second-phase cluster working groups. The Bundestag set the commission up on 8 July 2022 on a motion from the SPD, CDU/CSU, the Greens and the FDP; the AfD and Die Linke voted against. She was also a secretary (Schriftführerin). Secretaries are members elected on a group’s proposal; with the presiding officer they form the sitting’s chair, receive motions, keep the list of speakers and establish the result of votes.

On 13 January 2022 the Bundestag, without debate, elected her a full member of the German delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe; the other SPD members were Heike Engelhardt, Christian Petry, Axel Schäfer and Frank Schwabe. Its register of friendship-group boards for the twentieth term lists her as chair of the Malta–Cyprus group, with Florian Oßner (CDU/CSU), Ulle Schauws (Greens), Katharina Willkomm (FDP) and Dietmar Friedhoff (AfD) as deputies. The archived biography, which the Bundestag says rests on the member’s own information, also describes her as the SPD group’s deputy spokesperson on human-rights policy and as a founding member of the Parlamentskreis „Uiguren“, a circle concerned with the Uyghurs. On 5 September 2023 the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that Peter Heidt of the FDP was founding that circle the same day with members of the SPD, the Greens and the CDU.

Twenty-first electoral term

For the twenty-first term, whose profile dates from 25 March 2025, the Bundestag lists her as an ordinary member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and of the Council of Elders (Ältestenrat), and as a deputy member of the Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid and of the Subcommittee on Foreign Cultural and Education Policy. The SPD parliamentary group dates the Foreign Affairs seat, the deputy seat on the human-rights committee and deputy membership of the group’s human-rights working group from 21 May 2025, and the deputy seat on the cultural-and-education subcommittee from 16 October 2025. From 3 June 2025 the group lists her as deputy spokesperson of its foreign-affairs working group; the Bundestag biography, again drawn from her own information, calls her the group’s deputy spokesperson on foreign policy.

The Council of Elders supports the President in conducting business, agrees sitting weeks and plenary agendas as recommendations rather than binding decisions, and is where disputes between groups are taken up. It also deals with the Bundestag’s internal affairs, including the draft of the Bundestag’s own budget and the allocation of rooms, and it appoints commissions to prepare that work. Parliamentary managing directors sit on the Council, and their preparatory meetings feed into its discussions. Beside that membership, the SPD group lists her on three Council commissions: information technology and digitalisation from 7 May 2025, internal affairs from 4 June 2025, and international exchange programmes from 9 September 2025.

Under other bodies the Bundestag lists her as a deputy member of the Joint Committee and of the German delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly, and as deputy chair of the parliamentary group for East Africa. The SPD group dates those seats from 25 June 2025, 4 June 2025 and 15 September 2025 respectively. Article 53a of the Basic Law provides that the Joint Committee is two-thirds Bundestag members and one-third members of the Bundesrat, and that the federal government must inform it of planning for a state of defence. In a notice published on 15 May 2025, the SPD in Baden-Württemberg reported that Martin Gerster remained chair of the Land group of its Bundestag members and that Isabel Cademartori and Türk-Nachbaur had been confirmed as deputy chairs.

Parliamentary managing director

On 5 May 2025 the speakers of the Seeheimer Kreis, the Parlamentarische Linke and Netzwerk Berlin, after talks with the then party and group chair Lars Klingbeil, put forward a joint slate for a new executive. It named Matthias Miersch as group chair and, as parliamentary managing directors, Dirk Wiese as first managing director, Türk-Nachbaur, Marja-Liisa Völlers and Johannes Fechner, Fechner also as the group’s legal adviser (Justiziar). The group elected the six deputy chairs and the four managing directors on 7 May 2025. Of 117 votes cast, Türk-Nachbaur received 104 in favour, Völlers 102 and Fechner 112; Wiese was elected first managing director. The Südkurier reported that her side of the office would be communication and strategy in particular.

In the Bundestag’s glossary, each group’s parliamentary managing directors conduct its day-to-day parliamentary and internal business in close coordination with the group chair. They prepare plenary sittings, settle agendas with the other groups and in the Council of Elders, keep members together for important votes, coordinate the group’s bodies and help fill its own and the parliament’s committees, and act as intermediaries with the federal government, the Bundesrat, their party and associations.

Foreign policy and human rights

Afghanistan inquiry

On 8 July 2022 the Bundestag set up the study commission “Lehren aus Afghanistan für das künftige vernetzte Engagement Deutschlands”, on a motion from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the CDU/CSU, Alliance 90/The Greens and the Free Democratic Party; the Alternative for Germany and The Left voted no. It was to review Germany’s military and civilian role in the war in Afghanistan, 2001–2021, and draw lessons for later operations. The motion provided for twelve members and twelve outside experts; Türk-Nachbaur was the SPD group’s spokesperson (Obfrau). The commission adopted its final report, printed paper 20/14500, on 27 January 2025. President Bärbel Bas received it the next day from the chair, Michael Müller (SPD), and member Peter Beyer (CDU/CSU); the plenary debated it on 31 January 2025.

A February 2024 interim report called the engagement a strategic failure. It described fighting the Taliban rather than including them as an “original sin”, alongside over-ambitious state-building and ministerial rivalries. Türk-Nachbaur told the Rheinische Post that Kurt Beck had been attacked in 2007 for urging talks with moderate Taliban, and that Germany had lacked one foreign, defence and development strategy.

The final text, more than 100 pages and 72 recommendations, passed unanimously, with separate opinions from the Greens, the AfD, the CDU/CSU and the FDP. It still ranked crisis management highly and asked for military, police, diplomatic, development and humanitarian work to be joined through a cabinet committee or intensified state-secretaries’ round, a joint situation centre, a parliamentary subcommittee and a civilian personnel reserve. A CDU/CSU separate opinion proposed a national security council in the Chancellery; the FDP backed that in the debate.

Her own line stressed civilians, exits and aid, and opposed that council. In July 2023 she said the 2001 mandate mentioned only securing Kabul, so the Bundeswehr filled civilian gaps, and that military and development gains would not hold while the political conflict remained. Before the final debate she called for diplomacy, development and defence to be planned together, with an exit agreed with partners, continued humanitarian aid and later more work through non-governmental organisations; she rejected “more power for the Chancellery at the expense of democracy”. On 31 January she said the mission had not been in vain for education, health and the protection of women and minorities, but that those gains had not been secured.

Yazidis, Uyghurs and other human-rights work

On 19 January 2023 the Bundestag adopted a joint motion of the governing parties and the CDU/CSU, printed paper 20/5228, recognising crimes by the Islamic State against Yazidis in Iraq in 2014 as genocide under the UN Genocide Convention. Türk-Nachbaur said the attempt to extinguish Yazidi life must not go unpunished in Iraq or Germany, and that recognition was meant to restore “dignity, identity and security”. In November 2023 the budget committee approved 3 million euros for a memorial, if the Yazidi community in Germany submitted a broadly supported application; she said the money would carry out the recognition motion. In August 2024, at a commemoration in Frankfurt’s St Paul’s Church for the tenth anniversary, the Central Council of Yazidis in Germany awarded its honorary prize to her, Peter Heidt (FDP), Michael Brand (CDU) and Max Lucks (Greens) for their work on the motion.

On 5 September 2023 members from the SPD, FDP, Greens and CDU formed an informal “Parlamentskreis Uiguren”. Türk-Nachbaur, who described herself as an initiator, spoke of internment and forced labour in Xinjiang, of Uyghur cotton in supply chains, and of forced sterilisation and abortion as practices that had to end. As her personal view she called it a “creeping genocide”, while saying a formal label still needed the evidence.

Under the committee’s “Parliamentarians Protect Parliamentarians” scheme she sponsored the Turkish lawyer Eren Keskin, known for work on Kurdish rights and press freedom, calling the many cases against Keskin, including a 2021 prison sentence in the Özgür Gündem proceedings, politically motivated. In 2026 she sponsored the imprisoned Vietnamese journalist Pham Thi Doan Trang, sentenced in 2021 to nine years for alleged anti-state propaganda, and demanded her release, citing a UN finding of arbitrary detention.

Plenary debates and recorded votes

On 8 July 2026 the Bundestag rejected, by 510 votes to 79 with one abstention, a Green motion (printed paper 21/6912) for additional military and humanitarian support to Ukraine, including more long-range weapons, Patriot ammunition made in Germany, and strikes on military targets inside Russia. All 115 SPD members who voted opposed it. On abgeordnetenwatch Türk-Nachbaur wrote on 27 July 2026 that support for Ukraine was not in doubt and that Russia alone was responsible for the war; her no, she said, was to wording she found incompatible with coordination among partners, or too imprecise, in a motion voted on as a whole.

On 14 October 2026 she spoke on Left and Green motions about the colonial war against the Ovaherero and Nama in present-day Namibia, with descendants in the gallery. She apologised for AfD use of Schuldkult and described Shark Island, off Lüderitz, as a concentration camp whose prisoners built harbour and railway works; descendants, she said, had told her that some were thrown to sharks and that the bay turned blood-red. “Remembrance without participation is not reconciliation”, she argued, citing Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s call in Windhoek for an apology but saying one adopted without those affected would be “a conversation with ourselves”.

AfD speakers disputed the history around that debate. Alexander Wolf called the genocide thesis a 1966 product of the East German historian Horst Drechsler, and said it remained contested. Ronald Gläser likened reparations demands to selling indulgences and argued that a few hundred soldiers could not have sealed off the Omaheke, which he called dry savanna the size of Austria; Türk-Nachbaur interjected that this played the events down. CDU/CSU speakers rejected that account. Thomas Rachel estimated 50,000 to 70,000 Herero and Nama dead from 1904 to 1908 and recalled the 2021 recognition of a genocide “from today’s perspective”, tied to a joint declaration and about 1.1 billion euros over 30 years in reconstruction aid rather than reparations; Merkur reported Thomas Silberhorn calling the crimes genocide by today’s standards but not an enforceable claim.

Development cooperation and Africa

Economic cooperation committee and GIZ

In the 20th Bundestag, Derya Türk-Nachbaur was an ordinary member of the Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development (Ausschuss für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung). The committee deals with worldwide economic cooperation and social justice, and with German development policy on education, decent work, health, gender equality, climate, infrastructure, rural development, public administration and governance; its members also review German projects in partner countries. In the 21st electoral term she is not a member of that committee.

From 11 to 19 February 2023 the committee sent a delegation to Tanzania and Kenya, led by Knut Gerschau (FDP), with Türk-Nachbaur, Rebecca Schamber, Thomas Rachel, Ulle Schauws, Dietmar Friedhoff and Cornelia Möhring. The written report, committee paper 20(19)212, was discussed on 29 November 2023. Türk-Nachbaur said the situation of the Maasai, including around the Mahale and Katavi parks and in Loliondo near Serengeti National Park, involved displacement from traditional areas and should stay on the committee’s agenda. She also described a Kenyan potato-farming project as a small scheme that, in her account, had given women farmers an income.

Under section 24 of its articles of association, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) has a board of trustees, the Kuratorium. GIZ states that the Kuratorium advises the company on questions essential to its development, serves the exchange of information and views, is meant to foster relations with the bodies represented on it, and normally meets once a year. Up to 40 members are appointed by the shareholder for five years and serve unpaid, including five Bundestag representatives alongside the Länder, federal ministries, business, civil society, trade unions, churches, science, municipalities and youth organisations.

The mandatory disclosure on her 20th-term biography listed membership of the GIZ Kuratorium from 20 September 2022. The narrative text on that page, which the Bundestag says rests on the member’s own information, called her Kuratoriumsvorsitzende, while the disclosure entry did not use the chair title. In a post dated 24 February 2023 she stated that she had been elected chair and would coordinate the body. The 21st-term narrative no longer mentions the GIZ, but the disclosure section still lists her as a member of the Kuratorium, without the chair title and without an end date. GIZ’s published list does not include her: it names Nicolas Zippelius (CDU/CSU), Denis Pauli (AfD), Claudia Roth (Alliance 90/The Greens), Charlotte Neuhäuser (The Left) and Armand Zorn (SPD) as the Bundestag members, and marks Kambiz Ghawami and Jürgen Ratzinger as deputy chairs, with no chair named.

African parliamentary contacts

On 21 January 2026 the Parliament of Kenya reported that National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula met members of the Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee, led by Türk-Nachbaur, at Parliament Buildings in Nairobi. Wetang’ula asked Germany to press the European Union on migration and to implement the Comprehensive Migration and Mobility Partnership Agreement, which he said had been in force since September 2024. The report quotes Türk-Nachbaur calling Kenya a regional economic pillar with strong institutions and, compared with its neighbours, marked progress on devolution, constitutionalism and political maturity.

The SPD group lists her as deputy chair of the Parlamentariergruppe Östliches Afrika, the Bundestag group for East Africa, from 15 September 2025, and the Bundestag biography records the same deputy chairmanship. On 22 October 2026 the Bundestag announced a delegation to Tanzania and Rwanda from 25 October to 1 November 2026, led by the group’s chair, Ulle Schauws (Alliance 90/The Greens), with Türk-Nachbaur, Carsten Brodesser (CDU/CSU) and Clara Bünger (The Left). The programme named talks in Tanzania with parliamentarians, the foreign minister, the opposition parties CHADEMA and ACT-Wazalendo, civil society and the president of the Zanzibar parliament, and in Rwanda with parliamentary and government representatives and human-rights organisations, plus a wreath at the Kigali Genocide Memorial. Development cooperation, German business and colonial history were also on the agenda.

Since 12 November 2025 the Bundestag disclosure lists her as Beisitzerin, an assessor, on the board of the Deutsche Afrika Stiftung in Berlin, and the foundation’s board page lists her in the same role. The foundation describes itself as a non-partisan association founded on 10 May 1978 for German–African exchange and the federal government’s Africa-policy guidelines. The 21st-term biography also calls her Vorstandsbeisitzerin of the foundation.

Constituency work and domestic positions

Schwarzwald-Baar issues

Türk-Nachbaur's regional brief is Bundestag constituency 286, Schwarzwald-Baar: the Schwarzwald-Baar-Kreis and, from the Ortenaukreis, the upper Kinzig municipalities of Gutach (Schwarzwaldbahn), Hausach, Hornberg, Oberwolfach and Wolfach. She lives in Bad Dürrheim.

The sharpest local dispute in 2026 was the Donaueschingen site of the Schwarzwald-Baar-Klinikum. On 11 May the district council voted 49 to 3 to close it and concentrate care in Villingen-Schwenningen around 2032, after an extension of about €108 million. Until then Donaueschingen was to stay a specialised clinic, with the emergency department moving at the end of 2026 or early 2027.

District administrator Sven Hinterseh said emergency care would not be endangered, citing costs, staffing, the federal hospital reform and planned insurance savings from 2027. Staff at a public meeting called the hospital emotionally important; chief executive Matthias Geiser said not everyone accepted a transfer, and SPD district councillor Oliver Freischlader proposed a medical care centre. The Südkurier linked the closure partly to reforms begun under former SPD health minister Karl Lauterbach. Türk-Nachbaur said she understood Donaueschingen residents' concern, but that the choice belonged to the supervisory board and the operators, the district and the city of Villingen-Schwenningen. She called the Villingen-Schwenningen site well placed and expanding, said the financing gap made cuts unavoidable, and said she had voted for the health-insurance package because something had to change, though not all of it suited her.

On a possible closure of Bad Dürrheim's Minara indoor pool, she said federal sports-facility grants would not cover operating costs and that municipalities needed more fiscal room. As a former town councillor who had backed investment there, she warned that closure would weaken social cohesion and swimming lessons, and she supported consultation by the town and Kur und Bäder GmbH if clubs were involved. The Schwarzwälder Bote reported on 5 July 2026 that, after meeting course providers, she found a federal compromise meant to ease access to integration courses was not being applied.

Recorded positions on domestic bills

On 9 July 2026 the Bundestag rejected, 467 to 137, a bill from Alliance 90/The Greens for a general 130 km/h limit on autobahns and similar roads. The SPD cast 116 votes against and none for; Türk-Nachbaur voted no. She wrote that she still favoured a general limit, for safety, fuel use and climate protection, but that the coalition agreement excluded one and that she would keep that agreement.

Asked whether she would support what questioners called the de facto abolition of the Freedom of Information Act, she said on 22 July 2026 that the coalition committee of the CDU, the CSU and the SPD leadership had decided on 2 July to limit information rights to people with a legitimate interest. Abgeordnetenwatch described that decision as abolishing the law in practice, because organisations and the press would lose the right to request documents and the fee cap would go. She said she would not accept less transparency, and that the Interior Ministry had still to draft a bill.

On 10 July 2026 she voted for the law stabilising statutory health-insurance contribution rates, passed 318 to 284 and presented as limiting rises through savings in hospitals, practices and medicines and higher co-payments. She called it a painful compromise, criticising cuts to family-doctor-centred care and the return of budget caps for paediatricians, while saying the SPD had protected ongoing psychotherapy and full payment for children, young people, the severely mentally ill and urgent cases.

On 8 September 2023 she voted for the Building Energy Act amendment, passed 397 to 275, requiring new heating systems in new-build areas to use at least 65 percent renewable energy. On 10 July 2026 she voted for the Building Modernisation Act, passed 323 to 271, which dropped that duty and allowed new gas and oil heating.

Cultural roles and public profile

Amateur-music presidency

On 7 and 8 November 2025 the members’ assembly of the Bundesmusikverband Chor & Orchester (BMCO) in Frankfurt am Main elected a new executive for three years. Delegates chose Türk-Nachbaur unanimously as president; Thomas Kronenberger and Judith Mohr became vice-presidents. She succeeded Benjamin Strasser of the Free Democratic Party, unpaid BMCO president since May 2019 and a Bundestag member in the 20th electoral term, who was made an honorary member after a six-year term the association linked to the merger of choir and orchestra federations and to the Amateurmusikfonds.

The BMCO states that it represents 21 secular and church choir and orchestra associations, about 100,000 ensembles, and 16.3 million people who make music in their free time, with offices in Trossingen and Berlin. The Bundestag’s register of outside offices lists her as president of Bundesmusikverband Chor und Orchester e.V., Trossingen, from 8 November 2025. Pueri Cantores, a member association, reported that the ballot was on 8 November and that she linked the post to equal access to music-making. In the BMCO account she called amateur music an expression of cultural diversity and social cohesion and “a supporting pillar of our democracy.” The neue musikzeitung noted the change in its December 2025 personalia.

Trusteeships and awards

The archived Bundestag biography for the 20th electoral term lists her, from 2024, as a member of the Kuratorium of the German Institute for Human Rights (Deutsches Institut für Menschenrechte). The institute’s own list names her as a voting member under section 6(2) no. 3 of the DIMR Act, the statutory seat tied to the Bundestag, and identifies her as an SPD member of the Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid. Abgeordnetenwatch dates the disclosure 27 June 2024, and the current Bundestag register still lists the trusteeship.

That archived text, which the parliament says rests on the member’s own information, also calls her a former board member of Help e.V. The current biography, on the same basis, lists membership of the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa); ifa is not among the offices in the conduct register, which does list the BMCO presidency and the DIMR trusteeship. The biography also records the SPD Basispreis for 2023, treated with her party offices. In August 2024 the Central Council of Yazidis in Germany gave her an honorary prize in Frankfurt; the Südkurier, citing her Bundestag office, reported it together with the motion recognising crimes against Yazidis.

Family and residence

The Bundestag biography states that she is an Alevi, is married, and has four children. Abgeordnetenwatch gives Bad Dürrheim as her place of residence, and her own site says that she lives there. A Schwarzwälder Bote report of 9 March 2018, republished by the Bad Dürrheim SPD, identified Andreas Nachbaur as her husband when he left the party and resigned his council mandate. The Freiburg Bar Association lists Prof. Dr. Andreas Nachbaur as a lawyer in Bad Dürrheim, with stated fields including constitutional, administrative, police and European law. A vita on that profile says he was professor of those subjects, and of assembly law, at the Hochschule für Polizei Baden-Württemberg from 1994 to 2022.

In a Das Parlament profile of 30 September 2023 she said she had left university after having two children and becoming a single mother, then trained as an insurance specialist. The profile also says that in 2018 she urged her husband to stay in the SPD rather than leave over a renewed grand coalition; his council resignation is set out with her local party work.