Diana Herbstreuth

Diana Herbstreuth (born 27 February 1981 in Erfurt) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from Thuringia and a member of the Bundestag since March 2025. She took her seat when the 21st Bundestag convened on 25 March 2025. The Bundestag records her as elected on the Thuringia state list after standing in constituency 194, Saalfeld-Rudolstadt – Saale-Holzland-Kreis – Saale-Orla-Kreis. Before the mandate, the same record lists her occupation as a professional soldier (Berufssoldatin) of the Bundeswehr in Erfurt, with a right to return to that employment.

She joined the Bundeswehr in 2001 as a non-commissioned-officer candidate with the paratroopers and, in 2002, began training as an officer of the troop service in the reconnaissance arm of the German Army. She completed the Abitur in Erfurt in 2000 and, from 2005 to 2009, studied sports science at the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich, graduating as a Diplom-Sportwissenschaftlerin. The biography records flood duty on the Inn at Passau in 2002, a first command as platoon leader in the mountain reconnaissance battalion in Füssen in 2009, appointments in the long-range reconnaissance training company in Pfullendorf, the army general-staff course in Hamburg in 2013, company command in 2014, and a 2015 deployment with Operation Atalanta in South Africa and Djibouti. It records her promotion to Oberstleutnant in 2019 and, from 2021, leadership of the staff office at the Bundeswehr Logistics Command in Erfurt, together with the 2002 flood-relief medal and the 2015 Atalanta medal. The same page states that she has been a CDU member since 2023 and a member of the Frauenunion since 2024, and it notes that the biographical details rest on members' own statements.

In the final result for constituency 194, Alternative for Germany candidate Michael Kaufmann won the direct seat with 44.5 percent of the first votes, while Herbstreuth finished second with 20.6 percent (35,224 votes). The CDU's second-vote share in that district was 17.9 percent. Across Thuringia the CDU took 18.6 percent of second votes (246,065), behind the AfD on 38.6 percent. On the preliminary result of 24 February 2025, the Thuringian returning officer listed Herbstreuth as elected from state-list place 2, one of four CDU members, all returned by the list.

As of the Bundestag biography dated 30 October 2026, she is a full member of the Defence Committee and of the subcommittee on arms and proliferation control, non-proliferation and international disarmament, and a substitute member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid, and the German delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. She is also a full member of the Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development.

Early life and education

Diana Herbstreuth was born on 27 February 1981 in Erfurt. The date and place are those in her biography on the website of the German Bundestag, which states that members supply their own biographical details. Later reporting is consistent with that year: a September 2014 newspaper profile described her as 33, and a November 2020 Bundeswehr interview as 39. In the 2020 interview she said she came from the new federal states, where competitive sport, measuring oneself against others and following instructions were already familiar, and that she had done sport at a performance-oriented level in her free time.

In 2000 she passed the Abitur at Erfurt's state gymnasium named for Albert Schweitzer, the Staatliches Gymnasium „Albert Schweitzer“ on Vilniuser Straße. The school comprises a main building (Stammhaus), a specialized section and a boarding house. The Bundestag biography records the name as "Albert Schweizer Gymnasium," without the second "t" in Schweitzer or the hyphenated form the school uses. Published accounts do not say which part of the school she attended.

She has given two accounts of what she did next. In 2014 she told the Schwäbische that the police and the Bundeswehr were the only occupations she considered after the Abitur, that she had wanted the police, and that she "landed" in the armed forces rather by chance because the Bundeswehr answered first. In 2020 she said she had not met the police eyesight requirement, that before joining she had known the forces only from stories told by her father and her older brother, and that a friend suggested the paratroopers would suit her, after which she applied through a career center. She said that at 19 she had pictured the work as the physical business of carrying out a task. In the same 2014 interview she said her parents were proud of her and came to her events.

From 2005 to 2009 she studied sports science at the University of the Bundeswehr Munich and qualified as a Diplom-Sportwissenschaftlerin, the award listed in the parliamentary biography. The university, named for Munich, gives its address as Werner-Heisenberg-Weg 39 in Neubiberg. It describes an officer's studies as military training combined with a state-recognized degree, with the year divided into trimesters so that the course is intensive. Herbstreuth later called the sports-science years a pleasant time but one with less military emphasis than the training before them and the postings afterward; the interview's editors identified the subject as sports science. The Institute of Sports Science, in the Faculty of Human Sciences, teaches movement science, sports biology, sports psychology, training science, sports and health management, and workplace health promotion, and uses sports facilities on the campus. About 200 officer candidates now take the subject, for bachelor's and master's degrees rather than the Diplom. In its own chronology the university dates to 2007 the conversion of Diplom programs to bachelor's and master's degrees under the Bologna Process; her recorded qualification remained the Diplom.

What independent reporting has said about her family is limited. The 2014 profile, published when she had just taken command of a company in Pfullendorf, described her as married to another Bundeswehr captain, also stationed there, and as the mother of a four-year-old daughter. She said the couple had discussed whether motherhood and service as a soldier could be combined, that she knew no one in a similar position to ask, and that one of them should always be present for their daughter. In 2020 she said that when her daughter was born nobody could yet advise her on combining family and duty, and that applying to become a career soldier—about ten years after she had joined, and with a small daughter—was a step into the unknown, carrying more responsibility than the enlistment she remembered as an adventure at 19. Neither that interview nor the Bundestag biography gives a later marital status. In February 2025 the Ostthüringer Zeitung described her as coming from Kranichfeld.

Military career

Diana Herbstreuth has been a professional soldier (Berufssoldatin) in the Bundeswehr, in the German Army, since 2001. Membership of the Bundestag suspends the rights and duties of that relationship but does not end it. The parliamentary biography, which the Bundestag says rests on members' own accounts, runs from the paratroops through reconnaissance command to staff posts at the Logistics Command in Erfurt. Her disclosure of earlier employment lists "Bundeswehr, Erfurt", Berufssoldatin, and a right of return (Rückkehrrecht).

Enlistment and officer training

She enlisted in the first year women could volunteer for armed service. On 11 January 2000 the European Court of Justice, in Tanja Kreil v Federal Republic of Germany (C-285/98), held that barring women from Bundeswehr posts involving arms breached Community equal-treatment law. Tanja Kreil had been refused a weapons-electronics posting in 1996; Article 12a of the Basic Law was applied so that female volunteers served only in the medical and military-music services. The article was amended so that women "may on no account be obliged" to serve with a weapon. The Bundeswehr records applications for ordinary troop service from February 2000 and the first officer courses in combat units in July 2001.

The biography dates Herbstreuth's entry to 2001, as an Unteroffiziersanwärterin (non-commissioned-officer candidate) in the paratroops (Fallschirmjägertruppe). In a Bundeswehr interview published on 2 November 2020, when she was 39 and was addressed as Oberstleutnant, she said she had joined the paratroopers that year, after a friend suggested the branch, and had been told not to expect any advantage. She said she carried the same load and followed the same rules as the men—"Wir haben zusammen geschwitzt und geweint" ("We sweated and cried together")—and was not hazed, though separate quarters isolated her while she was often the only woman in the unit.

In 2002 the biography records the change to the officer track: Berufsoffizieranwärterin, a candidate for a professional commission, trained as an officer of the troops (Offizier des Truppendienstes) in army reconnaissance (Heeresaufklärungstruppe). That year she was also used on flood relief on the Inn at Passau; the biography lists the Einsatzmedaille Fluthilfe 2002. From 2005 to 2009 she studied sports science at the Bundeswehr University Munich and qualified as a Diplom-Sportwissenschaftlerin. She later called the years up to lieutenant (Leutnant) an apprenticeship, and the degree a quieter interval. About ten years after enlistment, with a small daughter, she applied for career-soldier status, saying nobody could yet tell a mother how to combine family and duty.

Command posts and deployments

The biography gives 2009 as her first command, platoon leader (Zugführerin) in Gebirgsaufklärungsbataillon 230, a mountain reconnaissance battalion at Füssen. She told the Schwäbische Zeitung in September 2014 that she had been in Fernspählehrkompanie 200 at Pfullendorf since 2010 and had already stood in for its commander; the biography dates the appointment as operations officer (Einsatzoffizierin) to 2011. The company was stationed in the Staufer-Kaserne and assigned to the Rapid Forces Division (Division Schnelle Kräfte). In 2013 she deputised for Major Alfred Hugger while he was deployed.

In July 2014, as a captain (Hauptmann), she took command—the first woman to do so in a history the paper put at more than fifty years. Brigadier General Reinhard Zudrop, deputy commander of the division, conducted the handover; Hugger, commander for four years, went to Füssen as deputy commander of the mountain reconnaissance battalion. About 150 soldiers, men and women, were still on strength. Both 2014 reports said the company would be disbanded on 31 December 2015, the date the Fernspäh troops' tradition association later gives for the end of the unit, in Pfullendorf since 1997. She said families wanted an early decision, with transfer either to Luftlandeaufklärungskompanie 310 at Seedorf or to Luftlandeaufklärungskompanie 260 in the Saarland the options then discussed.

Most soldiers, she said in 2020, did not care that the commander was a woman; a few could not imagine it, and she dealt with them in private. In 2014 she said some men found it hard to raise a personal matter with a woman, and pointed them to a Vertrauensperson (a designated confidant). A deployment could not be refused—"Ich habe ja geschworen, zu dienen" ("I did swear to serve")—and would then have meant leaving a four-year-old daughter; her husband, also a captain at Pfullendorf, was under the same obligation, and she said one parent was to stay with the child.

For 2015 the biography records an Operation Atalanta deployment in South Africa and Djibouti, and an Einsatzmedaille for that year, without naming the billet. Atalanta is the European Union naval force launched in late 2008 against piracy and armed robbery off Somalia. A Welt interview of 2 February 2026 was headlined with her line, "Trotzdem gab es Beschwerden, nur weil ich eine Frau bin" ("Even so, there were complaints, just because I am a woman").

Staff assignments and rank

In 2013, before taking the company, she completed the army staff-officer course (Stabsoffizierlehrgang Heer) at the Bundeswehr Command and Staff College (Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr) in Hamburg. The biography then lists a first staff post in 2016 at the Amt für Heeresentwicklung (Office for Army Development) in Cologne; in 2017, a desk for organisation and personnel structures at the Streitkräfteamt (Armed Forces Office) in Bonn; and in 2019, promotion to Oberstleutnant and head of the office of the director of Department IV at the Bundesamt für das Personalmanagement der Bundeswehr (Federal Office of Bundeswehr Personnel Management) in Cologne. From 2021 she was head of the staff office (Leiterin des Stabsbüros) at the Logistics Command in Erfurt, the post named in the disclosure. The promotion year is self-reported; the 2020 interview already uses the rank.

The Erfurt command is a capability command of the support area: its commander, also General Bundeswehrlogistik, is responsible for logistic processes, basic logistics, subordinate units, support at home and on operations, and training requirements.

Election to the Bundestag did not end the professional relationship. Section 8 of the Members of the Bundestag Act (Abgeordnetengesetz) applies sections 5 to 7 to professional soldiers and to soldiers on a fixed engagement. From the Federal Electoral Committee's determination of the result, or from acceptance of the seat, the rights and duties of service are suspended for the duration of membership, except official secrecy and the ban on rewards and gifts; the service designation may be used with the suffix "außer Dienst" (a. D.). Herbstreuth's membership began on 25 March 2025. The disclosure records the statutory right of return, not a resignation.

After membership ends, suspension continues for at most six months. An application within three months brings a return, within three further months, to an office of the same or an equivalent career with at least the same final basic salary; pay of the last office runs from the application. Without an application, suspension lasts until retirement, unless the highest service authority orders a return—only if the soldier has neither sat for two electoral terms nor reached 55, and not if the soldier sat in the federal government. Refusal of that order is a ground for discharge. Fixed-term suspension cannot outlast the engagement. Herbstreuth is disclosed as a Berufssoldatin, so the open-ended relationship is what rests.

Entry into the CDU

Membership and the Frauenunion

Herbstreuth joined the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) in 2023. The Bundestag biography records that date and membership of the Frauenunion in 2024, and states that such entries rest on the member's own information. Reporting by Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk matches a late start in party politics: in February 2025 the broadcaster described her as having entered the CDU only about two years earlier, and as still new to the party when campaigning for the 2025 German federal election began. She told MDR that she had chosen the CDU because it came closest to a conservative outlook, and said she was not religious but treated the Ten Commandments as a moral compass. In the same interview she traced the decision to become politically active to the COVID-19 pandemic, when, she said, gaps in childcare and digitalization had become clear. She lives in Kranichfeld, in the district of Weimarer Land, and described the CDU association there as her own.

The district Frauenunion was formed in 2024. A press release issued for the new group, and published by the distributor openPR in the name of Diana Walther Edutainment rather than by a newsroom, said women from Weimarer Land had founded it on 6 September 2024 in Apolda and named Herbstreuth chair. On 15 November 2024 the Thüringer Allgemeine reported that a Frauen-Union had existed in the district for only a few weeks, called that a novelty there, and identified Herbstreuth as its leader. The paper's headline presented the group as an attempt to open what it called a male bastion in the local CDU. Accompanying her in February 2025, MDR wrote that she had co-founded the Weimarer Land Frauenunion the previous autumn, and that three board members, among them Marika Müller, joined her at a campaign stall in Neustadt an der Orla; Müller spoke of her in terms of performance and discipline.

Nomination for the 2025 election

MDR described this Bundestag campaign as shorter, and as having arrived more suddenly, than earlier ones. Herbstreuth did not seek the direct candidacy in the district where she lived. She told the broadcaster that the Weimarer Land CDU already had Hendrik Blose as a candidate, and that the Saale-Orla-Kreis association had asked her to stand in constituency 194—Saalfeld-Rudolstadt – Saale-Holzland-Kreis – Saale-Orla-Kreis—whose boundary she put about five kilometres from Kranichfeld. On 20 December 2024 the CDU associations of Saale-Orla, Saale-Holzland and Saalfeld-Rudolstadt nominated her at a meeting in Serba, where she defeated Lilly Krahner by 20 votes to 10. MDR later noted that she was the only woman among the CDU's direct candidates in Thuringia.

The state list was settled after the constituency vote. On the evening of 8 January 2025 a representatives' assembly in Erfurt placed Christian Hirte, a lawyer from Bad Salzungen and a Bundestag member since 2008, first, with 74 of 86 votes; 11 delegates voted against him and one abstained. A state party congress in Ilmenau had already proposed him unanimously as lead candidate in December. Mario Voigt, the Thuringian CDU chair and minister-president, called the ballot a directional decision, tied it to making party chairman Friedrich Merz chancellor, and said the contest in Thuringian constituencies would also determine whether CDU or Alternative for Germany candidates reached the Bundestag.

Second place was the contested slot. MDR reported a runoff between Erik Thürmer, from Schmalkalden-Meiningen, and Herbstreuth, described there as a Bundeswehr officer from Weimarer Land; she won. The German press agency, in copy carried by Welt and the Süddeutsche Zeitung, gave the margin as 46 votes to 35. The assembly chose 16 candidates in all. MDR wrote that some places were filled without a contest, while the fight it specified was the one for second place; third went to David Gregosz from the Eichsfeld, fourth to Michael Hose from Erfurt, fifth to the lawyer Tankred Schipanski from the Ilm-Kreis, sixth to Hendrik Blose, mayor of Buttstädt, and seventh to the physician Cornelius Golembiewski. Of the 16 nominees, Hirte was the only one then sitting in the Bundestag.

2025 federal election

Constituency contest

Diana Herbstreuth stood for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in constituency 194, Saalfeld-Rudolstadt – Saale-Holzland-Kreis – Saale-Orla-Kreis, at the election to the 21st Bundestag on 23 February 2025. The constituency is named for the districts of Saalfeld-Rudolstadt, the Saale-Holzland-Kreis and the Saale-Orla-Kreis in Thuringia. Of 211,519 people eligible to vote, 172,602 cast ballots, a turnout of 81.6 percent, 5.7 percentage points higher than in 2021.

Eight candidates contested the first vote (Erststimme). The constituency electoral committee finalized the result in public session on 28 February 2025, and the constituency returning officer, Olaf Neugärtner, published it on 14 March. Michael Kaufmann of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) received 76,204 first votes, 44.5 percent, and was declared elected; that share was 15.2 percentage points above the AfD result in the constituency in 2021. Herbstreuth finished second with 35,224 votes, 20.6 percent, 0.4 points below the CDU's 2021 first-vote share. On the second vote (Zweitstimme) in the same constituency the AfD took 73,577 votes (42.9 percent) and the CDU 30,756 (17.9 percent), so her personal vote ran ahead of the CDU list.

Mandy Eißing of Die Linke placed third with 21,114 first votes (12.3 percent). Bastian Dohna of the Social Democratic Party received 14,261 (8.3 percent), down 10.4 points from 2021, and Jörg Lohse of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) received 12,415 (7.2 percent), with no 2021 comparison in the official table. Astrid Matthey of Alliance 90/The Greens took 4,340 (2.5 percent), Franz Ralph Gobel of the Free Voters 3,941 (2.3 percent) and Manuel Metzner of the Free Democratic Party 3,835 (2.2 percent). Of the ballots cast, 1,268 first votes were invalid, leaving 171,334 valid. The Ostthüringer Zeitung reported that, at a CDU gathering in Saalfeld on election night, Herbstreuth received congratulations from Christian Herrgott, Landrat and CDU district chair in the Saale-Orla-Kreis, and from Saalfeld's mayor, Steffen Kania, the CDU chair in Saalfeld-Rudolstadt; the paper wrote that her election was already certain early in the evening, "also thanks to the AfD."

State list and result

The vote was the first Bundestag election under the electoral law as reformed in 2023. The chamber is fixed at 630 members, the number of constituencies stays at 299, and overhang and compensatory seats no longer arise. Voters still cast a first vote for a constituency candidate and a second vote for a party's state list, but only second votes decide how many seats a party receives in the country as a whole and how those seats are divided among its state lists. The seats due to a party in a Land are also the maximum number of constituency members it may return there, the rule known as Zweitstimmendeckung: winners are seated in order of their share of the first vote, and any winner beyond the party's entitlement does not enter, so that constituency stays vacant. Seats left after the successful constituency candidates have been placed are filled from the state list.

In Thuringia that cap did not cost the CDU a constituency seat, because the party won none of the eight constituencies. The Federal Electoral Committee (Bundeswahlausschuss) adopted the final Land result on 14 March 2025, and Thuringia's Landeswahlleiter, Holger Poppenhäger, published it the same day. The AfD won seven constituencies: Christopher Drößler in Eichsfeld – Nordhausen – Kyffhäuserkreis (188) with 39.5 percent, Stefan Möller in Eisenach – Wartburgkreis – Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis (189) with 38.5 percent, Stefan Schröder in Jena – Sömmerda – Weimarer Land I (190) with 32.5 percent, Marcus Bühl in Gotha – Ilm-Kreis (191) with 41.2 percent, Stephan Brandner in Gera – Greiz – Altenburger Land (193) with 44.8 percent, Kaufmann in constituency 194 with 44.5 percent, and Robert Teske in Suhl – Schmalkalden-Meiningen – Hildburghausen – Sonneberg (195) with 42.1 percent. Bodo Ramelow of Die Linke won Erfurt – Weimar – Weimarer Land II (192) with 64,390 votes, 36.8 percent. All eight Thuringian constituencies returned a member.

Statewide, 1,333,474 of 1,652,462 eligible voters took part, a turnout of 80.7 percent, compared with 74.9 percent in 2021. Of the valid second votes, the AfD received 510,527 (38.6 percent), the CDU 246,065 (18.6 percent), Die Linke 200,688 (15.2 percent), the BSW 124,760 (9.4 percent), the SPD 115,915 (8.8 percent) and the Greens 56,097 (4.2 percent). The CDU's statewide first-vote share was 20.6 percent (272,827 votes), 0.3 points below 2021, while its second-vote share rose by 1.7 points.

With no constituency winners, the CDU's four Thuringian seats all came from the state list. On the preliminary result of 24 February 2025 the Landeswahlleiter named 18 Thuringian members and, for the CDU, Christian Hirte (list place 1), Herbstreuth (place 2), David Gregosz (place 3) and Michael Hose (place 4), all elected from the list. The final result confirmed those four CDU names as list members, with one further AfD list member, two from the SPD list, two further Left list members (including Eißing) and one from the Green list. The Bundeswahlleiterin's register of those elected records Herbstreuth, born in 1981, for the CDU on the Thuringia list at place 2, and as a candidate in constituency 194. The Bundestag's mandate entry states that she was elected on the Thuringia state list and has been a member since March 2025. The 21st Bundestag held its constitutive sitting on 25 March 2025.

Bundestag membership

Diana Herbstreuth entered the 21st Bundestag when it constituted itself on 25 March 2025, sitting for the CDU/CSU on a Thuringia state-list mandate. The biography current on 30 October 2026 records, under the disclosure rules, her prior post as a career soldier (Berufssoldatin) of the Bundeswehr in Erfurt with a right to return. Abgeordnetenwatch lists the same item, dated 11 August 2025, and no separate paid outside income. The published lists do not give her a committee chair or a group spokespersonship.

Committees and delegations

The Defence Committee was constituted on 21 May 2025. Thomas Röwekamp (CDU/CSU) was elected chair by secret ballot, 29 in favour and nine abstentions, of 38 full members (13 CDU/CSU, nine Alternative for Germany, seven Social Democratic Party of Germany, five Alliance 90/The Greens, four Die Linke). Herbstreuth was one of the 13 Union members. In the CDU/CSU group she sits on the defence working group, chaired by Thomas Erndl with Kerstin Vieregge as deputy, and in the women's caucus (Gruppe der Frauen).

The Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development was constituted on the same day. Wolfgang Stefinger (CDU/CSU) was elected chair of the 18-member committee; Herbstreuth was named among the six Union full members.

On 17 October 2025 the Foreign Affairs Committee constituted the subcommittee on arms and proliferation control, non-proliferation and international disarmament, with nine full members. Dr. Ralf Stegner (SPD) became chair and Dr. Florian Dorn (CDU/CSU) deputy chair. Herbstreuth is a full member alongside Dorn and Bastian Ernst. The Bundestag described the body's work as current arms control and longer-term disarmament, including a world without nuclear weapons.

As of 30 October 2026 she is also a deputy member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, of the Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid, and of the German delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

Legislative work and floor speeches

Between 21 May 2025 and 15 October 2026 her plenary speeches clustered on personnel, conscription, the defence budget, deployments and the reserve, with separate turns on development spending and on women in security policy.

Her first speech, on 21 May 2025 in the sixth sitting, was on the 2024 report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces (Drucksache 20/15060). She thanked Eva Högl, said she had served 24 years, and put servicewomen at 12 percent of the force, about 9 percent outside the medical service. She endorsed Henning Otte before that day's election of the commissioner (Drucksache 21/204).

On 11 September 2025 she opposed a Left motion (Drucksache 21/1488) to strike Article 12a of the Basic Law and end conscription. She cited Russia's attack on Ukraine and Article 87a, and argued for reform, including on gender equity, rather than repeal. On 17 September she spoke on Einzelplan 23 (Drucksachen 21/1064 and 21/1061), calling development policy security provision and saying that about 10 billion euros should buy fewer but more effective partnerships.

On 6 November 2025, during a Green motion on 25 years of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (Drucksache 21/2555), she intervened against Anna Rathert (AfD) over what she heard as a claim that women were unfit for foreign policy, amid criticism of Annalena Baerbock. Rathert said she had meant Baerbock's record, not women as such. On 26 November, on Einzelplan 14 for 2026 (Drucksachen 21/2014 and 21/2061), Herbstreuth put defence spending at about 108 billion euros and said money alone would not create capability. The CDU/CSU and SPD voted for the committee text; the Left, the Greens and the AfD voted against.

On 5 December 2025, at second and third reading of the Military Service Modernization Act (Drucksachen 21/1853, 21/2581 and 21/3076), she thanked Defence Minister Boris Pistorius and negotiators Norbert Röttgen, Thomas Erndl, Siemtje Möller and Falko Droßmann. Speaking also as a lieutenant colonel, she said attractiveness depended on organization and on serving personnel, and that defence was a societal task. She asked the House to pass the bill.

On 16 January 2026, in a Greens' hour on the international order, she treated the Greenland dispute as power politics among partners, called an alliance with the United States a core German interest, and warned that announcements by President Donald Trump would damage NATO if carried out. On 29 January, after the chancellor's statement on the informal European Council of 22 January, she said Europe must be more able to defend itself without abandoning the transatlantic partnership. On 4 March, in a CDU/CSU–SPD hour on Iran, she spoke of people in Israel and of Iranian women who had protested, including footballers who did not sing the anthem. On 19 March, in the International Women's Day debate, she used the Bundeswehr to argue that family and service could be reconciled; President Julia Klöckner stopped her as time ran out.

On 11 June 2026 she backed continued participation in EUFOR Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Drucksachen 21/5512, 21/6052 and 21/6053). She called security stable but politics fragile ahead of October elections, with room for outside influence, including from Russia. The mandate went to a roll-call. On 15 October, at first reading of the Reserve Strengthening Act (Drucksache 21/8407), she said the reserve now had to support personnel growth, staying power, homeland protection and Germany's hub role under OPLAN Deutschland. She described ending "double voluntariness" — staged compulsory reserve service under statute — as a change of model, and said the bill would simplify duty and digitize administration so the reserve was planned in from the start.

Policy positions

Defense, conscription and the reserve

On 11 September 2025 Herbstreuth spoke in the Bundestag against a motion by Die Linke to delete Article 12a of the Basic Law, the constitutional basis of conscription. Read with Article 87a’s duty to maintain armed forces, she called it a deliberate part of the free democratic order and the option of general conscription a “Rückversicherung,” not an attack on freedom. Striking it, she said, would leave defense without substance in an emergency and signal weakness to NATO and to Ukraine. She treated Russia’s war as a war against Europe’s freedom, conceded that past conscription had not been equitable, and called for reform rather than abolition. To Rüdiger Lucassen of the Alternative for Germany, who framed conscription as a duty to the “Vaterland,” she agreed it was an important instrument but set the duty in a broader Gesellschaftsdienst, and said she did not share the AfD’s view of the war against Ukraine.

On 5 December 2025, closing debate on the Wehrdienst-Modernisierungsgesetz, she spoke as a member and as an Oberstleutnant. She thanked Defence Minister Boris Pistorius and Union and SPD negotiators, and called voluntary service only a first step: retention needed working structures, and defense was a duty of all citizens, including civilian services. The bill passed by 323 votes to 272, with one abstention. Under the government’s account, men must answer a questionnaire and, from the 2008 cohort, be medically examined even if they intend to object; for women the questionnaire is voluntary, and service itself is sought voluntarily for at least six months. If a personnel corridor through 2035 is missed, the Bundestag may by a further law introduce a Bedarfswehrpflicht. Niklas Wagener of Alliance 90/The Greens opposed the compromise as a burden on 18-year-old men that ignored the Technisches Hilfswerk, fire services and social work.

On 23 March 2026 she wrote that she favored a mandatory social year, available in emergency services, hospitals, elder care or schools because no one may be forced to bear arms against conscience, and binding on women as well as men. She saw no majority to amend Article 12a, which obliges only men. The December law, she said, rebuilt registration and the structures dissolved when conscription was suspended in 2011. Its core, she wrote, was a personnel reserve for the Bundeswehr.

In the 26 November 2025 defense-budget debate she said the plan and the special fund provided about €108 billion, treated hybrid and cyber attacks as strategic, and argued that money alone does not create defense capability. She backed his orders for a military strategy and growth plans due by Easter 2026. CDU/CSU and SPD votes carried the budget against the AfD, the Greens and the Left. Before the first National Veterans’ Day, on 15 June 2025, she told the CDU that recognition was overdue and that only about 13 percent of personnel were women.

On 15 October 2026, in the first reading of the Reservestärkungsgesetz, she said the reserve was needed for growth, staying power, homeland protection and Germany’s hub role under OPLAN Deutschland: trained, equipped, exercised and actually available. She defended ending “doppelte Freiwilligkeit”—consent by both reservist and employer—because readiness is built in peacetime, while insisting that call-ups stay plannable. Tagesschau reported a government aim of about 200,000 reservists by 2033, against roughly 60,000 firmly assigned, and quoted her pledge to tighten the bill in committee if needed. Rainer Kambeck of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce wanted to start with voluntarism; Die Linke’s Donata Vogtschmidt called the draft conscription by the back door.

Foreign affairs, development and human rights

On 4 December 2025, debating the war in Sudan, she called it the largest humanitarian catastrophe then: about 25 million people in need, about 11 million displaced, children near starvation, and reports from Al-Fashir of massacres, rape and deliberate starvation. Concern without action was not enough. She praised quiet diplomacy by Minister of State Serap Güler, said crimes occurred on both sides, and argued that the paramilitary militia’s conduct had to be prosecuted. Aid and an end to arms deliveries were necessary, but a United Nations embargo would work only if regional powers agreed. She backed the Quad of the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates toward a ceasefire and civilian government.

On 4 March 2026, in a debate on Iran amid military escalation, she said recent days alarmed her: people in Israel fearing for their security, Iranians under the regime and now also under war, and women still protesting, including players who had refused to sing the anthem. German interests, she said, were Israel’s security, regional stability, protection of citizens, and an order based on law rather than power. Where applying international law produced a dilemma, rules should be made enforceable—through stronger institutions, a Europe able to decide on security, and sanctions that work—not set aside. On 6 November 2025, during debate on a Green motion marking 25 years of Resolution 1325, she used a short intervention to challenge AfD member Anna Rathert over what she took as a judgment that women were unsuited to the field.

On 11 June 2026 she asked the Bundestag to extend Germany’s part in EUFOR Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Quoting a sergeant who likened the mission to a nervous system noticed only when it fails, she said security more than 30 years after the Dayton Agreement was stable because of that presence, while politics stayed fragile before elections that October, and instability would open space for Russia. Ulrich Thoden of the Left said Althea only secured a dysfunctional status quo and should end.

Domestic and regional issues

At a 2025 campaign stand in Neustadt an der Orla she backed Friedrich Merz and a harder migration line. MDR reported that she wanted controlled migration and a “Korrektur des bisherigen Kurses,” and that people who broke the law and did not follow “unserem Wertkompass” should not remain. She said she was not religious but took the Ten Commandments as her compass. Beside migration she named a stronger economy, protection of the population and sound municipal finances.

On 24 November 2025 she told a constituent that clearly right-wing extremist AfD members should be watched and if necessary prosecuted, but that banning the whole party would alienate people who were not extremists and could drive radicalization. Demands to leave the European Union or NATO, and to close the borders, were in her view a dangerous route to isolation, yet not by themselves grounds for a ban. She also saw, given the party’s orientation and right-wing extremist tendencies, no basis for trusting cooperation in parliament, while treating majorities with different parties on single issues as legitimate.

Asked in September 2026 about living costs, she pointed to the 18 September agreement to cut the energy tax on petrol and diesel by 14 cents a liter through the end of the year and to talks on a temporary price cap, on the Luxembourg or Belgian model, by 1 January 2027. The federal government described the same cut, about €2.5 billion of relief, and the same talks.

Constituency work and public profile

Offices and local issues

Herbstreuth took her Bundestag seat in March 2025 on the Thuringia list of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) after finishing second in constituency 194, Saalfeld-Rudolstadt – Saale-Holzland-Kreis – Saale-Orla-Kreis. In the federal returning officer’s final figures, Alternative for Germany (AfD) candidate Michael Kaufmann won the direct mandate with 44.5 percent of the first votes; Herbstreuth received 20.6 percent, on a turnout of 81.6 percent. She has kept offices in all three districts anyway. The Bundestag biography lists a Berlin office at Platz der Republik 1 (+49 30 227-71741) and constituency offices at Geraer Straße 12 in Schleiz for the Saale-Orla-Kreis (+49 3663 425-2462), Steinweg 14 in Eisenberg for the Saale-Holzland-Kreis (+49 36691 240-425), and Obere Straße 17 in Saalfeld for Saalfeld-Rudolstadt (+49 3671 529-586), plus a personal website and Instagram account.

The Saalfeld address is inside the local CDU citizens’ offices. A notice dated 29 August 2025 on Landtag member Maik Kowalleck’s site said a summer courtyard gathering there had opened her office jointly with his. On 17 June 2025 the Ostthüringer Zeitung (OTZ) reported the Eisenberg opening under the headline “How an elite soldier wants to stand by the people of the Saale-Holzland district.” In a 21 October 2026 interview the Thüringer Landeszeitung (TLZ) quoted her on explaining legislation, committees, and a sitting week to visitor groups, on Berlin information trips, and in citizen meetings, and on posting weekly reviews online. Beyond the constituency, a 20 January 2026 notice from the CDU in Altenburger Land invited residents to a 3 February surgery in Altenburg, with booking through the Schleiz number, and quoted her as wanting to hear “where the shoe pinches.”

The main local contest in her first eighteen months was the 2026 Saalfeld-Rudolstadt district-administrator election. On 11 March the OTZ reported that the CDU and Die Linke would nominate nobody, leaving incumbent Marko Wolfram of the Social Democratic Party against AfD candidate Thomas Benninghaus on 7 June, and said it was the first time the Union had fielded no candidate. On 24 March editor Thomas Spanier interviewed Herbstreuth outside the Saalfeld office; the standfirst listed her first year in Berlin, military service, the “firewall” against the AfD, and that district election, and the headline quoted her, “I am not a party soldier.” Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk reported that Wolfram won the 21 June runoff, 56.5 percent to Benninghaus’s 43.5 percent.

Media and reception

Coverage has cast her as a Bundeswehr officer new to parliament rather than a long-time local party figure. On election night, 24 February 2025, Spanier wrote that Herbstreuth, from Kranichfeld, knew early that she had a seat “also thanks to the AfD,” and showed Saale-Orla district administrator Christian Herrgott and Saalfeld mayor Steffen Kania congratulating her. In February, MDR followed her first campaign stand in Neustadt an der Orla. It quoted her claim that two-thirds of those who stopped to talk welcomed the CDU’s “hard edge” on migration, and colleague Marika Müller’s praise for “achievement and discipline.” Readers then asked how that line could survive coalition with the SPD or the Greens if the CDU excluded the AfD.

On 16 June 2025 OTZ editor Marius Koity described her “baptism of fire” in the Bundestag and, in a caption, called her one of three members for constituency 194. The headline was her line that people were “not yet ready to think honestly about what it means not to be capable of defence.” On 2 February 2026 Die Welt correspondent Thorsten Jungholt interviewed her as one of the first women with the paratroopers. The paper said the subject was a scandal in the airborne troops, camaraderie in combat units, and women “as protectors”; the headline quote was “There were complaints anyway, only because I am a woman.”

The plainest criticism of her routine came from a TLZ series begun by a reader who wrote that at least two-thirds of the plenary looked empty. After Katrin Göring-Eckardt and Michael Hose, Gerlinde Sommer put the point to Herbstreuth. She answered that empty seats often meant committee or ministry meetings at the same time, that she attended mainly for defence debates and recorded votes, and that after nearly 25 years in the Bundeswehr parliament had been “a new world.” Under the Basic Law, she said, members answer only to their conscience, “but that is not a free pass.” The paper’s explainer, not a finding about her, noted that under standing orders revised in 2025 an unexcused absence or a missed recorded vote can mean a deduction from the expense allowance.

On abgeordnetenwatch.de her profile showed 18 of 18 questions answered in the 2025–2029 term, a 100 percent rate, when checked on 30 October 2026. Visible topics included fuel prices, pay for federal civil servants and soldiers, a proposal to scan private messages, and child-maintenance advances. On fuel she cited an 18 September federal-state agreement to cut the energy tax on petrol and diesel by 14 cents a litre from 1 October to the end of the year.