Early years and education Dagmar Gertraud Elsa Ebert was born in
Altlandsberg, a small historic town a short distance to the east of
Berlin and at that time in the
Bezirk Frankfurt of
East Germany. She attended school in nearby
Strausberg, passing her
school leaving exams (Abitur) in 1974, which opened the way to a university level education. Between 1974 and 1979 she was a student of the
History faculty at
Karl Marx University (as it was known at that time) in Leipzig. She emerged with an extensive knowledge of
Marxist sociology and a degree in 1979. After that she taught history between 1979 and 1985 at the "Wilhelm Pieck
FDJ Youth Academy" at
Bogensee, near
Bernau and just outside
Berlin. From 1985 till 1989 she was a
post-graduate student ("Aspirantin") at the
ruling party central committee's
Academy for Social Sciences. It was here that she submitted her doctoral dissertation, entitled "Analysis and critique of concepts of the bourgeois ideologues in West Germany: Identity Crises of East German youth" (
"Analyse und Kritik des Konzepts bürgerlicher Ideologen der BRD: Identitätskrise der Jugend der DDR"). The modalities of what happened next were affected by the
political changes that followed the breach of the
Berlin Wall by protestors in 1989, but Dagmar Ebert nevertheless received what amounted to a doctorate, though probably not the form of doctorate she would have been anticipating when she embarked on her researches for the work four years earlier. The PDS' share of the vote increased to 28%, ranking a strong second to the
Social Democratics. It was the best result the PDS had achieved in
Brandenburg since reunification and the restoration in 1990 of
Brandenburg as a state with
its own regional legislature. However, it was not enough to overturn the governing coalition. As a result of the 2007 merger between the PDS and the (much smaller, but briefly influential)
WASG movement, Enkelmann became a member of the party now branded simply as
Die Linke (
"The Left"). She became co-leader (with
Bernd Meier) of the PDS group in the chamber, and one of two
PDS party members elected by party colleagues to the chambers' Präsidium. Between September 1999 and October 2005 she was a member of the
Brandenburg regional parliament ("Landtag"), serving till 2004 as a member of the regional party executive, spokesperson on environment and energy policy and a member of the committee for agriculture, environmental protection and planning. At the
2005 general election Enkelmann returned to the
National Parliament ("Bundestag"). She served as
Parliamentary Party Manager ("Chief Whip") for
Die Linke between 2005 and 2013. Unlike von der Marwitz, Enkelmann had rejected the idea of simultaneously having her name placed on her party list as insurance against not securing direct election in the Barnim constituency, and accordingly in 2013 she left the Bundestag for a second time. It became known in January 2012 that Enkelmann was one of 27 Bundestag members from Die Linke
placed under surveillance by the
security authorities. The surveillance drew criticism and condemnation from across the political spectrum.
Other appointments Since 1998 Enkelmann has been a
local council member for the municipality of
Bernau bei Berlin, and in this capacity a member of the local development agency. She has also, since November 2008, been an alternate for
Jan Korte in the third board of parliamentary trustees of the
"Bundesstiftung Aufarbeitung", a federal agency mandated with helping Germany come to terms with the East German
dictatorship. == Personal life ==