From 2000 until 2010, Reker served as deputy mayor for Social Affairs, Health and Consumer Protection of
Gelsenkirchen. In 2010 she was appointed a mayoral deputy for social affairs, integration and the environment of the city of Cologne. Supported by the
CDU,
FDP, and
The Greens, Reker ran for
Mayor of Cologne in October 2015 and was re-elected in September 2020. At the end of January 2025, Reker announced she would not seek a third term as mayor, her term as mayor ended on 31 October 2025.
Assassination attempt At a public event on 17 October 2015, the day before the mayoral election, Reker was seriously wounded when a 44-year-old German man stabbed her in the neck with a knife, while shouting about an "influx of refugees". Her aide was also hurt in the attack, as were three other people who had tried to subdue her attacker. State prosecutors confirmed the attack to be
politically motivated, after the perpetrator "confessed to having
xenophobic motives at the uncontrolled influx of migrants". He was also found to have been a former associate of the
Free German Workers' Party in the 1990s and attempted to contact the
National Democratic Party of Germany in 2008. As a member of Cologne's municipal administration, Reker had been responsible for the housing and integration of
refugees.
New Year's Eve sexual assaults on women Reker was accused of
victim blaming following
the attacks at Cologne's 2016 New Year's Eve celebrations. She claimed that "there's always the possibility of keeping a certain distance of more than an arm's length – that is to say to make sure yourself you don't look to be too close to people who are not known to you, and to whom you don't have a trusting relationship". Reker was condemned by
Lodewijk Asscher,
Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands, for implying that women could have prevented the attacks against themselves. Reker accused the media of taking her comments out of context: she claimed that she had only reacted to a reporter's question by quoting an existing communal guideline for safety during partying in a speech. ==Other activities==