Aygül Özkan


Aygül Özkan is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union. She has been a member of the CDU since 2004, and was Minister of Social Affairs, Women, Families, Health and Integration in the state of Lower Saxony, in the Second Cabinet Wulff and the Cabinet McAllister between 2010 and 2013. She was the first ever German politician of Turkish descent and a Muslim serving as minister.

Personal life

Özkan's father migrated from Ankara to Hamburg in the 1960s, where he first worked for Deutsche Bundespost and subsequently set up an independent business as a tailor in Hamburg.
Özkan became a German citizen when she was 18 years old. She went on to study law at the University of Hamburg and became an attorney-at-law in 1998. She is married to a gynaecologist of Turkish origin, and has a son.

Career

Özkan entered politics in the CDU in 2004, and was appointed State Minister of Social Affairs, Women, Family, Health, and Integration in the state of Lower Saxony, serving in the cabinets of successive Ministers-President Christian Wulff and David McAllister from 27 April 2010 to 19 February 2013.
In the negotiations to form a coalition government of the Christian Democrats and the Free Democratic Party following the 2013 national elections, she was part of the CDU/CSU delegation in the working group on integration and migration, led by Maria Böhmer and Aydan Özoğuz.
In a press release, Özkan announced her retirement from politics from 22 July 2014. She took a post as general manager of the DB Credit Service GmbH in Berlin, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank, on 1 August 2014. She worked for Deutsche Telekom and the Dutch TNT Express before she entered politics.

Other activities