BERLIN (AP) – The German Parliament welcomed its first deaf lawmaker, who took her place in a moment that the House’s Speaker described as historic.
Heike Heubach, 44, narrowly missed out on a seat in Parliament’s Lower House, or Bundestag, in Germany’s 2021 election. But she joined the house this week as the replacement for Uli Grötsch, a fellow member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats from Bavaria, who took a newly created job as an independent commissioner for police issues.
Heubach, who has a background as an industrial manager, was welcomed with applause and with raised, waving hands by her fellow lawmakers. “Today we are actually writing history, if I may say so,” Speaker Bärbel Bas told Parliament. “We have the first deaf lawmaker who will work here for her constituency.”
A sign language interpreter stood next to the podium to interpret for Heubach when she initially took a place in the front row, German news agency DPA reported.
