The FragDenStaat Team
That's us - currently 23 lawyers, journalists, developers and activists! We enjoy great support by many dedicated volunteers and an active community.
Stefan Wehrmeyer
Campaigns & Strategic Projects
Stefan founded FragDenStaat in 2011 and works as a software developer.
Judith Doleschal
Head of Operations
Judith joined the FragDenStaat team in 2019. Next to focusing on fundraising and grant management she is also responsible for community development.
Hannah Vos
Legal
Hannah is a lawyer and heads our legal team. She takes care of all matters concerning the legal field.
Vera Deleja-Hotko
Investigations
Vera works as an investigative journalist and is head of the investigative research unit. She mostly works in cooperation with journalists from private or public media houses.
Luisa Izuzquiza
Brüssels Office
Luisa heads our Brussels office and works mainly on Frontex. She is responsible for access to information in the EU and focuses especially on migration and border control.
Stella Schiffczyk
Grafik
Stella is a trained graphic designer and goldsmith and has been with FragDenStaat since 2024. She supports the team in graphic design matters. Among other things, she has worked as a court draughtswoman in several committees of inquiry in the German Bundestag.
Giulia Norberti
Accounting and Ethics
Giulia is our ethics advisor and takes care of our accounting. She is also part of the management board of the non-profit association "mafianeindanke".
Aiko Kempen
Investigations
Aiko is an investigative journalist and has been part of the FragDenStaat journalistic team since 2022. He has worked on police and right-wing extremism for many years. In 2021, he published his book "On the Right Path? Racists and Neo-Nazis in the German Police.“
Kara Engelhardt
Tech
Karl is a software developer and the Tech Lead at FragDenStaat.
Monica Phương Thúy Nguyễn
Communications
Monica has studied information and social sciences and joined FragDenStaat in October 2022. She is a founding member of the Autonomous BIPoC Department at the University of Cologne and is interested in abolitionist ways of acting at the intersection of national borders and biometric technologies.
Dr. Vivian Kube
Legal
Vivian has been part of the Legal team since 2022 and is an expert in the area of freedom of information, freedom of the press and access claims. She also works as a lawyer.
Isa Lachmann
Communications
Isa is a trained photographer, cultural and media scientist. She has coordinated FragDenStaat's public relations since October 2022.
Melek Bazgan
Investigations
Melek supports FragDenStaat as a student assistant and does research on Frontex, among other things. She is studying Sociocultural Studies in Frankfurt (Oder).
Philipp Schönberger
Legal
Philipp is a fully qualified lawyer and supports the legal team of FragDenStaat. He also works at Green Legal Impact.
Sabrina Winter
Investigations
Sabrina works as an investigative journalist in the FragDenStaat research team. She studied international criminology, sociology and political science in Dresden and Hamburg. She completed her journalistic training at the Henri Nannen School.
Thomas Babyesiza
Communications
Thomas has been the Press and Public Relations Officer since 2023. He studied political science with a focus on German and European politics. He completed his training as a press officer at ECCHR Berlin e.V. At FragDenStaat, Thomas is responsible in particular for communications relating to strategic litigation and work in the European context.
Gaby Jeliazkov
Brussels Office
Gaby is our Climate Justice Campaigner, working from the Brussels Office.
Amata Iman Nisrin Pommeranz
Volunteer
Amata is a federal volunteer at FragDenStaat.
Denis Witt
Tech
Denis has been a system administrator at FragDenStaat since the end of 2023. Previously, he worked for almost 20 years in corporate education and training, designing and managing server environments for the operation of open source learning platforms.
Max Kronmüller
Tech
Having completed his federal voluntary service at FragDenStaat in 2020, Max is currently busy with the code & design of the website and other projects next to his computer science studies.
FragDenStaat Fellows
With our fellowships, we currently support three investigative teams in their efforts to get information for their research projects.
AI, big tech and public authorities: how much can we know? - A European analysis of the right to request in several countries
The main focus of our project is to examine the role of lobbying groups in the development of Artificial Intelligence regulations in several European countries. For that, we plan to use Freedom of Information requests to ask for agenda and minutes of meetings of public authorities with AI lobbyists and written communication between public authorities and private companies dedicated to AI.
The team is formed by Neus Vidal, journalist and political scientist and Monitoring Officer at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom and Dr. Nasir Muftić, who is a lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the University of Sarajevo with teaching and research tasks.
Neus Vidal & Dr. Nasir Muftić
Fellows 2023
Volunteers & Community
Since FragDenStaat was created, the project heavily relies on our volunteers and the community. Thus, our greatest appreciation, applause and endless thanks goes to the people who support us and fight for more freedom of information in Germany!
Are you thinking of joining us? Learn how you can support us.
Legal-Ehrenamtliche
Legal volunteers support our full-time lawyers in their legal research. Our thanks goes to:
- Yolanda Scheytt
- Marco Mauer
- Jannik Jaschinski
Moderator*innen
Moderators working on a voluntary basis help us to support the users in using the platform and ensure that our Netiquette is followed. Thanks a lot!
- Paul Strobach
Jakob Schubert - und 2 more moderators
...and many more!
Thanks to all the people who support us in campaigns, technical projects or in completely different ways, among others:
- Johannes Filter
- Christopher Bohlens