Wiesbaden/Frankfurt (dpa/lhe) - The election of her husband as prime minister also upset Tanja Raab-Rhein's life. The 50-year-old has been the new First Lady of Hesse since the end of May - but she can't do much with the name. She likes the term "mother of the country" even less, as the lawyer said in an interview with the German Press Agency.
She is simply the wife of the Hessian Prime Minister, said the 50-year-old, who continues to pursue her profession. She and her husband have a partnership of equals: "We studied together, we enjoyed the same education."
Raab-Rhein is the presiding judge at the district court in Frankfurt. There she decides on construction and insolvency law cases, a task that she very much fulfills, as she says. She definitely wants to continue to practice her profession, including next year when the state election campaign is due.
At the same time, as the Prime Minister's wife, she is now more in demand at official appointments. She also takes over several patronages from her predecessor Ursula Bouffier, including the Hessen Rheumatism League and the Hessen Mothers' Convalescent Works. She also wants to get involved in more education about rare diseases. A close relative's story of suffering showed her how difficult it was to get a correct diagnosis and thus help.
She met Boris Rhein in her early 20s while studying law in Frankfurt. It wasn't love at first sight. Her current husband was in the Junge Union. "He was too conservative for me," she recalls. Later she found him quite nice. And then it turned out that they were both born on the same day.
Raab-Rhein is now in the CDU itself, 22 years have passed since the wedding. The couple has two sons, 11 and 19 years old, and the family lives in the Nieder-Eschbach district of Frankfurt. Boris Rhein (CDU) was elected to succeed Volker Bouffier (CDU) in the Hessian state parliament on May 31.
