NW–22 · Crisis preparedness

Three forms of resilience

Volunteers who stand ready, a health system that holds under pressure, a government that decides on a shared picture: three stations in Nina Warken's career touch on crisis preparedness — each in a different way.

2015–2023 · voluntary role
THW

Resilience through people

President of the THW-Landeshelfervereinigung Baden-Württemberg, an association supporting volunteers of the Federal Agency for Technical Relief.
2025–2026 · former office
Health security

Resilience through systems

As Federal Minister of Health: budget for preparedness, European supply security and plans for a Health Security Act.
Since 29 July 2026 · current office
Federal coordination

Resilience through institutions

As Head of the Federal Chancellery: the office where information from across government is brought together for decisions.

A sequence in time, not a chain of cause and effect. Each role had its own mandate, powers and limits.

Method

Why compare, and why carefully

Political biographies like to draw straight lines: the volunteer who became minister, the minister who became coordinator. Such lines are tempting because they make a career look purposeful. They are also often misleading. Nina Warken's association role, her ministerial office and her current post differ in almost every institutional respect — in legal basis, in powers, in the actors involved and in what success would even mean.

This page therefore does something more modest. It describes what "resilience" meant in each of the three settings, sets them side by side, and leaves open how far one shaped the next. Where her personal views are documented, they are quoted from official sources on the respective pages; where they are not, the page describes the institution rather than her.

Civil protection · voluntary role

The THW: resilience through people

The Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) is part of Germany's federal civil protection system under the Federal Ministry of the Interior. Its distinctive feature is its staffing: the THW relies overwhelmingly on volunteers, organised in local units across the country, who provide technical help such as rescue, water supply, power and infrastructure support in emergencies. Its resilience rests on people who train in their spare time and are available when needed — and on employers, families and communities who make that possible.

Alongside the agency stand helpers' associations (Helfervereinigungen) at local and state level. They are registered associations that support the volunteers — for example by representing their interests, promoting recognition and helping with equipment and youth work. From 2015 to 2023 Nina Warken was president of the state association for Baden-Württemberg. In parallel, in the Bundestag's Committee on Internal Affairs she worked on volunteering, civil protection and disaster response.

This is resilience at the level of society: local presence, practical skills and the willingness of citizens to help. THW leadership in detail.

Former office · 2025–2026

Health security: resilience through systems

As Federal Minister of Health from May 2025 to July 2026, she led a ministry responsible for the legal framework of a health system that is largely run by others — Länder, hospitals, insurers, doctors and manufacturers. Resilience here is a property of a complex system: whether medicines and devices keep flowing, whether hospitals can expand care, whether authorities know where capacity exists.

The ministry's instruments were correspondingly systemic. The 2026 budget, debated in the Bundestag in November 2025, raised the health security line by ten per cent for laboratory capacity and countermeasures against biological threats. At European level she backed the proposed Critical Medicines Act. And in February 2026 the ministry set out plans for a Health Security Act with a digital situational picture, clear responsibilities and close cooperation with the Defence and Interior ministries, without duplicate structures. The act was not passed during her tenure. Health security in detail.

Current office · since 29 July 2026

Federal coordination: resilience through institutions

The Federal Chancellery has no crisis portfolio of its own. Responsibility for civil protection lies with the Interior Ministry, for health with the Health Ministry, for defence with the Defence Ministry, and for most operational disaster response with the Länder. What the Chancellery contributes is coordination at the top: according to the Federal Agency for Civic Education it runs a round-the-clock situation centre that brings together crisis information from several ministries and keeps the Chancellor briefed.

Since 2025 the government has also had a National Security Council, a cabinet committee chaired by the Chancellor in which the Head of the Chancellery is a member. Its declared tasks include a consolidated situational picture, strategic foresight and resilience exercises. Resilience here means something different again: that government can still decide — quickly, on shared information and with clear responsibilities — when many things go wrong at once. The Chancellery role.

Side by side

Three settings compared

The matrix makes the differences explicit. Similar words — preparedness, coordination, resilience — mean different things in each column.

Comparison of three forms of resilience in Nina Warken's career
Dimension	THW helpers' association	Health Ministry	Federal Chancellery
Her role	Association president (voluntary)	Federal minister with a portfolio	Head of the Chancellery, minister without portfolio
Unit of resilience	Volunteers and local units	Health system and supply chains	Government decision-making
Main instruments	Advocacy, support, recognition	Legislation, budget, EU negotiation	Information, preparation, coordination
Main counterparts	THW, volunteers, municipalities	Länder, hospitals, insurers, EU	Ministries, Chancellor, Länder
Formal powers	None over public authorities	Leads a ministry; proposes laws	No right to instruct ministries

What connects them

A shared vocabulary, not a single plan

What the three settings share is a policy vocabulary that has gained ground in Germany over the past decade: the idea that security depends not only on police and armed forces but on the robustness of everyday systems — volunteers, hospitals, supply chains, administrations. Germany's first National Security Strategy of 2023 framed this as "integrated security", and the National Security Council created in 2025 was given the task of updating that strategy.

Nina Warken's documented statements as health minister fit this vocabulary: she argued that security policy was inconceivable without a functioning health system. Whether her earlier experience with the THW volunteers informed that view is not documented, and this site does not assume it. The more defensible observation is that she has worked in three different places where the same question — how a society stays capable of acting in a crisis — is asked in three different ways.

Security and resilience across her career · Parliamentary work.

THW

Health security

Federal coordination