Voluntary office · Baden-Württemberg
From 2015 until December 2023 Nina Warken was President of the THW-Landeshelfervereinigung Baden-Württemberg — the state association that supports the volunteers of Germany's Federal Agency for Technical Relief.
Institution
THW — Technisches Hilfswerk, the Federal Agency for Technical Relief.
The THW is a federal agency within the portfolio of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, founded in 1950 and headquartered in Bonn. Its purpose is technical assistance: when a flood, storm, major accident or failure of infrastructure overwhelms local capacities, THW units can provide equipment and expertise — pumping, lighting, emergency power, bridge-building, water treatment, debris clearance or logistics. It also supports humanitarian operations abroad at the request of the federal government.
What makes the THW distinctive is its staffing. According to the agency, around 88,000 volunteers make up roughly 98 per cent of its members; only about two per cent — some 2,200 people — are full-time employees. Volunteers are organised in 669 local sections (Ortsverbände) across the country, supported by 66 regional offices, eight regional associations (Landesverbände) and training centres. The THW youth organisation counts around 17,000 young members.
Within Germany's civil protection system the THW is a supporting force. In peacetime, disaster management is primarily the responsibility of the sixteen Länder and their local authorities; the federal government is responsible for civil protection in a defence situation. The THW is typically deployed when the responsible authorities request assistance — it does not take over command of an incident. That division of labour is one reason why cooperation between federal, state and local levels is a constant theme in German debates about crisis readiness.
Figures: THW, "Die Bundesanstalt" (accessed October 2026); THW-Landesvereinigung Baden-Württemberg website (accessed October 2026).
Civil society around a federal agency
The THW is a public authority, but it is surrounded by registered non-profit associations formed by its volunteers and supporters. They are independent of the agency and can do things a federal authority cannot.
The national umbrella body. It describes itself as connecting the 13 state helper associations and as a bridge between the THW, the THW youth, volunteers, politics and business. Its statutory purposes include promoting civil and disaster protection and youth work.
Thirteen state associations bring together the local helper associations in their area. The Baden-Württemberg association, founded in 1987 in Stuttgart, states that it speaks for around 11,000 volunteers in 93 local sections, comments on legal and internal THW rules that affect volunteers and pursues political objectives in disaster and civil protection.
Next to most local sections stands a registered association of helpers and supporters. Such associations raise funds, help finance additional equipment and training material, support youth groups, organise recruitment and public events, and look after the social life that keeps volunteers involved over many years.
Bringing volunteers' concerns — time off work, insurance, recognition, equipment — to ministries and parliaments.
Funding what the federal budget does not cover, from training aids to youth work.
Keeping a volunteer organisation staffed in a period of demographic change and competition for people's time.
Her role
At the time a member of the Bundestag elected via the Baden-Württemberg list (2013–2017).
The presidency continues during the interval between mandates; she returns to parliament in December 2018 as successor to Stephan Harbarth.
Date recorded in her Bundestag disclosures. By then she was also Parliamentary Secretary of the CDU/CSU group and Secretary General of the CDU in Baden-Württemberg.
The presidency of a state helper association is an honorary office. Its holder chairs the association's executive, represents it publicly and acts as an advocate for the volunteers it serves. It is common for such associations to be led by elected politicians, because much of their work consists of explaining the needs of volunteers to the people who write budgets and laws. The association is currently led by Alexander Throm, also a member of the Bundestag, according to its website.
Her presidency overlapped with her parliamentary work on the Bundestag's Committee on Internal Affairs, where, according to her parliamentary biographies, she dealt with volunteering, civil protection and disaster response. The federal interior committee is the parliamentary home of the THW's budget and of the legislation that governs it, which makes the link between the honorary office and the parliamentary portfolio a natural one — and also one in which members must keep the roles of advocate and legislator distinct.
This site does not attribute specific initiatives of the association to her personally; detailed records of the association's internal work during these years are not available from official sources.
Through-line
Three ideas from the world of civil protection recur across her later offices. They are offered here as an interpretive thread, not as a claim that one role caused the next.
Civil protection starts from the assumption that systems fail and must be designed to keep working. As health minister she applied the same vocabulary to the health system, arguing in the final Bundestag debate on the 2026 health budget on 27 November 2025 that only a resilient health system is fit for the future.
THW deployments depend on clear responsibilities, reliable communication and stocks that exist before the emergency. Similar elements — a digital situational picture, stockpiles, defined roles — featured in the Health Security Act plans of her ministry in 2026.
A federal agency that is 98 per cent volunteers shows how much public capacity rests on citizens' unpaid time. Supporting that commitment — through recognition, equipment and legal security — is a form of public service in its own right.
„Sicherheitspolitik ohne ein funktionierendes Gesundheitswesen ist nicht denkbar.“
Open questions in the field
Volunteer organisations depend on people who can leave work for deployments and training. Employers' willingness to release staff, compensation rules and the time demands on volunteers are recurring topics in German civil-protection policy.
Equipment, vehicles and training sites are long-term investments, while budgets are set year by year. Helper associations exist partly because public funding rarely covers everything that units consider necessary.
Germany's split between federal civil protection and state disaster management requires coordination across levels. Debates after major emergencies regularly return to warning systems, command structures and the interoperability of different organisations.
Youth work is one of the explicit statutory purposes of the THW-Bundesvereinigung. Early involvement through youth groups is widely seen as the most reliable route to long-term volunteering.