I was born in Munich in 1941 and now I am a retired journalist in
          Hamburg. My first experience with direct democracy dates back to the
          sixties when I still lived in Bavaria. There direct domcracy was
          introduced shortly after World War II.  Hamburg was the last Bundesland
          to  finally allow referendums in 1996. I became a member of Mehr
          Demokratie in 1997 and took part in the first campaign in Hamburg. Our
          goal then was to improve the practicability of the new law because it
          was so spiked with obstacles that it seemed almost impossible to run a
          successful campaign. At the same time we won a referendum to introduce
          referendums on a more local level.  Our next step was to reform the
          electoral system in Hamburg to give the voters more influence. We must
          remember that for about fifty years Hamburg had the same electoral system
          that Putin is now imposing on Russia -- we could only vote for a party, not
          for certain candidates. And there were no constituencies. So the party
          bosses dictated who was worthy of a seat in parliament. On June 13th we
          (and the people of Hamburg) changed that -- it was the first time in
          European history that an electoral system was thrown over by direct
          democracy.

          For many years I have worked in grass roots groups and NGOs dealing
          with human rights, women's rights, environment and development. This is
          also what I wrote about during my 40 years in newspaper, radio and
          magazine journalism.

          I am a board member of Mehr Demokratie in Hamburg and Mehr Bürgerrechte.

          There is a photo of me on www.faires-wahlrecht.de under Kontakt.