Jutta Oesterle-Schwerin

Jutta Oesterle-Schwerin was born in 1941 in Jerusalem

Oesterle-Schwerin was born in Jerusalem to Jewish refugees from Germany and grew up in Israel. Her father, Heinz Schwerin, was killed in the 1948 war, and her mother, Ricarda, was a photographer. She is the older sister of the Israeli historian Tom Segev.

As a child she joined Hashomer Hatzair and later a communist youth movement. In 1958 she refused to serve in the army, and in 1960 she left Israel. In 1962 she began studying at the art academy in Stuttgart and graduated in interior design in 1969.

She joined the Social Democratic Party in 1974 and served on the Ulm city council. She left the party in 1980 in protest of the NATO Double-Track Decision and joined the Greens in 1983. From 1987 to 1990 she sat in the Bundestag, where she opposed German reunification in 1989.

In 1990 she was a spokeswoman for a lesbian organization, and she left the Greens in 1994. She worked as a freelance architect in Berlin until 2008. In 2012 she published an autobiography, Ricarda's Daughter.