Overview
- The Hesse FDP confirmed Wagner’s death at 85 after initial reports by Hessenschau.
- Her family said she died on December 28 in Darmstadt.
- Wagner served as Hesse’s minister for science and the arts from 1999 to 2003 and as deputy to Minister‑President Roland Koch.
- As state FDP chair from 1995 to 2005, she kept the party aligned with the CDU, defending the coalition through the 2000 donations scandal before urging an exit after the CDU won an absolute majority in 2003.
- After leaving frontline politics, she chaired cultural and historical institutions in Hesse and received the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit in 2006 and the Wilhelm Leuschner Medal in 2010.