Prof. Dr. Anneke Petzsche, M.Sc. (Oxford)

University of Bremen
Faculty of Law
Forum am Domshof
Room: 40018
28195 Bremen

Phone: +49 (0)421 218-
E-Mail: petzscheprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de

Secretary:
Sarah Klingenberg
Room: 40050

Phone: +49 (0)421 218-66217
E-Mail: s.klingenbergprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de

Anneke Petzsche studied law at Humboldt University (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) in Berlin, completing her studies with the First State Examination in Law in 2009. Subsequently, she worked as a research assistant for Prof. Dr. Martin Heger and obtained her doctorate summa cum laude for a thesis entitled 'Criminal Law and the Fight Against Terrorism: A Comparative Study of the Fight Against Preparatory Terrorist Activities in Germany, Great Britain, and Spain'. During this time, she received a doctoral scholarship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes) and completed research stays at the University of Leeds and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

From 2012 to 2014, she completed her legal training (Referendariat) at the Berlin Higher Regional Court with placements at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the Federal Foreign Office's Section of International Criminal Law, and at law firms in Berlin and Madrid. She then obtained a Master's degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Oxford, graduating with distinction in 2016. Her Master thesis on the situation of mothers in the German criminal justice system was nominated for the John Sunley Prize of the Howard League for Penal Reform. Since 2018, she has been accredited as a legal expert at the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA); in 2024, she was appointed as an expert for the Legal Affairs Committee of the German Parliament.

She received project funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) for her habilitation thesis on the 'Political abuse of criminal proceedings', serving as Principal Investigator (PI) of the DFG project 'Criminal Proceedings as a Political Weapon - On the European Limits of Abusive Criminal Proceedings and the Resilience of German Criminal Procedure Law', which she initiated at Humboldt University, Berlin, and is now continuing at the University of Bremen. She successfully completed the habilitation procedure at Humboldt University, Berlin, in January 2026.

In the summer semester of 2026, she was appointed Professor of Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure Law, International Criminal Law, and Economic and Environmental Criminal Law at the University of Bremen.

Areas of research: Criminal law, criminal procedure law, international (particularly European) criminal law, commercial and environmental criminal law, as well as contemporary legal history

DFG project “Criminal Proceedings as a Political Weapon - On the European Limits of Abusive Criminal Proceedings and the Resilience of German Criminal Procedure Law”

List of publications (as of June 2026)

Secretary:

• Sarah Klingenberg

Research assistants:

• Dr. Maren Rixecker

Summer semester 2026

• 06-027-6-604 Examensklausurenkurs (Besprechung);
• 06-027-8-850 Vertiefung Strafrecht und Strafprozessrecht I (insbesondere Nebenstraf- und Ordnungswidrigkeitenrecht); 
• 06-027-8-851 Vertiefung Strafrecht und Strafprozessrecht II (insbesondere europäische und internationale Bezüge); 
• 06-027-8-852 Juristische Zeitgeschichte; 
• 06-027-8-856 Terrorismusstrafrecht.

Further information available on StudIP