Dr Vollmer is former Vice-President of the Bundestag (1994-2005); between 1983 and 1990, she was a Member of the parliamentary group of the Greens, chairing it for some of this time. She worked as a publicist for several newspapers and magazines, among which TAZ, FAZ, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit and Stern. She also became Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (1993-1994). As a politician and a member of the German Bundestag, she promoted the beginning of a dialogue with terrorists from the Red Army Faction, which continued until the group disbanded in 1998; she even fostered initiatives in order to reform the law on foundations and endowments and to achieve a German-Czech declaration of reconciliation. In 2001, she was co-initiator of the German-Chinese dialogue on the rule of law.