At the 2005 general election Dagmar Enkelmann returned to the National Parliament ("Bundestag"). She served as Parliamentary Party Manager ("Chief Whip") for Die Linke between 2005 and 2013. In order to avoid the distortions arising in wholly constituency based systems, the German electoral system allocates some seats on a list basis, shared between the parties according to their overall vote shares. In 2005 Enkelmann was elected because her name was sufficiently high up on the regional PDS party list. In the Bundestag she became a member of the chamber's Council of Elders, also serving on the committee for election verification, parliamentary immunity and procedure. In the 2009 general election she stood successfully as a "direct candidate" for the . However, in the 2013 general election, when she stood for re-election in the same constituency, she lost out to the CDU candidate, . Unlike von der Marwitz, Enkelmann had rejected the idea of simultaneously having her name placed on her party list as insurance against not securing direct election in the Barnim constituency, and accordingly in 2013 she left the Bundestag for a second time.