Ursula Koch (politician)

Ursula Koch

Ursula Koch (born July 1, 1941 in Zurich ; entitled to live there ) is a former Swiss politician ( SP ).

biography

Ursula Koch studied chemistry at the University of Zurich and received her doctorate in 1976 .

From 1979 to 1986, Koch was a member of the Zurich Cantonal Council . From 1986 to 1998 she was Zurich city councilor and head of the building construction department. In doing so, she opposed the opening of the former industrial zones for office use. When she took office, she announced: “The city is built. It does not have to be rebuilt, but rebuilt. "

In June 1997 Koch prevailed against Andrea Hämmerle, who was favored by the party establishment, and was the first woman to be elected President of the Social Democratic Party, succeeding Peter Bodenmann . In the elections in autumn 1999 she was elected to the National Council. On April 15, 2000, she gave up the SP Presidium and her National Council seat due to massive pressure from within the party and for health reasons. Since then it has been withdrawn from the public.

In 1981, Koch took part in a broadcast of the Austrian television discussion group Club 2 with the title “Radiant Future”. The Hungarian-American physicist Edward Teller - who was invited as the "father of the hydrogen bomb " - gave a lecture so technocratically and coldly about the effect of the neutron bomb's explosion on people, which was much discussed at the time , that Koch began to cry silently during the live discussion. Der Spiegel later described Teller's appearance as that of a "gloomy Jahve ". According to later information from one of the editors, Koch was specially invited as a guest because she was considered stable in the face of Teller's statements, even if “something terrible was coming”.

Ursula Koch married her long-term partner in 2000.

Works

Ursula Koch-Pomeranz: 1. Photochemical cyclization of allyl anisoles and C-allyl anilines; 2. The rearrangement of propargylphenyl ethers catalyzed by silver ions. Dissertation , University of Zurich, 1976.
Michael Kohn , Ursula Koch: Titanic or Noah's Ark. Talks on energy, technology and society. Edited by Patrizia N. Franchini and Suzanne Kappeler. Rauhreif-Verlag, Zurich 1987, ISBN 3-907764-07-2 .