Freda Meissner-Blue

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Freda Meissner-Blue (2009)

Freda Meissner-Blau, 1970 to 1988 Freda Blau-Meissner, born until 1953 Freda Meissner or Meißner (born March 11, 1927 in Dresden , Germany ; † December 22, 2015 in Vienna ) was an Austrian politician . She was considered the figurehead of the Austrian ecological movement and in 1986 was the first chairman of the party The Greens - The Green Alternative .

Life

Childhood - Parents - Education

Freda Meissner (Meißner), from an old Austrian family of officers and industrialists, was born in Dresden in 1927 as the youngest of four children. Her mother, Mimi Stiepel, daughter of the kk Kommerzialrat Wilhelm Stiepel in Reichenberg , married Freda's father Ferdinand Meißner, son of the kk colonel Rudolf Meißner (from March 18, 1917: Rudolf Meißner von Hohenmeiß) in Pilsen on April 23, 1916 . She spent the first three years of her life with her family in their home town of Reichberg (Northern Bohemia), from where they first moved to Linz and in the summer of 1938 after the "Anschluss" of Austria to Vienna. The father Ferdinand Meißner later worked as an economist and journalist . He wrote articles against the Nazi regime , was then branded a " pest of the people " and in 1939 emigrated to Great Britain . In order to avoid the threat of clan liability , the marriage was divorced, the family moved to Reichenberg in the Sudetengau , where Freda Meissner continued the high school she had begun in Vienna. At the age of 17, she fled the Soviet Army to Dresden, where she witnessed the bombing of the city up close. These experiences made them decide to use all their might for the peaceful coexistence of people. In 1947 she went back to Vienna. With a high school diploma , she began to study journalism and journalism while also working for the American occupation forces . In the same year she traveled to Great Britain to visit her father, trained as a nurse there and finally enrolled in medicine in Frankfurt am Main . There she met Georges de Pawloff, who worked for the French occupation forces . In 1953 the two married.

World travel - the globetrotter

The globetrotter's next stop was Central Africa, where she and her husband worked for a German company in what was then the Belgian Congo . In 1954 their first child, Ted Oliver, was born there. Another decisive experience for her during her three-year stay in the Belgian Congo was the bloody struggle of the local population against colonial rule. Her later commitment to the Third World and, consequently, her struggle for a fairer world order is rooted in the formative experiences of this time.

After her return to Europe, Meissner-Blau became a member of the social science department of UNESCO in Paris . She also translated offers from French companies on the subject of the construction of nuclear power plants . This prompted her to take a closer look at the civil use of nuclear power , which made her an opponent of nuclear power and gradually grew into the role of a champion for the ecological movement.

In 1962 she moved again with her family, this time back to Vienna. Her husband was working at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna at the time . She was appointed general secretary of the recently founded Institute for Higher Studies (IHS) (1962–1968). From 1967 she worked under director Ernst Florian Winter . She influenced and shaped Anton Pelinka , Traudl Brandstaller , Peter Gerlich and Helmut Kramer , among others .

Their twins Nicolas and Aleksandra were born in 1963.

In 1968 she moved to Paris again, where she identified with the main concerns of the student revolts , the fight against authoritarian structures and hierarchies and the fight for more democracy and for women's rights.

Their marriage broke up because of political disagreements. In 1970 she married Paul Blau . Blau was a journalist and was involved in the trade union movement . From 1967 to 1970 he was editor-in-chief of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, published in Vienna . Both spouses agreed on their political and ecological commitment as well as their ideas and goals.

Return to Vienna

In 1972 the two returned to Vienna, Meissner-Blau became the education officer of the ÖMV , held advanced training seminars for young workers and thus came into contact with social democratic politicians and finally joined the SPÖ . Due to the increasing environmental awareness and the associated reinforcement of the topic by the media, a broader movement for environmental protection and against nuclear energy emerged in Europe. In Austria, too, a front was formed against the government's nuclear projects . At that time, Freda Meissner-Blau was one of the pioneers and spokespersons of the environmental resistance movement (s).

A referendum on November 5, 1978 prevented the Zwentendorf nuclear power plant from going into operation , and Austria's ecological movement achieved encouraging success. In 1984 in the battle for the Hainburger Au , Meissner-Blau was once again one of the most important competitors. In the run-up to the occupation of the meadow, she was also among the participants in the animals' press conference . Negotiations with the government, in which Meissner-Blau also took part, seemed unsuccessful at first, but the determined fight and direct action meant that the government had to shelve the construction of the power plant.

Political career

After the successes in Zwentendorf and Hainburg, Meissner-Blau became increasingly well-known and was persuaded to be a candidate for the office of Federal President for the green movement in the spring of 1986 . The main reason was the right-wing extremist FP politician Otto Scrinzi . However, in the first ballot it lost 5.5 percent to Kurt Waldheim (49.6%) and Kurt Steyrer (43.7%). After fierce trench warfare between conservative and progressive groups within the ecological movement, the Green Alternative party was formed in 1986 . Meissner-Blau ran as the top candidate for the National Council election in 1986 , achieved 4.8 percent and a basic mandate in Lower Austria and thus moved into parliament with seven men from her party . Despite their demand for gender parity, there was no equal distribution of the sexes within the green parliamentary club . However, Meissner-Blau became the club chairwoman. After the parliamentary group had consolidated in 1988, Meissner-Blau resigned her mandate on December 6, 1988. The success of the Greens in Austria is closely linked to Meissner Blue.

In June 1995, chaired by Meissner-Blau and Gerhard Oberschlick , the International Human Rights Tribunal , in which the Republic of Austria was symbolically found guilty of violating the human rights of homosexual, bisexual and transgender people, took place in Vienna.

After leaving politics, Meissner-Blau worked for international bodies, worked as a writer and gave many lectures. During the 1990s, she dealt critically with Austria's accession to the EU. In 1998 she wrote that since in the EU the big corporations and the central bank dominated the economic policies of all member states in a way that was damaging to the environment and leading to the degradation of democracy, she considered it likely “that the EU will one day take care of itself perishes. Or has to change fundamentally ... to a federation of autonomous states. "

In 1999 she had a heart transplant . Her husband Paul Blau died on October 27, 2005.

In 2013, Freda Meissner-Blau supported the progressive change party in the National Council election campaign .

Freda Meissner-Blau died on December 22, 2015 at the age of 89. At the farewell party on January 11, 2016 in the mortuary of the Simmering fire hall , Federal President Heinz Fischer also spoke to her next of kin.

In 2017, the Freda-Meissner-Blau-Promenade in Vienna's Innere Stadt (1st district) was named after her.

Awards

Publications

  • Freda Meissner-Blau: The question remains. 88 years of learning and traveling. In conversation with Gert Dressel . Amalthea Signum Verlag, Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-85002-897-4

Web links

Commons : Freda Meissner-Blau  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. "BLUE -MEISSNER Freda, journalist, Wien, S. (lt name change decision by the Office of the Provincial Government of Vienna, 11. 5. 1988, Z1 415-NR / 88..) MEISSNER BLUE Freda" In: Index to the stenographic protocols of the National Council and the Federal Council - Volume I: Register of persons - B. National Council. XVII. GP, p. 312 (online as: Index XVII.GP - Personenregister B - Meissner-Blau Freda (PDF; 1912 kB)) on the website of the Austrian Parliament, accessed on October 25, 2019.
  2. Green Freda Meissner-Blau is dead
  3. Grünen co-founder Freda Meissner-Blau passed away
  4. a b From the day. (...) War wedding. In:  Prager Tagblatt , evening edition, No. 116/1916 (XLI. Year), April 27, 1916, p. 5, column 2 above. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / ptb.
  5. Official part. In:  Wiener Zeitung , No. 168/1917, July 25, 1917, p. 1 center. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / wrz.
  6. ^ Freda Meissner-Blau in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
  7. Peter Mayr: “I would have liked the Greens to be more radical” . In: The Standard . November 18, 2011
  8. Michael Schmölzer: "Dresden Inferno was my call for peace work" . In: Wiener Zeitung . December 12, 2011
  9. ^ Gerhard Oberschlick: Austria: Appeal of the "International Human Rights Tribunal" against the discrimination of homosexuals and transsexuals in the media . In: Database on legal information relevant to the audiovisual sector in Europe IRIS Merlin. The Audiovisual Law Information Wizard. 1995-7: 12/36
  10. Freda Meissner-Blau: EG and environmental policy - an insoluble contradiction . In: Günther Witzany (Ed.): Betrayed and sold. The EG reading book . Unipress-Verlag, Salzburg 1993, ISBN 3-85419-110-3 , pp. 125-136.
    -: Austria with future opportunities . In: Günther Witzany (Ed.): Future Austria. EU membership and the consequences . Unipress-Verlag, Salzburg 1998, ISBN 3-85419-108-1 , pp. 171-176.
  11. ^ Freda Meissner-Blau: Austria with future prospects . In: Günther Witzany (Ed.): Future Austria. EU membership and the consequences . Unipress-Verlag, Salzburg 1998, ISBN 3-85419-108-1 , pp. 171-176; P. 171.
  12. The green figurehead is cheating In: Kurier , July 2013, accessed on July 16, 2020.
  13. ^ Farewell to Freda Meissner-Blau. In: Current Messages - Archive on the Bestattung Wien website , January 2016, accessed on October 25, 2019.