Helga Diercks-Norden

Helga Diercks-Norden

Helga Diercks-Norden (born April 6, 1924 in Berlin as Helga Kehrein ; † July 12, 2011 in Hamburg ) was a German journalist, women's rights activist and member of the Hamburg Parliament for the CDU .

Life

Helga Kehrein grew up in Berlin. After graduating from high school, she studied art history and theater history. She was given the opportunity to do internships at various stages and volunteer at daily newspapers. She married the cameraman Carsten Diercks and had a son in 1955.

job

In 1946 she started working as a freelancer at NWDR , later NDR in Hamburg. She is considered the station's first reporter. She worked for many popular series, such as Umschau am Abend , Between Hamburg and Haiti , Hamburg Harbor Concert and Funkbilder from Lower Saxony. In doing so, she drove an OB van to marketplaces in northwest Germany to go straight to the air from there. Many of these reports could be heard all over Germany and made them popular. From 1956 on, she increasingly took on editorial tasks.

From 1957 on, Diercks-Norden worked on the development of television. As the first television reporter for NDR, she reported from the entire broadcast area. She dared to produce her own films for the evening program and temporarily took over the management of the political series “Topics of the Week”.

In 1963 she followed her husband to India with her son. Carsten Diercks had the task of setting up a television studio for the NDR and helping to set up Indian television. She established herself as a correspondent for Radio Bern, “Weltwoche” and Swiss television . The New Delhi Foreign Press Club had to change its statutes in order to be able to admit it. Until then, female foreign correspondents in India were unthinkable.

In 1973 she returned to Hamburg and continued to work as a freelance journalist.

politics

Helga Diercks-Norden had been a member of the CDU since 1960. Her party sent her temporarily to the deputations of the cultural authority and the interior authority. From 1977 to 1978 she was a member of the Hamburg Parliament .

Grave within sight
of the women's garden

She put the focus of her political work on women's politics. She was active in many national and international organizations. As chairwoman of the Union of Citizens, she was a member of the State Women's Council of Hamburg , where she was elected chairman from 1986 to 1990. She became a delegate of the International Alliance of Women , an international women's rights organization. She devoted particular commitment to the women's garden , a burial place for important women in Hamburg within the Ohlsdorf cemetery . Helga Diercks-Norden was one of the founders and helped politically implement the project, which had been unique until then. Her professional circle came full circle when the State Women's Council sent her to the NDR Broadcasting Council from 1992 to 1997 .

Helga Diercks-Norden died in 2011 and was buried in the Ohlsdorf cemetery next to her husband in the family grave near the women's garden .

Honors

• Federal Cross of Merit 1st class and the silver medal of the Senate of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg for loyal work in the service of the people.

swell

• State Center for Political Education Hamburg , database of women's biographies

literature

• Inge Grolle , Rita Bake : “I practiced juggling with three balls.” Women in the Hamburg citizenship from 1946 to 1993. Verlag Dölling & Galitz, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-930802-01-5 , pp. 334ff.
• Rita Bake: The women's garden. A place of remembrance with historical tombstones of the graves of important women and a final resting place of women. Verlag Dölling & Galitz, Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-930802-56-2 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Helga Diercks-Norden (nee Kehrein) on garten-der-frauen.de, accessed on November 3, 2013.