Hilda Heinemann

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Hilda Heinemann
The Heinemann couple saying goodbye at Cologne Central Station on July 1, 1974
Heinemann's house since 1936 at Schinkelstrasse 34 in Essen's Moltkeviertel .

Hilda Heinemann , née Ordemann, (born September 15, 1896 in Bremen , † May 5, 1979 in Essen ) was the wife of the third Federal President of the Federal Republic of Germany , Gustav Heinemann .

biography

Family and education

Ordemann was the daughter of the Bremen grain merchant Johann Anton Ordemann (1864–1941) in Bremen. Her mother Bertha Johanna (Hannah) Rohr (1864–1941) was Swiss and a descendant of the polymath Albrecht von Haller . She had three siblings. Her older sister Gertrud Staewen (1894–1987) was active in the resistance against Hitler's persecution of the Jews. She was the grandmother of Christina Rau , the wife of the eighth Federal President Johannes Rau .

She attended the Private Higher Girls' School (Lyzeum Anna Vietor ) for ten years and then the Mathilde Zimmer Foundation in Kassel. In addition, she expanded her school education through private studies in mathematics, Latin and Greek in order to graduate from the Alte Gymnasium Bremen . Here she was one of only three girls and passed her high school diploma in 1920.
From 1921 she studied religious studies, philosophy, history and German at the University of Munich and the University of Marburg in order to become a teacher. In 1926 she passed her state examination as a trainee student a. a. with Rudolf Bultmann and Nicolai Hartmann . However, she did not practice her profession because she married Gustav Heinemann that same year and then took care of the family. The couple had four children, the first being Uta Ranke-Heinemann .

Heinemann was an active Protestant Christian and, like her husband, was a member of the Confessing Church during National Socialism . Both were regular worshipers in the Essen-Altstadt parish. Through their sister Gertrud they met Karl Barth , the influential Swiss theologian .

Both moved to Essen in 1926, where Gustav Heinemann worked as a lawyer and from 1929 to 1949 as legal advisor for Rheinische Stahlwerke . The couple firmly rejected nationalism and anti-Semitism. Acting for the Confessing Church, information pamphlets were printed in the basement of their house. In 1943 their house was destroyed and the family moved to Langenberg. In 1945 her husband became mayor of Essen, where they both lived again. Gustav Heinemann became Federal Minister of the Interior in 1949 and also lived in Bonn; Hilda Heinemann stayed in Essen.

As the wife of the Federal President

During her husband's term of office (1969–1974) as Federal President, the Heinemanns moved into the Villa Hammerschmidt . She was now the patron of the maternal convalescence work . She also took on patronage at Amnesty International and the German Women's Ring .

In 1970 Heinemann established the Hilda Heinemann Foundation , which takes care of the integration of adults with cognitive disabilities into working life. When the city of Mölln wanted to forbid a sister from setting up a home for mentally handicapped children in a residential area, she visited the sister in Mölln in order to be able to influence effectively and successfully.
Numerous exhibitions in the Villa Hammerschmid and in the Bellevue Palace took place on her initiative. In 1975 she was therefore awarded the City of Kiel's Culture Prize.

Her estate is in the archive of social democracy of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung .

Literature, sources

  • Regina Contzen: Heinemann, Hilda, b. Ordemann . In: Women's history (s) , Bremer Frauenmuseum (ed.). Edition Falkenberg, Bremen 2016, ISBN 978-3-95494-095-0 .
  • Heike Specht: “Your side of the story. Germany and its First Ladies from 1949 until today ”, Piper-Verlag, Munich 2019. ISBN 978-3-492-05819-3

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Memorial plaque on the object
  2. ↑ Manfred Sack : Farewell to an office that didn't even exist . In: Die Zeit from May 10, 1974, issue 20.

Web links

Commons : Hilda Heinemann  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Heinemann, Hilda
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ordemann, Hilda (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German first wife
DATE OF BIRTH September 15, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH May 5th 1979
Place of death eat