Hildegard Hamm-Brücher

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Hildegard Hamm-Brücher (1976)

Hildegard Hamm-Brücher , née Brücher (born May 11, 1921 in Essen ; † December 7, 2016 in Munich ), was a German politician . Until 2002 she was a member of the FDP . From 1976 to 1982 she was Minister of State in the Foreign Office . In 1994 she ran for the office of Federal President .

Life

Hildegard Hamm-Brücher (around 1969)

Childhood and school days

Hildegard Brücher grew up with four siblings in Berlin-Dahlem , one brother was the later publisher Ernst Brücher . After the early loss of her parents - her father Paul Brücher, a lawyer, died in 1931 and her mother Lilly, née Pick in 1932 - she moved with her siblings to her grandmother's in Dresden .

At Easter 1933 she was in the Quarta of Dresdner Mädchengymnasium enrolled. During the time of National Socialism , she lived in the Salem boarding school for a year from 1937 , but then had to leave it because her grandmother was Jewish . She was able to continue her education at the girls' high school Friedrich-Luisen-Schule in Konstanz , where she passed the Abitur in 1939 .

Study and job

During the Second World War she studied chemistry in Munich . During this time she made personal acquaintance with members of the White Rose . Although she did not know about their involvement in the underground, she said she was connected to them by a common mindset. In 1945, she was with the work studies the Hefemutterlaugen technical ergosterol extraction to Dr. rer. nat. PhD. Her doctoral supervisor, who also protected her from persecution by the Gestapo , was Heinrich Wieland .

After the end of the war, she became a science editor at the Neue Zeitung in 1945 , as basic chemical research was forbidden under the Control Council Act. From 1949 to 1950 she received a scholarship in political science at Harvard University .

Political party

Hamm-Brücher on the FDP federal executive board with Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Wolfgang Mischnick (March 1974)

Hildegard Hamm-Brücher was elected to the list of the FDP Bavaria through her candidacy in May 1948 for the Munich city council . Here it was Theodor Heuss with his views and warnings on the establishment and maintenance of democracy , the constitution, etc., who brought them into politics.

Hamm-Brücher was elected to the FDP federal executive committee in 1963 and was deputy federal chairwoman of her party from 1972 to 1976. From 1985 to 1991 she was again a member of the federal executive board.

On September 22nd, 2002 she resigned from the FDP after 54 years of membership and justified this with the "rapprochement of the FDP to the anti-Israeli and unilaterally pro-Palestinian positions of Mr. Möllemann " in the course of project 18 .

Documents about her activities for the FDP are in the archive of liberalism of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Gummersbach .

MPs

Hamm-Brücher next to Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt (1970)

Hamm-Brücher was a member of the Munich City Council from 1948 to 1954 . From 1950 to 1966 and from 1970 to 1976 she was a member of the Bavarian State Parliament . In the Bavarian state elections in 1962, she, "who was often too clever and too sincere for the functionaries and for some 'too far left', was banished to the hopeless 17th place on the Upper Bavarian list as a punishment." Due to the fact that votes could be given to individual candidates in Bavaria, however, it came in first place. So it moved into the state parliament for the third time, receiving strong media attention. From 1950 to 1966 she represented the constituency of Upper Bavaria and from 1970 to 1976 the constituency of Middle Franconia . From 1972 until she left the state parliament, she was chairman of the FDP parliamentary group and, from May 1975, a member of the council of elders .

From 1976 to 1990 she was a member of the German Bundestag . She was elected via the state list of the FDP Bavaria . Her speech of October 1, 1982 on the occasion of the vote of no confidence in Chancellor Helmut Schmidt , in which she spoke out against the election of Helmut Kohl as Chancellor and instead in favor of new elections, attracted a lot of attention . Hamm-Brücher criticized the vote of no confidence that this "creates new majorities, but no new trust in these majorities"; a “change of power without a previous vote” has the “Odium of violated democratic decency”. Hamm-Brucher said: "I think that both do not have the deserves to be overthrown Helmut Schmidt without voters vote, and Helmut Kohl, to go without voters vote for the chancellorship." The CDU general secretary Heiner Geissler gave her then a " Attack on our Constitution ”.

When, on May 4, 1984, six months after Eberhard von Brauchitsch and Otto Graf Lambsdorff were charged with tax evasion , the FDP campaigned for an amnesty for donors, donation brokers and donation recipients, they abstained - together with Gerhart Baum and Burkhard Hirsch  - the voice.

Public Offices

Hildegard Hamm-Brücher (1982)

In 1967 she was appointed State Secretary to the Ministry of Culture of the State of Hesse , headed by Ernst Schütte . She was the first woman in Hesse to hold this office. On October 22, 1969, she moved to the Federal Ministry of Education and Science as parliamentary state secretary , which was headed by the non-party Hans Leussink in the first social-liberal coalition under Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt after the 1969 Bundestag elections . She held this office until May 31, 1972.

On December 16, 1976, after the 1976 Bundestag election , she was appointed Minister of State to the Foreign Office headed by Hans-Dietrich Genscher . As such, she was a member of the Schmidt II government . After the break of the social-liberal coalition , she left the federal government on September 17, 1982 (shortly before the end of the Schmidt III government ) .

Federal presidential elections

In the federal presidential election in 1994 she was the candidate of the FDP for the office of federal president . The FDP tried to make itself more independent of the coalition partner CDU / CSU by nominating the social-liberal Hamm-Brücher and also to initiate a possible cooperation with the SPD. In the first ballot it received 132 and in the second ballot 126 votes - each significantly more than the 112 voters of the FDP. The party chairman Klaus Kinkel advised her not to run in the third ballot. Previously, Chancellor Kohl had - according to Hamm-Brücher - "terribly insulted" Kinkel for "finally taking her out of circulation". The candidate demanded that the FDP parliamentary group vote on this question. After a short discussion, the parliamentary group voted in favor of the party leadership. The majority of the FDP electors voted in the third ballot for the CDU candidate Roman Herzog .

Hildegard Hamm-Brücher was nominated by the Hessian Greens as an electoral woman for the 14th Federal Assembly on June 30, 2010. Hamm-Brücher had previously stated that she would vote for Joachim Gauck , who was not a party to the party . She also belonged to the 15th Federal Assembly on March 18, 2012 at the suggestion of the Hessian Greens .

Social Commitment

Hamm-Brücher in the Munich City Hall (October 2010)

From 1958 to 1993 she was a member of the board of trustees of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. From 1959 to 1987 she was co-editor of the magazine liberal on behalf of the foundation . In 1964, on her initiative and that of Ernst Ludwig Heuss , the son of Theodor Heuss, the non-partisan Theodor Heuss Foundation was founded, of which she was the founding chairman and which she held for many years. 1974–1988 Hildegard Hamm-Brücher was a member of the Presidium of the German Evangelical Church Congress . She was a member of the board of trustees at the Jewish Center in Munich and was a member of the board of the Förderverein Demokratisch Demokratie e. V. based in Jena. She also supported the association Show your face! . At the human rights organization Human Rights Watch Germany, she was one of the honorary members alongside Jutta Limbach , Ian Karan and others. She was a member of the PEN Center Germany and since 1970 a member of the Goethe Institute .

The Hildegard Hamm-Brücher Prize for Democracy Learning and Experiencing has been awarded since 2009 . The first prize winners were Wolfgang Edelstein and Eva Madelung and the funding project “Colorful School - Colorful City” of the integrated comprehensive school “Regine Hildebrandt” in Magdeburg. The prize is awarded in June in Jena together with the Lernstatt Demokratie of the Friends of Democratic Action , which announces a nationwide competition once a year for particularly democratic projects in general schools. In this way, Hildegard Hamm-Brücher wanted to honor the commitment of old and young people to education and democracy.

Hamm-Brücher donated the "Munich Citizens' Prize against Forgetting - for Democracy" to commemorate the rule of the National Socialists and to strengthen democracy. The prize, endowed with a total of 5000 euros, is usually awarded every two years, for the first time on May 9, 2011 on the occasion of her 90th birthday.

Private life

Hamm-Brücher was married to the CSU local politician and lawyer Erwin Hamm (1909-2008) from 1956 . The marriage produced a son and a daughter. She also lived in Klosters in Switzerland , where she had an apartment.

Hamm-Brücher died on December 7, 2016 at the age of 95 in Munich. She was buried in the old part of the Munich forest cemetery (grave no. 88-W-42).

Honors

Publications (selection)

  • Education is not a luxury. Plea against resignation in education policy . Paul List Verlag, Munich 1976.
  • with Paul Noack and Norbert Schreiber: The future of our democracy . dtv, Munich 1979.
  • Memories of a Christian, Liberal and South German Democrat. Klaus Scholder in memory. In: Liberal. Vol. 1987, No. 2, pp. 97-103.
  • The politician and his conscience. A pamphlet for more parliamentary democracy . Piper publishing house, Munich 1987.
  • with Marion Mayer: The free representative - a legend? Experience with parliamentary power and powerlessness. Piper Verlag, Munich 1990.
  • Courage for politics . Conversation with Carola Wedel (= witness of the century ). Lamuv Verlag, Göttingen 1993, ISBN 3-88977-325-7 .
  • Freedom is more than a word. A life balance 1921–1996. Publishing house Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1996.
  • Tear the cloak of indifference. The " White Rose " and Our Time , ed. by Wilhelm von Sternburg . Construction Publishing House, Berlin 1997.
  • Thomas Dehler in Bavaria. In: House of the history of the Federal Republic of Germany (ed.): Thomas Dehler and his politics. Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-87584-721-0 , pp. 52–57.
  • Remember for the future. A historical reading book from 1991 to 2001 . dtv, Munich 2001.
  • with Hans J. Vogel and Karl Stankiewitz: Post-war years: reports from 1945 to 1959 . edition buntehunde, Regensburg 2006.
  • In good condition? Thinking about democracy in Germany . Publishing house CH Beck, Munich 2006.
  • Published together with Norbert Schreiber: Democracy, that is us all. Contemporary witnesses report. Verlag Zabert Sandmann, Munich 2009.
  • 100 years of Rose Ausländer, Lichtenwalde - My breath is now called . In: Deutschlandfunk . ( deutschlandfunk.de [accessed on March 26, 2018]).

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Hildegard Hamm-Brücher  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hildegard Hamm-Brücher on bombs, the end of the war and films about the Nazi era . In: Münchner Merkur . December 9, 2016. Retrieved March 8, 2017.
  2. ↑ H. Hamm-Brücher: Freedom is more than just a word . 1996, p. 119.
  3. ↑ "The SPD is trapped" . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . May 17, 2010. Retrieved March 8, 2017.
  4. ↑ The MPs a. D. In: Die Zeit , No. 49/1966.
  5. ↑ The lively Liberal . In: Der Spiegel . No. 15 , 1996 ( online ).
  6. ↑ German Bundestag Stenographic Report 118th Session (PDF) German Bundestag. October 1, 1982. Retrieved March 8, 2017.
  7. ↑ Change of government 1982 - Hildegard Hamm-Brücher - Odium of the violated democratic decency . YouTube. September 14, 2015. Accessed March 8, 2017.
  8. ↑ Detlef Esslinger: The day when Helmut Kohl became Federal Chancellor - time of reckoning. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung (online), October 1, 2012.
  9. ↑ H. Hamm-Brücher: Freedom is more than just a word. 1996, p. 273.
  10. ↑ Phantom is alive . In: Der Spiegel . No. 1 , 1972 ( online ).
  11. ↑ On this day the four FDP ministers resigned from their offices; they just got ahead of a dismissal by Chancellor Helmut Schmidt .
  12. ↑ Kohl's biggest mishap . In: Der Spiegel . No. 42 , 1993, pp. 20 ( online ).
  13. ^ Stefan Dietrich: Liberal Legends in the Federal Assembly. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (online), June 30, 2010.
  14. ↑ Hamm-Brücher: The people should decide . Hildegard Hamm-Brücher in conversation with Dieter Kassel. In: Deutschlandradio Kultur , broadcast Conclusion , June 29, 2010.
  15. ↑ To howl . In: Die Zeit , No. 23/1994.
  16. ↑ a b H. Hamm-Brücher: Freedom is more than just a word . 1996, p. 567.
  17. ^ Foundation "Munich Citizens' Prize for Democracy - Against Forgetting" . Portal Munich. Retrieved March 8, 2017.
  18. ↑ "I am always swum against the tide, but still wanted to look pretty doing" . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, issue 10/2012 . October 2012. Retrieved March 8, 2017.
  19. ↑ H. Hamm-Brücher: Freedom is more than just a word . 1996.
  20. ↑ Hildegard Hamm-Brücher is dead . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . December 9, 2016. Retrieved March 8, 2017.
  21. ↑ "My life had nothing to be desired" . T-Online. December 9, 2016. Retrieved March 8, 2017.
  22. ^ Wartburg Foundation, Rainer Beichler: Wartburg Prize to Hildegard Hamm-Brücher. October 29, 2002, accessed August 13, 2012 .
  23. ↑ State capital Munich: Street renaming in 2018: Hildegard-Hamm-Brücher-Straße .
personal data
SURNAME Hamm-Brücher, Hildegard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (FDP), Member of the Bundestag, Member of the Bundestag
DATE OF BIRTH May 11, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH December 7, 2016
PLACE OF DEATH Munich