Irmgard Schwaetzer

Irmgard Adam-Schwaetzer, 1991

Irmgard Schwaetzer (born April 5, 1942 in Münster , married name 1974 to 1991 Adam-Schwaetzer ) is a German politician ( FDP ) and Protestant church functionary.

Schwaetzer was Minister of State in the Foreign Office from 1987 to 1991 and Federal Minister for Regional Planning, Building and Urban Development from 1991 to 1994 . Since November 10, 2013, she has been the President of the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany .

Life and work

After graduating from the New Language Girls' High School in Warburg in 1961, Irmgard Schwaetzer studied pharmacy in Passau , Münster and Bonn . In 1967 she passed the pharmaceutical state examination . In 1968 she received her license to practice as a pharmacist . In 1971 she received her doctorate as Dr. rer. nat. at the University of Bonn with the thesis derivatives of the 4-azaphenanthrene ring system by intramolecular cyclization reaction . She then worked as a manager in various companies in the pharmaceutical and consumer goods industries until 1980.

Until January 18, 2011 she was chairwoman of the German Committee for Disaster Risk Management. V. and from 2004 to 2013 chairwoman of the cathedral council at the Protestant Berlin Cathedral in the church district of Berlin Stadtmitte . Since January 2009 she has been a member of the EKD Synod for the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia .

From 1974 to 1991 she used the married name Irmgard Adam-Schwaetzer during her marriage to the chemist Wolfgang Adam . In 1991 she married the journalist Udo Philipp, office manager of Sat.1 , from whom she separated again in 2000.

Irmgard Schwaetzer lives in Berlin.

Political party

Adam-Schwaetzer at the FDP federal party conference 1982 in Berlin.

Schwaetzer has been a member of the FDP since 1975. From 1982 to 1984 she was General Secretary of the FDP as the successor to Günter Verheugen , who had switched to the SPD . From 1984 to 1987 she was the federal treasurer. From 1988 to 1994 she was also deputy FDP federal chairman after she was defeated in a battle vote for the FDP chairmanship Otto Graf Lambsdorff . After she had been district chairwoman in Aachen in the 1980s , she held this office again from 1997 to 2002. Even today she is u. a. active in the field of women's politics as honorary chairwoman of the Federal Association of Liberal Women .

MPs

From 1980 to 2002 Irmgard Schwaetzer was a member of the German Bundestag . From 1998 to 2002 she was the chairwoman of the working group for labor and social policy, health policy, family, women and youth policy of the FDP parliamentary group . It was drawn into the German Bundestag via the state list of North Rhine-Westphalia .

Documents about her activities as a member of the German Bundestag and for the FDP are in the archive of liberalism of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Gummersbach .

Public offices

After the general election in 1987 it was on March 12, 1987 as Minister of State in the Foreign Office in the of Chancellor Helmut Kohl led government appointed.

After the FDP won votes in the 1990 Bundestag election and claimed an additional department for itself, Irmgard Schwaetzer was appointed Federal Minister for Regional Planning, Building and Urban Development on January 18, 1991 .

In May 1992, after the resignation of Hans-Dietrich Genscher, she was a candidate of the FDP party executive for the office of Federal Foreign Minister . However, the FDP parliamentary group vetoed this proposal, whereupon Justice Minister Klaus Kinkel was nominated in her place. She left the federal government on November 17, 1994.

From 2003 to 2014 she was a member of the board of trustees of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom. She was also a member of the foundation's board of directors from 2003 to 2014. From 2003 to 2015 she was the chairwoman of the Foundation's selection committee for the promotion of talented students.

She is a member of the Presidium of the German Society for the United Nations .

On November 10, 2013, she was surprisingly elected President of the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany, after the CSU politician and previous Vice-President Günther Beckstein and the retired Bremen judge Brigitte Boehme had previously competed in two ballots with no clear result. Schwaetzer, who was brought into the running as a compromise candidate ad hoc , was elected after the two original candidates had successively withdrawn their candidacies.

Awards

Irmgard Schwaetzer (2018) with the Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia

• 1986: Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon
• 1988: Grand Cross of the Order of the Falcons
• 1989: Large silver medal on ribbon for services to the Republic of Austria
• 1989: Grand Cross of the Order of Infante Dom Henrique
• 2018: Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia

Publications

• with Jürgen Morlok (Ed.): Liberal Profiles: Freedom and Responsibility , Busse-Seewald Verlag, Stuttgart-Degerloch 1983, ISBN 978-3-512-00676-0 .
• with Wolfgang Mischnick (Ed.): Responsibility for Freedom: 40 Years of the FDP , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt , Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 978-3-421-06500-1 .
• as publisher: The liberal women's movement. Pictures of life , Liberal-Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-920590-20-2 .
• as ed. with Kerstin Brauckhoff: Hans-Dietrich Genscher's foreign policy , Springer Fachverlag , Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 978-3-658-06650-5 .

See also

• Cabinet Kohl III
• Cabinet Kohl IV

literature

• Reimar Oltmanns : Women in power - Marie Schlei - Renate Schmidt - Irmgard Adam-Schwaetzer - Rita Süssmuth - Antje Vollmer. Protocols of an era of new beginnings. athenäums program by anton hain, Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-445-08551-X .

Web links

Commons : Irmgard Schwaetzer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Irmgard Schwaetzer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Irmgard Schwaetzer  in the German Digital Library
• Irmgard Schwaetzer in the German biography
• Biography at the German Bundestag
• BR-Alpha interview with Irmgard Schwaetzer (PDF; 51 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Schießl: Bankruptcy for Irme . In: Der Spiegel . No. 37 , 1997 ( online ).
2. ↑ Ripe for marriage . In: Der Spiegel . No. 48 , 1991 ( online ).
3. ↑ Schwaetzer: marriage failed . In: Hamburger Abendblatt , January 10, 2000.
4. ^ DGVN Presidium .
5. ↑ Press report on evangelisch.de.
6. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.6 MB).