Irmtraut Wäger

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Irmtraut Wäger (born August 29, 1919 in Königsberg , East Prussia ; † October 2, 2014 in Munich ) was a German development worker and human rights activist who was primarily committed to Tibet and the Tibetan refugees. From 1984 to 2009 she was the first chairwoman of the Association of German Tibethilfe e. V. , which under her leadership developed into one of the world's largest aid organizations for Tibetan refugees.

Childhood and youth

She was born as the fourth child of a manor owner in 1919 in Königsberg (East Prussia). By deaths and economic difficulties as a result he Great Depression , the family impoverished in the 1930s. During the Second World War she worked in a hospital in Königsberg and read her first books about Tibet, including Sven Hedin's travelogues . At the end of the war, she escaped and was expelled in 1944 and finally came to Munich via Peenemünde and Detmold .

post war period

After the war, Irmtraut Wäger u. a. as a pieceworker and later as an office worker at Siemens in Munich. In 1969 she moved with her two sons into a two-room apartment on Mauthäuslstrasse in Munich. This apartment, which she lived in until her death, later became legendary because, on the one hand, the administration of Deutsche Tibethilfe eV had been there for decades . V. found and on the other hand even Tendzin Gyatsho , the 14th Dalai Lama , visited her there.

Commitment to Tibet

Irmtraut Wäger was only able to fully develop her commitment to Tibet from the age of 60 after her retirement. With a lottery win, she enabled the later well-known Tibetologist Detlef-Ingo Lauf (* 1936) to go on a study trip to India. Lauf found her first godchild, an older Tibetan monk. In 1974 she made her first trip to India and Tibet. These countries fascinated her very much and she made first contacts. In 1979 Irmtraut Wäger traveled to India for the second time. Over the years she was able to interest a number of people in the fate of the Tibetans, including Hermann Gmeiner , the founder of the SOS Children's Villages . A total of seven children's villages were founded in Ladakh . Others followed in India. After her retirement, she traveled to India almost every year to get an idea of ​​the situation on site and the sponsorships organized within the framework of German Tibet Aid. After each stay, she visited the Dalai Lama in his exile in Dharamsala and told him about the conditions in India.

For her commitment she was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in 1986 and the Dalai Lama awarded her the “ Light of Truth ” award in 2004.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Franz Binder: Irmtraut Wäger is dead. Portal for Ethics and Mindfulness, October 7, 2014, accessed on August 29, 2019 (English).
  2. ↑ Carola Roloff: Mourning for Irmtraut Wäger . In: Tibet and Buddhism . No. 4 , 2014, p. 46-48 ( online [PDF]).
  3. ↑ Information at herbig.net ( Memento of the original from January 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.herbig.net

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wäger, Irmtraut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German development worker and human rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH August 29, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH East Prussia
DATE OF DEATH 2nd October 2014
Place of death Munich