Monika Griefahn

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Monika Griefahn (2008)

Monika Griefahn (born October 3, 1954 in Mülheim an der Ruhr ) is a German politician ( SPD ) and co-founder of Greenpeace Germany.

From 1998 to 2009 she was a member of the German Bundestag and in this role she was a specialist politician for culture and media as well as foreign (cultural) policy. From 1990 to 1998 she was Lower Saxony's Environment Minister . From 1980 to 1990 she was active in the environmental protection organization Greenpeace and was the first woman on the board of Greenpeace International (1984–1990). She has been working as an environmental manager in tourism since 2012.

In 2020 she will apply to be the mayor of her hometown Mülheim an der Ruhr.

Life and work

After graduating from the Luisenschule in Mülheim an der Ruhr in 1973 , Monika Griefahn studied mathematics and social sciences in Göttingen and Hamburg , from which she graduated in 1979 as a sociologist. From 1973 she worked in youth and education work at the Franco-German Youth Office. From 1976 to 1980 she was a seminar leader at the trade union working group Work and Life and then worked as an education officer at the YMCA Hamburg.

From 1980 she was involved in setting up the German Greenpeace office in Hamburg, where she was subsequently co-managing director for three years. There she organized, among other things, campaigns against the chemical pollution of the North Sea (against dilute acid dumping and incineration of chemical waste on the high seas and the discharge of toxic wastewater into seas and rivers). From 1984 to 1990 she was the first woman to be a member of the international board of Greenpeace. There she was responsible, among other things, for setting up new offices as well as training and further education of active people and employees worldwide.

In May 1990 the SPD won the state elections in Lower Saxony . Gerhard Schröder became Prime Minister of Lower Saxony and appointed Griefahn as Environment Minister in his first cabinet (see chapter Public Offices and Members of Parliament ).

In 2002 she was accepted as a knight in the French Legion of Honor .

From May 2012 to July 2018, Griefahn worked as Director for Environment and Society for the Rostock cruise company AIDA Cruises , which belongs to the US / English Carnival Corporation. Together with AIDA President Michael Ungerer, she received the BAUM environmental award in 2014. Monika Griefahn has been advising the Costa Group as Senior Adviser Sustainability since 2018. In July 2012, Griefahn founded an institute for media, environment and culture, which she heads as managing director.

Griefahn was a lecturer at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg from 2012 to 2019 and gave seminars on the environment and sustainability.

In 2013 she did her doctorate together with Edda Rydzy with the dissertation “The basic contradiction of the German sustainability strategy. Cradle to Cradle as a possible solution. Starting points and strategic potentials of cultural policy ”.

In 2018, Griefahn was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon for her services .

Griefahn is married to the chemist Michael Braungart and has three children. On March 27, 2013, their son Jonas Griefahn died in Aachen at the age of 24.

Political party

She has been a member of the SPD since 1992.

MPs

From 1994 to 1998 she was a member of the state of Lower Saxony .

From 1998 to 2009 she was a member of the German Bundestag and from July 2000 to September 2005 she was chairwoman of the Bundestag committee for culture and media. It moved into the Bundestag after the Bundestag election on September 27, 1998 (see also the list of members of the German Bundestag (14th electoral term) ). Gerhard Schröder became Federal Chancellor and formed the first red-green coalition at federal level as well as the Schröder I cabinet .

She was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee , the Subcommittee on Foreign Cultural and Educational Policy ( foreign cultural policy ) and in the New Media Subcommittee whose spokeswoman them from 2002 by 2005.

From 1999 to 2000 and from 2005 to 2009 Griefahn was the spokesperson for the working group on culture and media as well as the working group on foreign cultural and educational policy of the SPD parliamentary group .

In her function as a cultural politician, she played a key role in establishing the German Computer Game Prize. She continued to work for the promotion of German film , for strong copyright law, for fixed book prices and the maintenance of a decentralized bookstore structure, for cultural diversity and for the stabilization and expansion of the Goethe Institute and German schools abroad.

In foreign policy , she was particularly involved in the introduction of alternative energies in federally owned properties around the world and in supporting projects by non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

After the federal election on September 18, 2005 , she moved back into the Bundestag. She was elected chairman of the bilateral working group on cultural diversity set up by the German Bundestag and the French National Assembly (Assemblée Nationale).

After Griefahn had criticized "sexist, racist, drugs and violence glorifying" German rap, the rapper Sido attacked her violently in his song Nixxx los . Rapper Bushido wrote in his song Endgegner : "Monika Griefahn is not into my humor". She was also critically mentioned by other German rappers on the occasion of her statement; this was rarely received in the media. The taz reported in July 2007 about a raid on members of the hip-hop label Hirntot Records , in which, among other things, CDs with death threats against Griefahn were found.

Griefahn entered the Bundestag in 1998 as a directly elected member of the Harburg constituency and in 2002 and 2005 as a directly elected member of the Soltau-Fallingbostel - Winsen L. constituency . Before the 2009 federal election , the Harburg constituency was re-established; Griefahn ran for election to the 17th German Bundestag on September 27, 2009 ; this election was won by the CDU candidate Michael Grosse-Brömer (* 1960).

Public offices

Monika Griefahn as Lower Saxony's Environment Minister in the Watt

From 1990 to 1998 she was a member of the state government led by Prime Minister Gerhard Schröder as Environment Minister of Lower Saxony. A planned exit from the use of nuclear energy at the state level failed at the time due to the overriding competence of the Federal Ministers for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety Klaus Töpfer (1990–1994) and Angela Merkel (1994–1998). At the same time, Griefahn drove the expansion of renewable energies in Lower Saxony with an eco fund and a wind energy atlas. Their commitment contributed to the fact that nuclear phase-out talks by the red-green federal government (1998-2005) became possible and in 2002 the nuclear phase-out law came into force.

As Environment Minister in Lower Saxony, Monika Griefahn initiated the reversal of the previously common disposal of waste in landfills and waste incineration plants towards products that could be more easily dismantled and recycled, for waste separation and different treatment of waste, e.g. composting or mechanical pretreatment. Around ten previously planned waste incineration plants were not built as a result.

It also ensured that the procurement guidelines for the public sector in Lower Saxony were more ecological. In nature conservation , she established the Harz National Park and the Elbe Valley Biosphere Reserve and promoted recognition of the Wadden Sea by UNESCO ( Man and Biosphere Program).

In 1991 she presented Herbert Gruhl with the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon for his services to nature and environmental protection .

On the board of the Expo 2000 GmbH, Griefahn advocated an ecological concept for the world exhibition developed by her husband. This was called "family felt" by the opposition. With Griefahn's consent, Schröder put her on leave from March 10 to April 5, 1995 as Environment Minister. A parliamentary committee of inquiry investigated the allegation of favoring the husband. The allegation was demonstrably false. On April 5, 1995, Griefahn took over her official duties again.

The alleged affair had started in the picture , which apparently manipulated papers had been leaked. The constitutional judge a. D. Helmut Simon , who investigated the allegations as an expert witness, said after the investigation: “It may still be in need of clarification who and in whose interest leaked the allegations against Ms. Griefahn to the Bild-Zeitung. The […] researched manipulations of the documents distributed to the public could also be in need of clarification. Political culture is undoubtedly harmed primarily by the ethically accusable behavior of office holders, but also when human dignity is violated by unjustified accusations and misleading the public. For a committed environmental politician, it must be particularly offensive if this undermines credibility. "

In January 2020, the sub-district executive of the SPD at the Ruhr Griefahn nominated unanimously as a candidate for the mayoral elections on 13 September 2020. This was confirmed on February 8, 2020 also with 100 percent of the delegate votes of the subdistrict Party Mülheim SPD.

Social Commitment

Since 1986 she has been a member of the jury and board of the Right Livelihood Award Foundation ("Alternative Nobel Prize"), Stockholm. She is a member of the German UNESCO Commission, Culture Committee, and was a member of the Presidium of the German Evangelical Church Congress from 2008 to 2014 . Her further commitment includes the chairmanship of the Cradle to Cradle - Wiege zur Wiege e. V. and its membership in the Advisory Board of the Giordano Bruno Foundation. She ended her jury work for the festival of environmental and nature films ("eco-film tour") in 2019.

Cabinets

Publications

  • Computer games as a cultural asset? In: S. Ganguin, B. Hoffmann (Ed.): Digital game culture. Kopaed Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-86736-343-3 .
  • Cultural economy and cultural intelligence. In: B. Wagner: Yearbook for cultural policy 2008. Topic: cultural economy and creative city. Bonn / Essen, pp. 221–226.
  • Sustainability Policy and Cultural Policy. In: Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft KuPoGe (Hrsg.): Kulturpolitische Mitteilungen II / 2002, Bonn.
  • Sustainability policy and cultural policy - a connection with the future? In: H. Kurt, B. Wagner (Ed.): Culture-Art-Sustainability. The importance of culture for the model of sustainable development. Bonn / Essen, 2002, pp. 59–68.
  • (Ed.): Greenpeace. We fight for an environment in which we can live . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1983, ISBN 3-498-02434-5 .
  • Because I have a song. The politics of an environment minister . Piper, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-492-03688-0 .

literature

  • Jürgen Streich: Monika Griefahn. Politics, positions, perspectives. Zebulon, Cologne 1997, ISBN 3-928679-60-0 .

Web links

Commons : Monika Griefahn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1The certificate of incorporation names “Greenpeace German Section e. V. ".
  1. ↑ Greenpeace Germany turns 30: "Not always legal, but legitimate" , tagesschau.de , August 28, 2010
  2. ↑ Monika Griefahn. In: Der Spiegel . February 16, 2002, accessed April 6, 2020 .
  3. ↑ AIDA Cruises: Monika Griefahn takes over the Environment and Society department at AIDA Cruises, press release of May 2, 2012
  4. ↑ Antje Blinda: Baptism of “Aida Mar”: Greenpeace founder is on board . In: Spiegel Online . May 11, 2012
  5. ↑ BAUM environmental award - portrait of Ungerer and Griefahn
  6. ↑ https://www.institut-muk.de/ueber-uns/monika-griefahn/
  7. ↑ Jasmine Ait-Djoudi: Claudia Kemfert visits the TUHH. . TUHH . January 12, 2016. Retrieved January 17, 2016.
  8. ↑ Griefahn, Monika. In: Giordano Bruno Foundation . Retrieved January 9, 2020 .
  9. ↑ The basic contradiction of the German sustainability strategy. In: refubium.fu-berlin.de. Retrieved January 9, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Monika Griefahn awarded the Federal Cross of Merit. In: monika-griefahn.de. July 17, 2018, accessed January 9, 2020 .
  11. ↑ www.spd-lkharburg.de
  12. ↑ Andreas Bachmann: Razzien: No fame for brain dead rappers . In: the daily newspaper . July 10, 2007
  13. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated February 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was 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.herbert-gruhl.de
  14. ↑ Press article on the founding of the Herbert Gruhl Society ( Memento of the original from February 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Berchtesgadener Anzeiger from January 24, 2000  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.volker-kempf.de
  15. ↑ Petra Sorge: Wulff in Lower Saxony: The truth hidden . In: Cicero . January 18, 2012
  16. ↑ Andreas Wyputta: The Seven Dials Mystery Ruhr SPD. In: taz.de . January 8, 2020, accessed January 9, 2020 .
  17. ↑ Marcel Dronia: 100 percent: Mülheimer SPD confirms Griefahn's candidacy. In: waz.de . February 9, 2020, accessed February 10, 2020 .
  18. ↑ https://www.rightlivelihoodaward.org/support/foundation/board/
  19. ↑ Communication from the gbs
  20. ^ Jury members of the Festival of Environmental and Nature Films
personal data
SURNAME Griefahn, Monika
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), Member of the Bundestag
DATE OF BIRTH October 3, 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Mülheim an der Ruhr