Petra Kelly

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Petra Kelly in 1987 in the German Bundestag

Petra Karin Kelly (* November 29, 1947 as Petra Karin Lehmann in Günzburg , † probably October 1, 1992 in Bonn ) was a German politician and peace activist . She was a founding member of the Green Party and a member of the German Bundestag .

Life

Petra Karin Lehmann was born in Günzburg as the daughter of German parents. The father left the family when she was seven years old. The mother worked full time, so the daughter was mainly raised by the grandmother. After the mother's marriage to the American officer John E. Kelly, the family name changed to Kelly. The family moved to the United States in 1960. There she lived with her family in Columbus , Georgia , where she attended Baker High School, and in Hampton , Virginia , where she attended Hampton High School. From 1966 to 1970 Kelly studied political science and world politics at the American University in Washington, DC , where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and was also active in university politics. Then she returned to Europe. In 1971, she obtained her Master of Arts in European Studies from the Universiteit van Amsterdam .

Petra Kelly's professional career began in the autumn of 1971 with the EC administration in Brussels. In 1973 she became an administrator in the secretariat of the Economic and Social Committee and worked for the European Commission in Brussels until 1982 . She resigned from the SPD in 1979, became a founding member of the Greens and was one of its chairmen for several years from 1980. In the Bundestag election in 1983 , she moved into the German Bundestag as a member of the Bundestag , to which she was a member until 1990.

After leaving the Bundestag, Kelly and her partner Gert Bastian lived secluded in their house in Bonn's Tannenbusch district . She was seriously ill and feared threats (including after receiving threatening letters). She was on the police list of persons at risk, but refused to protect people . According to the police report, Kelly is said to have been killed by Bastian while he was sleeping with his Deringer pistol under circumstances that were not entirely clear . According to this, Bastian is said to have put an end to his life afterwards, whereby according to the report of the magazine Der Spiegel the gun was aimed from above at a point just above the forehead. The bodies were found on October 19, 1992 - several weeks after the crime. The exact point in time could therefore no longer be determined with certainty; The night of October 1, 1992 is assumed to be the time of death.

The former civil servant and psychologist at the Federal Criminal Police Office Michael Baurmann and the historian Jennifer Schevardo investigated the death of the two politicians 20 years later. They found no evidence of third party involvement. The study was filmed as a documentary in 2012 and broadcast in 2014.

Petra Kelly was 44 years old. She is buried in the forest cemetery in the Heidingsfeld district of Würzburg .

Political activity

Artists from the Federal Republic and other Western European countries, the USA, Africa and Latin America supported the Krefeld appeal on September 11, 1982 at the event Artists for Peace in Bochum ; Petra Kelly represented the Krefeld initiative.
Petra Kelly with Otto Schily at a press conference after the federal election in 1983

In 1968 Petra Kelly was involved in the presidential campaign for Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey . She was managing director of JEF ( Young European Federalists Germany ) and from 1972 to 1982 she worked for the European Commission in Brussels . In 1979 she declared her exit from the SPD in an open letter to Helmut Schmidt and announced a “new form of political representation”, “where not only the protection of life and peace are finally given priority, but where the principle of equality between Men and women is really practiced. "

After she left the SPD in 1979, she first became active in the other political association / The Greens as the top candidate for the European elections in the same year - she shared this position with Herbert Gruhl on a rotation principle . In 1980 Kelly became a founding member of the party The Greens , whose federal board spokeswoman she was.

In 1981 Petra Kelly took part in the peace demonstration against nuclear armament in Bonn's Hofgarten . In 1982 Gerhard Schröder wrote an article in Die Zeit for the book Principle Life published by Kelly with Jo Leinen at Olle & Wolter , in which ecological problems and a potential nuclear war are discussed. Kelly runs as the top candidate in the Bavarian state elections. The Greens failed with 4.6 percent of the five percent hurdle.

Also in 1982 she received the Right Livelihood Award . A year later she moved into the German Bundestag for the Greens. In the party's early years, Kelly was one of its most prominent members.

On May 4, 1983, she and the MP Gabriele Gottwald carried out a protest in the Bundestag on the occasion of a government declaration by Chancellor Helmut Kohl . Kohl was made responsible for the death of the German doctor Albrecht Pflaum, who had been murdered by Contras a few days earlier in Nicaragua . On May 12, Kelly, unfurled Gert Bastian and three other Green Bundestag member before the World Clock on Alexanderplatz in East Berlin, a banner reading "The Greens - swords into plowshares " and met by their temporary arrest with GDR opposition. The GDR authorities tolerated this because the West German Greens rejected the NATO double decision . In October 1983, Councilor of State Erich Honecker received Petra Kelly, Gert Bastian and other Greens for an interview. Kelly was wearing a sweater that said, "Swords to Plowshares" printed on it. She demanded the release of all "those arrested by the GDR peace movement" and asked Honecker why he was banning what he supported in the West in the GDR.

The focus of her work in parliament and in the group The Greens were peace policy , human rights and minorities . From 1985 Petra Kelly campaigned for Tibet . With a small question that she and her parliamentary group colleague Herbert Rusche brought in, she ensured that Tibet was mentioned in the German Bundestag for the first time. A series of further inquiries, several hearings, dialogues and correspondence with Chinese and German government representatives as well as contacts with the Tibetan government in exile and the Dalai Lama followed.

In 1986 she worked with Antje Vollmer and Christa Nickels to protect the life of unborn people and added the following sentence to the election manifesto of the Greens: "We recognize that unborn life is worth protecting."

In 1989 she founded the Association for Social Defense with Theodor Ebert in Minden and was also founding chairwoman. By this point, her influence within her party had already waned significantly.

In 1992 Kelly hosted the environmental series Five to twelve on Sat.1 . Together with her partner, political friend and parliamentary group colleague Gert Bastian, she maintained international contacts with peace and emancipation movements .

Social activity

After her half-sister Grace P. Kelly died of cancer in 1970 at the age of ten, Petra Kelly founded the " Grace P. Kelly Association eV " in 1973 together with acquaintances, friends, affected parents and doctors. The association designs in the form of a citizens' initiative a psychosocial care model for children with cancer and chronically ill and supports other projects of this kind from donations.

Publications

  • 1982: with Jo Leinen (ed.): Principle of life. Ökopax, the new force. (160 p.) Verlag Olle and Wolter, Berlin / W. 1982, ISBN 3-88395-711-9 .
  • 1982: with Manfred Coppik (Ed.): Where are we going? Texts from the movement. Oberbaumverlag, Berlin / W. 1982, ISBN 3-87628-198-9 .
  • 1983: Fight for Hope! Nonviolent into a green future. Lamuv-Verlag, Bornheim-Merten 1983, ISBN 3-921521-95-5 .
  • 1983: (Ed.): Let's look for the cranes. Hiroshima: analyzes, reports, thoughts. Werkhaus-Verlag, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-924228-01-9 .
  • 1986: (Ed.): Much love against pain. Childhood cancer. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1986, ISBN 3-499-15912-0 .
  • 1988: with Gert Bastian (ed.): Tibet: a raped country. Reports from the roof of the world. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1988, ISBN 3-499-12474-2 .
  • 1990: Think with your heart. Texts for a credible policy. Beck, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-406-33152-1 .
  • 1990: (Ed.): Tibet accuses. On the situation in an occupied country. Hammer, Wuppertal 1990, ISBN 3-87294-426-6 .
  • 1994: with Joseph Beuys : That night into which people… FIU-Verlag, Wangen 1994, ISBN 3-928780-07-7 .
  • 1997: Live as if you were going to die today. Texts and interviews. Zebulon-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1997, ISBN 3-928679-29-5 .

Honors

Petra-Kelly-Strasse in Munich-Schwabing

"No hi ha un camí vers la pau / La pau és l'únic camí / Petra Kelly / Dia de la Terra 1993"

"There is no way to peace / Peace is the only way / Petra Kelly / Earth Day 1993"

  • Streets and squares were also named after Petra Kelly: In April 2006, a section of Franz-Josef-Strauss -Allee in Bonn in the former government district (now the federal quarter ) was renamed Petra-Kelly-Allee. In the city ​​of Leganés bordering Madrid , a street and, since July 2011, a square in the Nuremberg district of Gostenhof, bear her name. In November 2011, the Munich City Council decided to name a street after Petra Kelly in the Schwabing district . In the Junkersdorf district of Cologne, Petra-Kelly-Weg delimits two sides of a new housing estate.
  • 2002: Light of Truth Award (posthumous)

literature

TV adaptation

Web links

Commons : Petra Kelly  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The old man and the girl . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1992 ( online ).
  2. ↑ The old man and the girl . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1992, pp. 22-27 ( online ).
  3. ^ Secret file history. februarfilm.de
  4. ↑ Story in the first: three-part documentation - history of secret files
  5. ^ Tomb of Petra Kelly. knerger.de
  6. ↑ Open letter to Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt , Archive Green Memory - Petra Kelly Archive - File 540, excerpts from it ( Memento from June 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ^ Rudolf van Hüllen : Ideology and power struggle among the Greens . Bonn 1990, p. 179
  8. ^ Foundation German Historical Museum, Foundation House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany: Just seen on LeMO: LeMO Biography: Petra Kelly. Retrieved February 26, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Udo Baron: Cold War and Hot Peace. The influence of the SED and its West German allies on the party 'The Greens'. Lit Verlag, 2003, ISBN 3-8258-6108-2 , p. 188 ; MDR: Back then in the East: Tragic symbolic figures: Petra Kelly and Gert Bastian
  10. ^ Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk: Endgame: The 1989 revolution in the GDR. CH Beck, 2nd reviewed edition, Munich 2009, ISBN 3-406-58357-1 , p. 247 ; Heinrich Böll Foundation: The Petra Kelly Archive
  11. ↑ Oliver Hoischen: The Greens and the Church - Through the monastery in politics . In: FAZ . November 19, 2007.
  12. ↑ Website of the Grace P. Kelly Association - formation of the association ( Memento from May 23, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  13. ^ Petra-Kelly-Allee in the Bonn street cadastre
  14. ↑ Calle de Petra Kelly on maps.google.de
  15. ↑ Petra-Kelly-Platz in Gostenhof (PDF; 58 kB). Decision of the Transport Committee of the City of Nuremberg on July 7, 2011.
  16. ↑ Alexander Brock: Monument for a symbolic figure of the eco-movement . In: Nürnberger Stadtanzeiger , July 19, 2011.
  17. ^ Resolution of the Municipal Committee of the City of Munich from November 17, 2011 - street naming in the 4th district of Schwabing-West (PDF; 412 kB).
  18. ↑ Kelly / Bastian: Story of a Hope in the Internet Movie Database (English) feature film 2001
  19. ↑ Happiness Is a Warm Gun in the Internet Movie Database (English)
personal data
SURNAME Kelly, Petra
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kelly, Petra Karin (full name); Lehmann, Petra Karin (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (Die Grünen), Member of the Bundestag, peace activist and founding member of the party Die Grünen
DATE OF BIRTH November 29, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Gunzburg
DATE OF DEATH uncertain: October 1, 1992
Place of death Bonn