Ulla Schmidt (politician, 1949)

Ulla Schmidt (2013)

Ursula "Ulla" Schmidt (* 13. June 1949 in Aachen as Ursula Radermacher ) is a German politician ( SPD ). She was Federal Minister of Health from January 2001 to October 2009 (2002 to 2005 also for Social Security) and, with a term of eight years and nine months, is the longest-serving Federal Minister of Health to date. From 2013 to 2017 she was Vice President of the German Bundestag .

Life and work

She grew up with a single mother, a factory worker. After attending secondary school and the construction of high school at the Municipal Einhard Gymnasium in Aachen Ulla Schmidt began after the High School in 1968, a psychology -Studies at the Hochschule in Aachen and the University of Education of the RWTH Aachen and at the Pedagogical University in Aachen for the teaching of basic - and secondary school, which she finished in 1974 with the first and in 1976 with the second state examination . Since she, as a member of the student organization of the Communist Federation of West Germany (KBW), refused to sign a declaration of commitment to the Basic Law , she fell under the radical decree and was not accepted into the school service. She then worked as an assistant to the management in Aachen at the Woolworth department store . From 1976 to 1985 she was a teacher for special education and for the rehabilitation of learning disabled and educationally difficult children at the school for learning disabled in Stolberg . From 1980 to 1984 she studied part-time at the Fernuniversität in Hagen for the teaching post for the rehabilitation of learning disabled and educationally difficult pupils. From 1985 to 1990 she was a teacher at the Astrid Lindgren School for Educational Aid in the Aachen district in Eschweiler .

Schmidt is Catholic , divorced and has had a daughter since 1971.

Party and parliamentary activity

In the 1976 federal election , Schmidt ran in vain in the Aachen-Stadt constituency as a direct candidate and took second place on the NRW state list for the Maoist KBW . She became a member of the SPD in 1983. Schmidt is a member of the board of the SPD sub-district of Aachen and of the party council. She is also a member of the leadership group of the Seeheimer Kreis and has been a member of the SPD party convention since June 2012.

Schmidt was a councilor for the city of Aachen from 1989 to 1992. She has been a member of the German Bundestag since 1990 . From 1991 to 1998 she was chair of the cross-sectional group “Equality between women and men”. From 1991 she was a member of the executive committee of the SPD parliamentary group and from November 1998 to January 2001 deputy parliamentary group leader. During this time she was also the representative of the SPD on the ZDF television council until she was appointed Federal Minister.

Schmidt entered the Bundestag in 1990 and 1994 via the state list of North Rhine-Westphalia and then in the 1998, 2002 and 2005 elections as a directly elected member of the Aachen constituency . In the 2005 Bundestag election she received 40.5% of the first votes . In the 2009 Bundestag election Ulla Schmidt lost her direct mandate; it moved back into the German Bundestag via the SPD's state list, just as in 2013 and 2017 . In the 19th Bundestag she is u. a. Chairwoman in the subcommittee on foreign cultural and educational policy .

Public offices

After the Minister of Health Andrea Fischer resigned in the wake of the BSE crisis , Ulla Schmidt was appointed Federal Minister of Health on January 12, 2001 . After the Bundestag election, your ministry also received the competencies for social affairs from the dissolved Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. She has therefore been Federal Minister for Health and Social Security since October 22, 2002 . In this role, Ulla Schmidt played a key role in the “Law to Modernize Statutory Health Insurance”. Since 2004, the full health insurance contribution has to be paid on the company pension scheme. On November 22, 2005, she was appointed Federal Minister of Health in the Federal Government of the Grand Coalition led by Angela Merkel .

On July 29, 2009, Schmidt announced that she was temporarily waiving her membership in the SPD's “competence team” for the 2009 Bundestag election in order to “not affect her party's election campaign”. This was preceded by intensive media coverage of the use of their company car. This had been stolen in Spain after she had ordered it for two business appointments near her holiday destination and for self-use there, which was subject to billing. After her return, Schmidt decided to bill the entire journey - up to 72 kilometers for business trips in Spain - as self-use. The car was found a few days later. In August 2009, the Federal Audit Office confirmed the proper use of the company car. On August 8, 2009 she was appointed to the “competence team” of the SPD chancellor candidate Frank-Walter Steinmeier . On October 27, 2009, Schmidt received her certificate of discharge as Minister of Health.

Since February 2010, as a member of the SPD in the Bundestag, she has been a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and the deputy head of the German delegation. She also works as a full member of the “Foreign Cultural and Educational Policy” subcommittee and the “Culture and Media” committee. She is a deputy member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the “Civilian Crisis Prevention and Networked Security” subcommittee.

According to a report in the Stuttgarter Nachrichten , Schmidt is one of the members of the German Bundestag with the highest additional income, and she receives a significant proportion of this with the remuneration of a position as a member of the board of directors of the Swiss pharmaceutical company Siegfried Holding .

In local politics, she is particularly involved in health projects in Aachen.

Extra-parliamentary engagement

She is a deputy member of the board of directors of the Berlin Film Promotion Agency .

She is an honorary member of the German UNESCO Commission and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for the House of History of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn.

At the federal congress of the German Federal Association of Lebenshilfe on September 22, 2012 in Marburg, Schmidt was elected as the successor to Robert Antretter as the federal chairman of Lebenshilfe until 2016.

Ulla Schmidt has also been a member of the Aktion Mensch supervisory board since May 2013 . Schmidt is the patron of the German Hospice and Palliative Foundation.

Cabinets

• Cabinet Schröder I - Cabinet Schröder II
• Merkel I cabinet

reception

satire

In the sketch show Reformhaus Schmidt of the radio station WDR 2 , her role as Minister of Health was parodied by Katrin Schmick as Ullala from 2003, which became a cult. A selection of sketches appeared on the CD reform Haus Schmidt - otherwise would namely bad ... .

Honors

Ulla Schmidt with the Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia

• Schmidt was awarded the Elisabeth Norgall Prize in 1984.
• She was awarded the Marie Juchacz plaque from the Arbeiterwohlfahrt in 2009.
• It was a special price of 2002 the city of Aachen THOUET dialect price 3-king-chain for outstanding performance to promote the Aachen dialect awarded
• In 2010 she received the Grand Decoration of Honor in Gold on Ribbon for Services to the Republic of Austria .
• 2018 Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia

literature

• Munzinger International Biographical Archive. 06/2008 from February 5, 2008 (rw), supplemented by news up to calendar week 34/2009.
• Tilman Mayer , Sabrina van der Pütten: Schmidt born. Radermacher, Ursula ("Ulla"). In: Udo Kempf, Markus Gloe: Chancellor and Minister 1988–2005. Biographical lexicon of the German federal governments. Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-531-14605-8 , pp. 291-300.

Individual evidence

1. ^ The end of a business trip Focus Online, July 30, 2009
2. ^ U. Schmidt: Open letter to the district president in Cologne. Against the obligation to the Basic Law and the KPD ban , Aachen 1976
3. ↑ Interview with Schmidt ( Memento of the original from November 17, 2012 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. at gerwin.de , accessed on October 30, 2012. 
4. ^ Corinna Emundts: Ulla and the Communists in Cicero , April 2006
5. ^ ^{A b} SPD election campaign without Ulla Schmidt. In: focus.de. July 29, 2009. Retrieved July 29, 2009 . 
6. ^ Letter from the Federal Audit Office of August 5, 2009 on the website of the Federal Ministry of Health.
7. ↑ Ulla Schmidt prefers performance auditing. Report from Zeit online from August 10, 2009
8. ↑ Handelsblatt on the Internet, “Dienstwagenaffäre”, accessed on August 8, 2009
9. ↑ Ulla Schmidt in the SPD election campaign team
10. ↑ Stuttgarter Nachrichten, Stuttgart Germany: Additional income in the Bundestag: Ulla Schmidt's lucrative work alongside. Retrieved December 27, 2018 . 
11. ↑ [1] Homepage Ulla Schmidt accessed on December 19, 2010
12. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated August 24, 2010 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. Website of the German Bundestag, Ulla Schmidt, SPD, accessed on December 19, 2010 
13. ↑ Ulla Schmidt took over the chairmanship of Lebenshilfe ( memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Press release from Lebenshilfe dated September 23, 2012, accessed September 24, 2012 
14. ↑ www.dhp-stiftung.de patronage
15. ↑ [2]
16. ↑ Ullala feels really good in Aachen , Aachener Nachrichten, 23 November 2004
17. ↑ Ulla Schmidt , Der Spiegel 24/2004, June 7, 2004
18. ↑ Ullala Schmidt: Reformhaus Schmidt - Anders Wär Namlich Schlecht ..., CD, 2004 , musik-sammler.de
19. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)
20. ↑ Award of the State Order of Merit of North Rhine-Westphalia on July 2, 2018

Web links

Commons : Ulla Schmidt  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Biography at the German Bundestag
• Homepage of Ulla Schmidt
• Federal Ministry of Health
• Ulla Schmidt on parliamentwatch.de