Wilhelmine Lübke

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Wilhelmine Lübke with her husband and Queen Sirikit of Thailand
At the diplomatic reception in 1968

Wilhelmine Lübke , née Keuthen (born May 9, 1885 in Ramsbeck in the Sauerland ; † May 3, 1981 in Bonn ), was the wife of German President Heinrich Lübke . The former student councilor and her husband performed representative duties for Germany .

Live and act

First she was a village school teacher, studied mathematics , German language and literature as well as philosophy in Münster from 1911 and then taught as a teacher at the Franziskus-Oberlyceum in Berlin-Schöneberg . She met Lübke in Berlin and they married on April 4, 1930 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. The marriage remained childless.

In contrast to her husband, she was very fluent in languages ​​and spoke English , French , Spanish , Italian and Russian . Many saw her as the driving force behind her husband. Especially when his health began to fluctuate at the end of his term as Federal President, she was a silent support to him and the office.

social commitment

Social engagement shaped her time as the “First Lady” of the Federal Republic. In 1962 she and her husband founded the Kuratorium Deutsche Altershilfe (KDA). This became her life's work as the “Wilhelmine Lübke Foundation” and awards the Wilhelmine Lübke Prize . Among other things, she developed the idea of ​​introducing meals on wheels as well as the basics for short-term and day care of the elderly. With great commitment, in 1974 she encouraged the idea of ​​her doctor friend, Mildred Scheel , to found the German Cancer Aid as the wife of the then head of state .

During her husband's tenure, Wilhelmine Lübke took over the chairmanship of the maternal recovery organization that her predecessor Elly Heuss-Knapp had founded in 1950. In doing so, she gave this institution a new impetus and ensured that all women of subsequent Federal Presidents automatically take on this honorary position to this day. Wilhelmine Lübke worked a. a. also in the common sense campaign and in UNICEF . Quote: “Anyone who looks after others has no time to be old ...” True to this attitude, she still worked several hours a week in a children's department at the University of Bonn clinic when she was old. Like the two presidential wives Heuss-Knapp and Scheel, she is gratefully remembered by millions of citizens with her non-profit institution beyond death.

politics and society

Without an official mandate and paid office, Wilhelmine Lübke has influenced “politics for the citizens” in the ten years at the side of the Federal President. She and her husband shared their appreciation for the people of the Third World and promoted the use of German development aid . After the reign of Konrad Adenauer , she also has a. a. Heinrich Lübke encouraged in his advocacy of a grand coalition of CDU / CSU and SPD.

In post-war Germany it also had a major impact on social life. One of the goals was to spread “splendor and dignity” in Germany again. So she made Konrad Adenauer's first protocol lady Erica Pappritz a competent and loyal ally. The principle “you wear tails and medals again” quickly found favor with the “old man from Rhöndorf”.

State visits as a cultural contribution

State visits in both directions were cultivated as a cultural contribution to international understanding . Wilhelmine Lübke, nine years older than her husband, took part in a total of 36 state visits to Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America. In 1969, at the age of 84, she completed her last grueling presidential trip with visits to the up-and-coming states of Ivory Coast , Niger and Chad .

Under Heinrich Lübke and his wife Wilhelmine, the Petersberg in the Siebengebirge with a view of the Rhine, Augustusburg Castle in Brühl and the Redoute in Bonn-Bad Godesberg became a “good room” of the republic. The glamorous reception of the first state visit of the British Queen Elizabeth II also took place at Brühl Castle in 1965 . The Queen thus returned the first German state visit after the Second World War, which Theodor Heuss paid Great Britain in 1958 .

Wilhelmine Lübke was particularly interested in the state visit to Emperor Haile Selassie in Ethiopia. He was the first foreign head of state to make a state visit to Germany after the Nazi era in 1954, thereby contributing to the international reputation of the young Federal Republic. When the Neguse Negest Haile Selassie I abdicated after a military coup on September 12, 1974, Wilhelmine Lübke demanded in countless letters to heads of state and politicians all over the world that the Christian monarch should not be allowed to die “in a goat pen”. However, it could not prevent the prisoner's death, which is still mysterious to this day.

The good bye

Even after the end of her husband's tenure, Wilhelmine Lübke remained a social center in the federal capital . The couple lived in their one-family house, built after the war, on the edge of the forest on the Venusberg , where they often received private visitors from all over the world.

After Heinrich Lübke's death in 1972, who according to medical reports suffered from stomach cancer, the widow had her last major public appearance at the state ceremony and the requiem for the former Federal President on April 13, 1972 in Cologne Cathedral . On her initiative, the Heinrich-Lübke-Haus was founded as a museum in 1975 at her husband's birthplace in Sundern- Enkhausen . The memory of the wife of the second head of state of the Federal Republic of Germany is preserved in this memorial in Lübke's birthplace. The former director of the Roman-Germanic Museum in Cologne , Hugo Borger , had designed the exhibition. Not far from the memorial is the Enkhausen cemetery with the family grave. There Wilhelmine Lübke found her final resting place at her husband's side.

Honors

literature

  • Heike Specht: “Your side of the story. Germany and its First Ladies from 1949 until today ”, Piper-Verlag, Munich 2019. ISBN 978-3-492-05819-3

Web links

Commons : Wilhelmine Lübke  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Luebke, Wilhelmine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Keuthen, Wilhelmine (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician, chairwoman of the maternal convalescence organization
DATE OF BIRTH May 9, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Ramsbeck
DATE OF DEATH May 3, 1981
Place of death Bonn