Heidi Knake-Werner is a German politician (Die Linke). She served as a member of theGerman parliament ("Bundestag") between 1994 and 2002. Between 2002 and 2009 she was one ofBerlin's more high-profilesenators.[1][2]
Heidi Knake was born inTomaschow (as it was known at that time), a midsized industrial town to the south-west ofWarsaw which had been inCongress Poland before theFirst World War, inPoland subsequently, and since1939 part ofNazi Germany.[3] However, by the time she was 2extensive ethnic cleansing in what had again becomePoland in 1945 had already removed most of the German-speaking population, and she grew up inWilhelmshaven on Germany's north-western coast.[3] Knake passed herAbitur (school final exams) in 1964 which opened the way to university-level education.[2] She then progressed to theUniversity of Göttingen, emerging in 1969 with a degree inSocial Economics.[4] There followed a period of post-graduate research and study atOldenburg. It was from the university atOldenburg that in 1978 she received her doctorate inSocial Sciences,[5] and where till 1987 she stayed on as a researcher into topics such as family, education and industrial sociology. That year she switched to theUniversity of Bremen.[2]
Heike Knake became aDGB (trades union) member in 1969, and has been a member of a succession of unions subsequently.[6] She joined theSocial Democratic Party ("Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands" / SPD) in 1970, and became increasingly engaged politically, both within the party and in local politics more generally, serving for four years as a municipal councillor inOldenburg.[7] For some of this time she was the deputy leader of theSPD group on the council.[8] However, at the height of the ructions over professional blocks for members of extremist political parties, in 1981 she resigned from theSPD and joined theGerman Communist Party. This came directly after the increasingly "moderate" SPD party executive had launched its own "party operation" ("Parteiordnungsverfahren") against the "renitente Linke" (loosely "reluctant left").[7][9] She remained aCommunist Party member till 1989.[6]
In 2009 Heidi Knake-Werner was asked about her decision to join the West German Communist Party:
- "I joined theCommunist Party in the early 1980s not because of theGerman Democratic Republic but despite of it. For a West German leftist like me there were plenty of reasons to work for socialistic alternatives. I had been a member of theSPD and had seen how the party had helped to push theNATO Double-Track Decision, how it helped to push theBerufsverbote, how it had further and further abandonedWilly Brandt's vision of ademocratic socialism."
- "…ich bin Anfang der 80er Jahre nicht wegen der DDR in die DKP eingetreten, sondern trotz der DDR. Für eine Westlinke wie mich gab es in jenen Jahren genügend Gründe, sich für gesellschaftliche Alternativen einzusetzen. Ich kam ja aus der SPD und hatte dort erlebt, wie die SPD den Nato-Doppelbeschluss mit vorangetrieben hat, wie sie Berufsverbote vorangetrieben hat, wie sie sich immer weiter von Willy Brandts Vorstellungen eines demokratischen Sozialismus verabschiedet hat."[1]
Heidi Knake-Werner interviewed by Lars von Törne in 2009
TheGerman Communist Party never gained electoral traction with West German voters, partly because of a widespread belief that across the"inner border" inEast Germany the supposedly pro-communistruling party was principally a tool of Soviet imperial expansionist ambitions.[10] Sources are almost entirely silent about Heidi Knake-Werner's nine years as a member of theGerman Communist Party. In 1990 she changed her political allegiance again, joining theParty of Democratic Socialism (PDS), recently relaunched as a successor to the oldEast GermanSocialist Unity Party, as younger members of what had till recently been East Germany's ruling political establishment struggled to prepare for a democratic future, followingthe changes of 1989/90.Reunification took place suddenly, formally, in October 1990, and during the rest of that year it was still unusual for a western politician to join the PDS: most of the relatively small number who did so came not from the West German Communist Party but from theSPD. Her own transition gave Knake-Werner a reputation as a political maverick which she has subsequently seemed to relish.[1]
At the second party conference of thePDS, held in Berlin on 26/27 January 1991, she was elected a member of the party executive, and was also one of just four PDS members fromformer West Germany to be voted onto the party presidium.[6] Later that year she accepted an offer from the youthful PDS Bundestag member,Petra Bläss to work as a parliamentary researcher for the PDS group in the Bundestag. For Heidi Knake-Werner it was the start of a Bundestag career that would last for more than a decade.[6] In 1994 Knake-Werner herselfwas elected to theBundestag. She stood as a list-candidate from the "Aschersleben–Bernburg–Quedlinburg" electoral district where the party failed to clear the 5% hurdle necessary to send members to the Bundestag. However, in the recently re-established state ofSaxony-Anhalt, thePDS received 18% of the total vote and was thereby entitled to nominate 4 additional members: Heidi Knake-Werner was one of those nominated.[6]
During the 1994-1998 parliamentary session Knake-Werner was a deputy chairperson of thePDS parliamentary group, under the leadership ofGregor Gysi. In the Bundestag she took on responsibility for her party's "Labour market and social policy" portfolio. She also represented the PDS position to the parliamentary committee for "Labour and Social Affairs" and on the parliamentary "Health committee". That reflected several of the areas on which she had already focused while working before 1994 as a parliamentary researcher forPetra Bläss. Other themes in which she took a particular interest included pensions policy, family matters and gender equality, both in the workplace and more widely. She also engaged with more overtly feminist agenda issues such as the ongoing debates about abortion legislation, an issue on respect of which the country had inherited more conventionally "liberal" laws from communist East Germany than from capitalist West Germany. The carefully detailed nature of her numerous annotation included in party archives make it clear that she contributed extensively to the content and coherence of the party's position papers on many of these topics. During the 1994-1998 Bundestag session Heidi Knake-Werner was the author or co-author of 3 draft laws, 18 parliamentary motions, 3 motions for resolution, and 30 amendments as well as of 4 major question applications and 67 minor question applications. She delivered 56 speeches in plenary parliamentary sessions and issued 135 press statements. She was also a member of the PDS parliamentary delegation that took part in theFourth International United Nations Women's Forum held inBeijing during the first part of September 1995.[6]
In the1998 General election Knake-Werner was re-elected. The PDS increased its share of the national vote from 4.4% to 5.1%. Breaking through to 5% hurdle significantly increased the party's strength in the Bundestag, notably in respect of appointments to parliamentary committees. In addition, for the first time the PDS was able to nominate a member to the Bundestag presidium.[6] During the parliamentary session, till 2002, Knake-Werner served as a member of the executive of the PDS parliamentary group, and till October 2000 she was also deputy leader of the PDS Bundstag group.[6][11] Then, as part of a general shake-up at the top of the parliamentary party that accompanied the unexpected resignation from the leadership ofGregor Gysi, in October 2000 she was, some felt, demoted when she became the parliamentary group's "First Parliamentary Business Leader" ("Erste Parlamentarische Geschäftsführerin"),[11] remaining in post till January 2002.[6] The PDS group were now able to send her as a full member to the Bundestag committee for "Labour and Social Affairs", of which till October 2000 she served as a deputy chairwoman. In respect of the deputy chairmanship role she was replaced when she became "First Parliamentary Business Leader" of the PDS, but she continued to play her part as the PDS member of the committee.[6]
Separately, by 2002 she was serving as honorary chairwomen of the German-Portuguese parliamentary group.[6] On 17 February 2002 Heidi Knake-Werner resigned from theBundestag in order to take up new duties as aBerlin senator.[6] Her successor in the Bundestag wasWolfgang Bierstedt.[12]
Between 17 January 2002 and November 2006 Heid Knake-Werner served as theBerlin senator for Health, Social affairs and Consumer protection.[13] She switched portfolios on 23 November 2006, becoming the senator for Integration, Labour and Social affairs.[13] In theBerlin election of September 2006 she was elected a member of theCity Parliament ("Abgeordnetenhaus"), but half a year later she withdrew from the chamber in order to be able to focus on her ministerial duties. Then, on 15 October 2009, she resigned her office on grounds of age.[2][13]
In October 2010 she was elected to chair the Berlin regionVolkssolidarität ("People's Solidarity"), a welfare organisation for the over 65s which traces its origins back toEast Berlin and the oldGerman Democratic Republic, but which survived the traumas ofreunification better than most of the state mandated East German institutions.[14] In 2014 a further election confirmed her in office. By that time it was reported that the Berlin Volkssolidarität was operating around 70 day centers, retirement homes and other facilities in Berlin.[4]
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