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Hildegard Hamm-Brücher (11 May 1921 – 7 December 2016) was a liberal politician inGermany.[1] She held federal state secretary positions from 1969 to 1972 and from 1977 to 1982. She was theFree Democratic Party's candidate in the first two rounds of thefederal presidency elections in 1994.
Hamm-Brücher was born inEssen, Germany and grew up with four siblings in a non-political, bourgeois family. Her father was director of an electric firm; her mother maintained the household. Unexpectedly, her parents died within a year of each other when she was only ten and eleven years old. After the death of her parents, along with her siblings, she was brought up by her widowed grandmother inDresden. Her grandmother came from an industrial family, whose ancestors had converted fromJudaism toProtestantism. Hamm-Brücher received herAbitur in 1939 and studied chemistry inMunich. She received her doctorate in chemistry in 1945 and began working as a science journalist for theNeue Zeitung, an American-run newspaper, in what was then still occupied Germany.
Hamm-Brücher joined theFree Democratic Party in 1948. She was elected to theMunich city council from 1948 to 1954, theLandtag of Bavaria from 1950 to 1966 and again from 1970 to 1976, and theBundestag from 1976 to 1990. Hamm-Brücher focussed much of her work on education policy, and was appointed assecretary of state to theHessian and federal Ministry for Education in 1967 and 1969, respectively. She also served as aMinister of State in theGerman Foreign Office from 1977 to 1982, while her party was part of a coalition government with theSocial Democratic Party.
In 1982, the Free Democratic Party left that coalition in order to form a new coalition with theChristian Democratic Union. Rather than holding new elections, the Free Democrats supported aconstructive vote of no confidence againstChancellorHelmut Schmidt and in favor of Christian DemocratHelmut Kohl. Hamm-Brücher prominently opposed the new coalition itself, as well as the method of switching coalitions without an election. Subsequently she lost her position as Minister of State, but continued to serve as a member of the parliament until 1990.
Her party nominated her as the Free Democrats' candidate in theGerman presidential election in 1994. However, the Free Democratic Party, then still in a coalition with the much larger Christian Democratic Union under Chancellor Kohl, ultimately chose to support the Christian Democrat's candidateRoman Herzog in the election's third round. Herzog went on to win the election with the combined majority of Christian and Free Democrats.[2]
In 2002, Hamm-Brücher left the Free Democratic Party after a controversy withJürgen Möllemann about his election campaign that harshly criticizedAriel Sharon, thenPrime Minister of Israel.[3] She served as aGreen Party delegate to theFederal Convention for the purpose ofelecting the President of Germany in 2012.[4]
Hamm-Brücher died on 7 December 2016 at the age of 95.[5]
Hamm-Brücher authored several books and articles, often focussing on the state of modern democracy and the relationship between politics and ethical questions. She was a member of theGoethe Institute's biannual General Meeting.[6]
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