Hilde Mattheis | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of theBundestag | |
| In office 2002–2021 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1954-10-06)6 October 1954 (age 71) |
| Citizenship | German |
| Nationality |  Germany |
| Political party | SPD |
| Children | 2 |
Hildegard "Hilde" Mattheis (néeGudelius, born 6 October 1954) is a German teacher and politician of theSocial Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) who served as a member of theBundestag from 2002 until 2021.
Mattheis was born 1954 in the West German town ofFinnentrop and became a teacher.[1]
Mattheis entered the SPD in 1986 and is since 1995 member of the chairmanship of her party in the state association ofBaden-Württemberg.[2]
Mattheis first became a member of the German Bundestag in the2002 national elections, representingUlm.[3] Throughout her time in parliament, she served on the Committee on Health. In that capacity, she was her parliamentary group’srapporteur on issues includingelderly care andpsychiatry.[4] From 2002 until 2005, she was also a member of the Committee on Petitions.
Within the SPD parliamentary group, Mattheis belonged to the Parliamentary Left, a left-wing movement.[5] From 2005 until 2007, she was part of the parliamentary group’s leadership around chairmanPeter Struck. She was part of internal working groups on health (from 2002), migration and consumer protection (from 2019).
In 2009, Mattheis came in second only afterNils Schmid in an internal party vote on the leadership of the SPD in Baden-Württemberg;[6] she subsequently became one of his four deputies.
In the negotiations to form aGrand Coalition ofChancellorAngela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU together with the Bavarian CSU) and the SPD following the2013 federal elections, she was part of the SPD delegation in the working group on health policy, led byJens Spahn andKarl Lauterbach. Appointed byFederal Minister of HealthHermann Gröhe, she served as member of an expert commission on the reform of Germany’s hospital care from 2015 until 2017.[7]
Mattheis was (together with her running mate Dierk Hirschel) a candidate for the2019 Social Democratic Party of Germany leadership election;[8] however, she withdrew her candidacy shortly before the vote.
In July 2020, Mattheis announced that she would not stand in the2021 federal elections but instead resign from active politics by the end of the parliamentary term.[9]
Mattheis was one of the most vocal opponents of her party’s decision to enter into negotiations to form acoalition government under the leadership ofChancellorAngela Merkel following the2017 federal elections.[4][10][11] Between 2018 and 2019, she was the one member of the SPD parliamentary group who voted most often against theparty line.[12]
Mattheis and her husband live in Ulm’s Söflingen district.[13]
