kna | Rita Süssmuth, former President of the Bundestag and Federal Minister, is dead. The CDU politician died at the age of 88, as Bundestag President Julia Klöckner announced on Sunday. In June 2024, Süssmuth made her breast cancer public. Klöckner praised her as “one of the most important politicians in the Federal Republic”.
Süssmuth was born in Wuppertal in 1937. At the age of 34, she took on a professorship in educational sciences. In the 1970s she headed a chair at the University of Dortmund and at the same time worked on committees in the Family Ministry. In 1981 she joined the CDU. In 1985, she became Federal Minister for Youth, Family and Health under Chancellor Helmut Kohl. A year later, she also took over the women’s department and thus became Germany’s first federal minister for women.
From 1988 to 1998, she was the second woman after Annemarie Renger (SPD) to be President of the Bundestag and thus also the first female Speaker of Parliament in reunified Germany. In this role, she courageously campaigned for the wrapping of the Reichstag building by the artist couple Christo and Jeanne-Claude in the summer of 1995.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) praised Süssmuth as a “great politician” and a “guiding star for our democratic community. As Federal Minister and President of the German Bundestag, she is a “role model and also a pioneer, not least for the Equal rights and the political effectiveness of women“, explained Merz.
Federal Minister for Women Karin Prien (CDU) also described her predecessor as a great role model. “She has been a strong voice for families and women for decades, not just as family and women’s minister. She has put women’s and equality policy issues at the top of the agenda, where they still belong today.”
During her political career, Süssmuth fought, among other things, for the reform of abortion paragraph 218 and was committed to helping people with AIDS. With the principle of “prevention instead of exclusion” she prevailed despite resistance.
The politician also set priorities in her party’s very controversial migration policy: back in the mid-1990s, she was the first prominent CDU politician to call for a clear commitment to Germany as a country of immigration. From 2000 to 2001 she headed the immigration commission of the red-green federal government. From 2002 to 2004 she chaired the Expert Council for Immigration and Integration formed by Federal Interior Minister Otto Schily (SPD). From 2003 to 2005 she worked on the Global Commission on International Migration, which was set up by the UN.
Numerous positions after his political career
Even after her political career, Süssmuth continued to hold numerous public offices. In 2003 she was appointed to the newly founded Advisory Commission in connection with the return of cultural property confiscated as a result of Nazi persecution, particularly from Jewish property (“Limbach Commission”). Since 2005 she has been president of the German Poland Institute, of which she was most recently honorary president. She also chaired the German Adult Education Association for over 27 years and has been honorary president since 2015.
Süssmuth was also active as a Catholic. She headed the “Marriage and Family” commission at the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) and served as vice president of the Catholic Family Association from 1980 to 1985.