Helga Adler

Last updated

Helga Adler (born Helga Obuchoff: 21 December 1943) spent the earlier part of her career as an East German historian and, latterly, politician. [1] She was politically engaged during the build up to German reunification, but in November 1991 resigned, sidelined and disillusioned, from what had by then become the Party of Democratic Socialism, [2] Since then she been formally unaffiliated politically, but very far from uninterested. [3]

She has been a committed feminist through most of her career, and was the director of the Paula Panke Women's Centre ("Frauenzentrum Paula Panke e.V.") in Berlin-Pankow between 1998 and 2009. [4]

Life

Helga Obuchoff was born in Praschnitz a mid-sized town in the Zichenau region of what had become East Prussia following the frontier changes agreed and implemented by the governments of Germany and the Soviet Union four years earlier, in 1939. Her father had volunteered for army service in 1939, and was promoted by the end of the war to the rank of a junior officer. After the ethnic cleansing of 1944/45 the Obuchoffs and their three children ended up living with relatives in the Harz region, before moving on and settling in Genthin, a small industrial town near Magdeburg, where Helga Obuchoff grew up. [3] The entire central portion of what had been Germany was administered as the Soviet occupation zone after 1945, and her father engaged in the politics of the time and place, becoming by 1956 the first secretary in the Genthin district of the Socialist Unity Party ("Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands" / SED), created in 1946 and, after October 1949, the ruling party in a new kind of German one- party dictatorship. [1] As a young mother in a war-ravaged country with a desperate shortage of working age males, Obuchoff's mother was able to benefit from education and other practical career support that would not have been available to German women of earlier generations, and later became the Operations Manager at Genthin's large sugar refinery. [3]

By the time she was old enough to attend secondary school, the education system had been reconfigured. Between 1950 and 1958 Obuchoff attended the Polytechnic Secondary School (Polytechnische Oberschule / POS) in Wernigerode and then, when the family relocated, moved on to the POS in Genthin. Between 1958 and 1962 she attended Genthin's well respected Extended Secondary School ("Erweiterte allgemeinbildende polytechnische Oberschule" / EOS) which was where, in 1962, she passed her School Final Exams (Abitur), opening the way to university level education. [1] However, her immediate next step, in 1962/63, was a training in Magdeburg as a draftswoman for the construction sector. [1]

It was only to be expected that, as the daughter of a dedicated party official, Helga Obuchoff had been a member of the party's youth wing, the Free German Youth ("Freie Deutsche Jugend" / FDJ) since 1958: in 1963 she became one of the by now one and a half million members of the country's ruling SED (party). [1] In 1963 she enrolled at Berlin's Humboldt University where she studied History and Art history, concluding her undergraduate studies in 1968 with a history degree. After this she worked between 1968 and 1974 as a researcher at the Party Central Committee's Academy for Social Sciences in Berlin, holding a teaching chair in history. [1] From 1974 to 1975, and again between 1978 and 1990, she held a post as a researcher at the International Politics and Economics Institute ("Institut für Internationale Politik und Wirtschaft" / IPW) in East Berlin. [1] Between 1975 and 1978 she combined her roles in Berlin with her work as a researcher at the International Peace Institute ("Internationales Institut für Frieden") in Vienna, where the focus of her work was on the peace movement. [5] However, in 1979 it was from the IPW in Berlin that she received her doctorate for work on socialist and democratic movements and the peace movement in Western Europe and the USA ("...soziale und demokratische Bewegungen sowie über die Friedensbewegung in Westeuropa und den USA "), [1] subjects on which as an established researcher at the Institute she was also able to act as an advisor to the political establishment. [3] She was also able to apply herself to contemporary social movements in her study of the German Federal Republic (West Germany), such as the "new political platforms in the struggle against nuclear power" among which she identified students, women, gays and lesbians. [3]

1989 was a year of increasing street protests in East Germany, mirrored by a loss of self-confidence within the party leadership which reflected uncertainty over the extent to which any traditional hard-line government response to the protestors would be supported by Mikhail Gorbachev, whose advocacy of greater openness had actually encouraged political discussion in East Germany. Underlying the political tensions was the financial bankruptcy of the state which was forcing the government to solicit additional funding from West Germany. In June 1989 Adler was a member of an East German delegation headed up by Egon Krenz for an exploratory meeting with Oskar Lafontaine. [3] The meeting was important because Krenz and LaFontaine were seen as potential future leaders of their countries at a time when Erich Honnecker was well past retirement age and Helmut Kohl had already been in power for eight years. LaFontaine occupied a position on the political left within (for most of the time) the West German political establishment, while there were hopes that Krenz might be more open to new ideas than the existing East German geruntocracy. At a time when few dared (or, from the position of the East Germany political establishment, wished) to contemplate reunification, good personal relations between LaFontaine and Krenz nevertheless offered the prospect of closer future relations between East and West Germany. Adler later recalled their meeting, at which LaFontaine had politely but firmly criticised the recent so-called Tiananmen Square Massacre and condemned the falsification of election results in East Germany. [3] Krenz initially responded expansively and positively, but then appeared to withdraw his earlier comments after receiving fresh instructions from the leadership in Berlin. [3]

The breach of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the subsequent realisation that Soviet troops in East Germany had no orders to intervene in order to suppress popular dissent, appeared to rule out a rerun in Berlin of the 1968 Prague Spring or of East Germany's own sad experiences back in 1953. This triggered a series of events which presaged political change and which, as matters turned out, culminated in German reunification, formally in October 1990. There were those who thought the survival of East Germany's ruling SED (party) in doubt. At the end of 1989 Helga Adler was one of those who took a lead in insisting that the old party could and must be reformed in order to preserve socialist values through an uncertain future, as part of which she took a lead in establishing what one source defines as the "Initiative Movement" ("Initiativbewegung") which was part of the process leading to the emergence of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), which as the discredited authoritarianism of the German Democratic Republic crumbled, could evolve into something better able to operate under democratic structures. [3] Between March 1990 and November 1991 Helga Adler served as a member of the PDS party executive ("Parteivorstand"). [1] Within the leadership team, reflecting her years of academic research, she headed up the Commission on Foreign Policy, Pressure Groups and Labour Associations. [1] In February and March 1991 Helga Adler also served as spokesperson for the party executive. [1] Nevertheless, in November 1991 she resigned from all her party offices, also resigning her party membership. She complained of a monolithic approach by the new party leadership under Gregor Gysi, that left insufficient room for discussion, even though he was keen, for external consumption, to present the party as something colourful, diverse, feminine, punky and youthful ("... als etwas Buntes, Vielfältiges, Weibliches, Punkiges, Junges"). [3] Several of the party's "more progressive" comrades resigned at the same time, apparently for broadly the same reasons. [2]

From December 1991 till the start of 1993 Adler worked as a researcher in "Netzwerk Wissenschaft" in Berlin. Between 1992 and 1999 she was a member of the executive board with the Marburg based Association of Democratic Scientists and Scholars ("Bund demokratischer Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler"), a left-leaning think tank / pressure group. [1] In 1997 she accepted the directorship of the Paula Panke Women's Centre ("Frauenzentrum Paula Panke e.V.") in Berlin-Pankow, running the centre with energy and commitment [6] till 2008 [3] or 2009. [4] She also, in 1999, became spokeswoman for the "Berlin Women's Network" ("Berliner FrauenNetzwerk"). [1]

Since 2011 Adler has represented The Left (party) in the Berlin-Pankow local council, although formally she remains unaffiliated politically. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Party of Democratic Socialism (Germany)</span> German democratic socialist political party

The Party of Democratic Socialism was a democratic socialist political party in Germany active between 1989 and 2007. It was the legal successor to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), which ruled the German Democratic Republic as a state party until 1990. From 1990 through to 2005, the PDS had been seen as the left-wing "party of the East". While it achieved minimal support in western Germany, it regularly won 15% to 25% of the vote in the eastern new states of Germany, entering coalition governments with the Social Democratic Party of Germany in the federal states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Socialist Unity Party of Germany</span> Founding and ruling party of East Germany

The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic from the country's foundation in 1949 until its dissolution after the Peaceful Revolution in 1989. It was a Marxist–Leninist communist party, established in 1946 as a merger of the East German branches of the Communist Party of Germany and Social Democratic Party of Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Egon Krenz</span> Head of state of East Germany (born 1937)

Egon Rudi Ernst Krenz is a German former politician who was the last Communist leader of the German Democratic Republic during the Revolutions of 1989. He succeeded Erich Honecker as the General Secretary of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) but was forced to resign only weeks later when the Berlin Wall fell.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gregor Gysi</span> German lawyer and left-wing politician

Gregor Florian Gysi is a German attorney, former president of the Party of the European Left and a prominent politician of The Left political party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Petra Pau</span> German politician, Vice-President of the Bundestag

Petra Pau is a German politician of The Left. She has been a member of the Bundestag since 1998. Since 2006, she has also served as one of the Vice Presidents of the Bundestag, being the first member of her party to hold this office. Pau belongs to the reform-oriented wing of her party, actively supporting parliamentary representative democracy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vera Lengsfeld</span> German politician

Vera Lengsfeld is a German politician. She was a prominent civil rights activist in East Germany and after the German reunification she first represented the Alliance 90/The Greens and then the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the Bundestag.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ingeburg Lange</span> German politician (1927–2013)

Ingeburg "Inge" Lange was an East German politician.

Marlies Deneke is a German politician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angelika Gramkow</span> German politician

Angelika Gramkow is a German politician.

Ursula Fischer is a German former national politician (PDS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Petra Bläss</span> German politician

Petra Bläss is a German politician. She served in the German parliament (Bundestag) between 1990 and 2002, and was a Bundestag vice-president between 1998 and 2002.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angelika Barbe</span> German politician

Angelika Barbe is a German biologist who became a politician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birgit Klaubert</span> German politician

Birgit Klaubert is a German politician and former vice president of the Thuringian regional parliament ("Landtag"). From 2014 to 2017 Klaubert served as Thuringia's Minister for Education, Youth and Sport.

Helga Mucke-Wittbrodt was a German physician. For nearly forty years she was the medical director at the East German Government Hospital. In connection with this, for forty years she was a member of the National legislature, representing not a political party but the Democratic Women's League. Although her medical abilities were evidently well attested, the length of her tenure at the hospital and the number of national honours that she accumulated over the years indicate that she was also highly prized by the authorities for her discretion and "political reliability".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carola Bluhm</span> German politician

Carola Bluhm is a German politician. Since 1991 she has been a member of the Berlin House of Representatives. In 2009 she became a member of the Senate of Berlin in which, between 16 October 2009 and 2011, she served as senator for Integration, Work and Social Affairs in the Red–red coalition administration of Klaus Wowereit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dagmar Enkelmann</span> German politician

Dagmar Enkelmann is a German politician of Die Linke party.

Jutta Braband is a former German politician. In the German Democratic Republic she was a civil rights activist who after 1990 became a PDS member of the Germany parliament (Bundestag). Her parliamentary career ended in May 1992 after it had become known that fifteen years earlier she had worked for the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) as a registered informant .

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christa Luft</span> German economist and politician

Christa Luft is a German economist and politician of the SED/PDS. Luft joined the SED in 1958. From 18 November 1989 to 18 March 1990, she was the Minister of Economics in the Modrow government. From 1994 to 2002 she was member of the Bundestag for the PDS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dietmar Keller</span> East German politician (born 1942)

Dietmar Keller was an East German politician (SED/PDS) who served as Minister for Culture in the Modrow government. After reunification he sat as a member of the German parliament ("Bundestag") between 1990 and 1994.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Käte Niederkirchner</span> German politician (1944-2019)

Käte Niederkirchner was a German politician and pediatrician. In 1967 she became the youngest member of the East German parliament ("Volkskammer"). Her life was impacted by having been born with a famous aunt, the Communist resistance activist Käthe Niederkirchner who was killed by Nazi paramilitaries at Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1944, and who was posthumously much celebrated by East Germany's political leadership.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Helmut Müller-Enbergs. "Adler, Helga geb. Obuchoff * 21.12.1943 PDS-Politikerin". Wer war wer in der DDR?. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin & Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur, Berlin. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
  2. 1 2 "Magdeburger Strudel: Die alte SED-Riege lähmt die PDS - Reformer geben resigniert auf". Der Spiegel (online). 9 December 1991. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Peter Steiniger (6 October 2009). "»Der Westen war für mich was ganz Schlimmes«  ..... Ein Gespräch mit Helga Adler. Über den Abfall vom Glauben, verpaßte Reformchancen in der DDR und weibliche Selbstbestimmung heute". linke perspektive This source includes a photo-portrait. junge Welt . Retrieved 9 August 2016.
  4. 1 2 "Projekte-Rückblick". Frauenzentrum Paula Panke e.V., Berlin. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
  5. 1 2 "Dr. Helga Adler Listenplatz 3 für die Bezirksverordnetenversammlung Pankow von Berlin". biographical summary in connection with 2011 local council election. This source includes a photo-portrait. Die Linke Landesverband Berlin – Landesvorstand. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
  6. Jan Thomsen (11 September 2007). "ZWEITER ARBEITSMARKT - Berlins Gegenmodell zum Ein-Euro-Job heißt "öffentlich geförderter Beschäftigungssektor". Mit Bundeshilfe will die rot-rote Koalition so Tausenden neue Arbeit und Perspektiven geben. Ob die Idee funktioniert, ist offen. Perspektiven zweiter Klasse". Berliner Zeitung . Retrieved 10 August 2016.