Annemarie Renger


Annemarie Renger,, was a German politician for the Social Democratic Party of Germany.
From 1972 until 1976 she served as the 5th President of the Bundestag. She was the first woman to hold this office and the first woman to hold one of the five highest federal offices of the Federal Republic of Germany.
She was nominated as the presidential candidate of the SPD in 1979, the first woman to be nominated for President by a major party.

Biography

Annemarie Renger attended the "Augusta-Lyzeum" in Berlin, an all female high school. Her scholarship was withdrawn and she was forced to leave the institution in 1934 after it was found out that her parents' political attitude did not coincide with that of the ruling Nazi party. Renger instead entered vocational training to become, and worked as, a bookseller and publisher in Berlin.
Later she worked as a private secretary for Kurt Schumacher, the leader of the Social Democratic Party. In 1946 she became office manager for the SPD party executive committee in Hannover and later in Bonn.

Family

Annemarie Renger's family was rooted in the social democratic movement. Her grand father was an active party member. Annemarie was one of seven children to Fritz Wildung and his wife Martha who joined the SPD in 1908—the first year women in Germany were eligible to join political parties. In 1924, her father became executive director of the "Zentralkommission für Arbeitersport" in Berlin. The Nazis prohibited him from working and persecuted him.

Life

In 1938, Annemarie Renger married Emil Ernst Renger, an advertising manager, who was killed in 1944 while on military duty in France. Their son, Rolf Renger, later a member of the Free Democratic Party, whom she survived, did not get to know his father. Annemarie Renger's husband died when she was 26 years old, also having lost three of her brothers to war.
In 1945, she met Kurt Schumacher, and became his closest confidant and partner until his death in 1952. In 1965, Annemarie Renger married Aleksandar Loncarevic, an economist from Yugoslavia. Their marriage lasted until his death in 1973. After 1965, the couple lived in Oberwinter near Bonn.

Political career

Renger's association with the SPD continued through the horror of the Nazi regime. After the fall of the Hitler regime she wanted to take use of the newly gained liberty:
“''Before us lay the rubble of Germany. I was firmly determined to get myself involved in politics, and to participate in building a democratic Germany. I wanted to help ensure that the world would never experience war again.”

Party career

Annemarie Renger became a member of the SPD in 1945. On 1 October, she took up the position of a private secretary to Kurt Schumacher. She later said that since the age of 10, she had wanted to later become a “party secretary”. Upon reading one of his speeches titled “Wir verzweifeln nicht” her attention was called to the Kurt Schumacher, leader of the Social Democratic Party, who had been tortured in the concentration camps by the Nazis. She wanted to meet the author of these lines.
The famous photograph showing Annemarie Renger supporting the very ill and amputated Kurt Schumacher has become an icon of German post-war history.
After the 1972 federal election, the SPD held a plurality of seats and thus, with the support of the Free Democrats, on 13 December 1972, was able to elect her as President of the Bundestag.

Since 1973, Renger had been a member of the SPD "federal party committee" as well as the party's chairmanship. From 1979 until 1983, she served in the party's "control commission". In addition to Egon Franke, Annemarie Renger was considered a leading member of the so-called "Kanalarbeiterriege", a powerful group of SPD members of the Bundestag in the years 1957 through 1982. Their political orientation was rather conservative and union-friendly. In 1982, the "Sewage Workers Guild" merged with the Seeheimer Kreis.

Candidacy for the Office of Federal President

In 1979, Annemarie Renger was nominated by her party as a candidate for the Office of the Federal President, but lost by a margin of 431 to 528 electoral votes to Karl Carstens, the candidate of the CDU and CSU parties. The 66 electoral delegates seated by the Free Democratic Party abstained.

Member of the Bundestag

In 1953, Annemarie Renger won her seat as Member of the Bundestag, and held it through 1990. From 1959 until 1966 she, as well, served as a member of the Advisory Conference of the European Council and the Western European Union.
From 1969 until 1972 she served as "Parlamentarische Geschäftsführerin" of the SPD. She was the first woman to enter the internal leadership of the SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag.
After the SPD, for the first time in German history, had won the majority of seats in the Bundestag in the 1972 federal election, Annemarie Renger on 13 December 1972, was elected President of the Bundestag – the first woman to hold this office in Germany and the first woman in the world holding such office in a freely elected parliament. Later Renger said: “I myself proposed my running for this office to the members of our Bundestag parliamentary group. You think, they really had chosen me ?“
At the same time she chaired two subcommittees of the "Council of Elders of the Bundestag": the "Subcommittee on Budget" and the "Subcommitte on Issues of Taxation of Remuneration for Members of the Bundestag". She also was chairperson of the "Joint Committee".
Following the 1976 federal election, the Christian Democratic Union and its sister party, the Christian Social Union in Bavaria regained plurality in the Bundestag, and Karl Carstens followed Annemarie Renger as President of the Bundestag. Renger was elected Vice President of the Bundestag and served in this function until her resignation from the Bundestag prior to the 1990 federal election. During her term as Deputy-President, she chaired several committees of the "Council of Elders of the Bundestag". From 24 June 1977 until 1983, Annemarie Renger served as vice-chairperson of the Bundestag Foreign Relations Committee.
During the voting on the SPD motion on the NATO Double-Track Decision held on 22 November 1983, which called for additional negotiations with the Soviet Union prior to stationing of Intermediate Range Nuclear Weapons in Europe, she abstained together with 24 party colleagues of the SPD, among them Helmut Schmidt and Egon Franke, Dieter Haak, Karl Ahrens and Hans Matthöfer from the party's right wing.

Social dedication

From 1985 on, Annemarie Renger served as President of the “Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund Deutschland”, a non-profit relief and welfare organisation, which is a member of the European “Samariter International e.V.” . From 1987 until 1998 she was
chairwoman of the supervisory board of “McDonald’s Kinderhilfe”. From 1991 until 1995 she chaired the „Vereinigung ehemaliger Mitglieder des Deutschen Bundestages und des europäischen Parlaments e. V.“.
She was chairwoman of the Central Association of Organisations of Democratic Resistance Fighters and the Persecuted, President of the Kurt Schumacher Society, and Honorary President of "Netzwerk Europäische Bewegung Deutschland"

Awards

Annemarie Renger received various commendations for her special engagement to the German-Jewish-Israeli relationship. Having served as head of the German-Israeli Parliamentary Group for 14 years, in 1992 she was awarded the Buber Rosenzweig Medal, together with Hildegard Hamm-Brücher. She held an honorary doctorate of the Ben-Gurion-University of Negev. In 2006 she received the "Heinz-Galinski-Preis" of the Berlin Jewish Community. Annemarie Renger has been awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz.

Trivia

Annemarie Renger is commonly regarded as a "Grande Dame", the last of the grand ladies of the German Social Democratic movement. This is owed not only to her political influence, her life in a social democratic community, or to her age, but also to her demeanor. Renger set great value on style and appearance. She had a preference for sports cars and mink coats and her hair styling was always perfect. There are legendary anecdotes about her friendly, but resolute remark to Gerhard Schröder, then newly elected Member of the Bundestag and Chairman of the SPD “Juso" youth organisation about him failing to wear a necktie: „Genosse Schröder, you will have to wear a necktie for tomorrow's election of the Bundeskanzler – as called for by custom". Schröder followed her order and, at a later occasion, remarked: 'For her, wearing proper attire was a sign of respect towards a constitutional body of democratic Germany. The institutions of parliamentary democracy had to be respected. For Annemarie Renger, they were emitting grace of their own, and this was not to be violated.'

Quotes

Literature