Annemarie Renger (née Wildung; 7 October 1919 – 3 March 2008) was a German politician for the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

From 1972 until 1976 she served as the fifth 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 Her scholarship was withdrawn and she was forced to leave the institution in 1934 after it was found out that her parents' political attitude did not coincide with that of the ruling Nazi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 then 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 grandfather was an active party member. Annemarie was one of seven children born to Fritz Wildung (1872–1954; a carpenter, SPD politician and sports executive) and his wife Martha (1881–?), 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" ("Central Committee for Workers' Sports") in Berlin. The Nazis prohibited him from working and persecuted him.

Life

In 1938, Annemarie Wildung married Emil Ernst Renger, an advertising manager, who was killed in 1944 while on military duty in France. Their son, Rolf Renger (1938–1998), later a member of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), and whom she survived, did not get to know his father. Annemarie Renger's husband died when she was 26 years old. She also 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" ("We do not despair") her attention was called to 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 photograph showing Renger supporting Kurt Schumacher[1], a German anti-Nazi politician and double amputee, has become an icon of German post-war history.[2]

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" (engl. "Sewage Workers Guild"), 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 (Bundespräsident), 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 (FDP) abstained.