Herta Däubler-Gmelin
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
Minister of Justice. Amid controversy, she resigned in 2002 after a remark about George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
.
History
She was born in BratislavaBratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
as the daughter of Hans Gmelin (d. 1991), who was mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
of Tübingen
Tübingen
Tübingen is a traditional university town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.-Geography:...
from 1954-1974. She studied history, economy, law and political science in Tübingen and Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. Since 1974, she has been admitted as a lawyer, first in Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, then in Berlin. Since 1992, she has lectured law at the Freie Universität Berlin, which made her an honorary professor in 1995.
She joined the German Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
(SPD) in 1965 and became a member of the Bundestag
Bundestag
The Bundestag is a federal legislative body in Germany. In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house. The Bundestag is established by the German Basic Law of 1949, as the successor to the earlier...
in 1972. She held several party offices in the 1980s and '90s, serving as deputy party chairman from 1988-97. From 1994-98 she was chairwoman of the "Rechtspolitik" working group
Working group
A working group is an interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers working on new research activities that would be difficult to develop under traditional funding mechanisms . The lifespan of the WG can last anywhere between a few months and several years...
and legal adviser to the SPD parliamentary group. In 1993, the SPD nominated her to fill the vacancy of vice-president of the Federal Constitutional Court
Federal Constitutional Court of Germany
The Federal Constitutional Court is a special court established by the Grundgesetz, the German basic law...
, but after conservative parliamentary groups blocked the nomination for nine months as being "too political" she abandoned this career step in favor of Jutta Limbach
Jutta Limbach
Jutta Limbach is a German jurist and politician. She is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany . She received her doctorate in law in 1966 by the Free University of Berlin and fulfilled the requirements to be appointed professor by the German educational system in 1971...
.
Controversies
From 1998 to 2002, she served as Justice Minister in Gerhard SchröderGerhard Schröder
Gerhard Fritz Kurt Schröder is a German politician, and was Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany , he led a coalition government of the SPD and the Greens. Before becoming a full-time politician, he was a lawyer, and before becoming Chancellor...
's first cabinet, where she oversaw a number of controversial reform projects such as the reform of German citizenship legislation, the introduction of same-sex civil unions
Civil unions in Germany
Since 1 August 2001, Germany has allowed registered partnerships for same-sex couples. These partnerships initially provided many but not all of the rights of marriage, and currently provide all except joint adoption and full tax benefits...
, and the overhaul of the German Civil Code, the most invasive since its inception in 1900.
On September 18, 2002, four days before Schröder's re-election
German federal election, 2002
The 15th German federal election, 2002 was conducted on 22 September 2002, to elect members to the Bundestag of Germany.-Issues and campaign:...
, she attended a meeting at a restaurant in Derendingen
Derendingen
Derendingen may refer to the following places:*Derendingen, Switzerland, in the Canton of Solothurn*Derendingen, Germany, a part of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg...
(near Tübingen) with about 30 trade unionists from two local factories (the topic was "Globalization and Labor"). Däubler-Gmelin, who has long been known for her outspokenness, later said she had been unaware that a reporter from local newspaper Schwäbisches Tagblatt was present, insisting that she regarded the event as an internal meeting. After discussion had turned to the Iraq crisis, she remarked that U.S. president Bush was preparing a war to detract from domestic problems such as the economic crisis at the time, and that this was a popular political strategy which had already been used by Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
. When some participants showed disagreement, she added immediately that this was not meant to liken Bush to Hitler as a person, but rather to compare their methods, and that British prime minister Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
had also used the 1982 Falklands War
Falklands War
The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
to improve election prospects. She also described the U.S. legal system as "lousy".
This was the version published by Schwäbisches Tagblatt (a paper widely regarded as liberal to leftist and respected for its journalistic quality), which later stated that Däubler-Gmelin herself had confirmed the wording of the report, as well as several present at the meeting. Another account of the meeting states that the Hitler comparison originated from a participant and that Däubler-Gmelin had merely agreed that Hitler had used such tactics, too.
Fallout
Immediately after the article had been published, Däubler-Gmelin strongly denied it, claiming to have been misquoted. She also announced that she would sue the Schwäbische Tagblatt, but later chose not to do so. She encountered heavy criticism for expressing anti-americanismAnti-Americanism
The term Anti-Americanism, or Anti-American Sentiment, refers to broad opposition or hostility to the people, policies, culture or government of the United States...
by many both in Germany and abroad, including members of the U.S. government such as Ari Fleischer
Ari Fleischer
On May 19, 2003, he announced that he would resign during the summer, citing a desire to spend more time with his wife and to work in the private sector...
and Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
. On September 20, Däubler-Gmelin called U.S. Ambassador Dan Coats
Dan Coats
Daniel Ray "Dan" Coats is the junior United States Senator from Indiana and member of the Republican Party. He was in the United States Senate from from 1989 to 1999, retired, and then returned in 2011....
to state that the reports had no basis and Schröder wrote an apology letter to Bush, stating "there is no place at my cabinet table for anyone who makes a connection between the American president
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
and such a criminal." He did not force her to resign immediately, claiming to trust her denial of the quotation, but she was dropped from his new cabinet when it was formed a few weeks after his narrow re-election. Some political analysts estimated that the affair had done considerable damage to Schröder's election results.
From 2002 to 2005 she was chairman of the Bundestag's Committee on Consumer Protection and Agriculture, and since 2005 she chairs the Committee for Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid. In October 2011, she was made a member of the European Commission High Level Expert Group on Media Freedom,
Däubler-Gmelin is a member of several charitable and non-profit organization
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
s. Her husband is Wolfgang Däubler, one of the most prominent experts on German labor law. They were married in 1969 and have two children.