Margot Kalinke was a German politician of the German Party

German Party

The German Party is a name used by a number of German political parties in the country's history. The current incarnation is represented only at the local level in Germany. However, from 1949 to 1961, a German Party was part of the ruling coalition in the Bundestag...

 and later the Christian Democratic Union

Christian Democratic Union (Germany)

The Christian Democratic Union of Germany is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. It is regarded as on the centre-right of the German political spectrum...

.

Biography

Expelled from Poland in 1925, Margot Kalinke was protestant by faith. From 1937 to 1952 she was managing director of a Angestelltenkrankenkasse ("Employee Health Insurance Company") in Hanover

Hanover

Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...

. In 1946 she became a founder of the Verband Weiblicher Angestellter (VWA, "Association of Women Employees") having been active in a predecessor organisation since 1933. From 1949 until her death, she was chair of the VWA. From 1953 to 1974, she was director of the Office of Private Health Insurance. She belonged briefly to the Executive Board of the Bundesversicherungsanstalt für Angestellte ("Federal Insuranceoffice for Employees") and in the 1950s, was a member of the Advisory Council for Reorganisation of Social Services at the office of the Ministry of Labour.

Politics

From 1946 to 1949, Kalinke was a member of the Lower Saxony State Parliament. In 1947 and 1948, she was also a member of the Zonenbeirat ("Area Advisory Board").

From 1949 to 1953, and then from 1955 until 1972, she was a member of the German 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...

, winning the election in the Celle consistuency in 1957. Together with Ernst August Farke she represented the Arbeitnehmerflügel ("Worker's Wing") of the German Party in parliament. From 1955 to 1957 she was deputy chair of the Bundestag Committee for Public Welfare. From 1957 until her exit from the party on 1 June 1960, she was vice chair of the German Party.

She joined the Christian Democratic Union on 20 September 1960, and from 1969 to 1971 she was Landesvorsitzende ("State President") of the women's union in Lower Saxony.

Equal rights

Unlike most women in her party, Margot Kalinke opposed the "Stitch Ruling" (pertaining to the rights of the husband in marital disputes). Together with Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt

Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt

Elisabeth Schwartzhaupt was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union. She was Federal Minister of Health from 1961 to 1966, the first woman to hold a Ministerial position in Germany....

 she orchestrated support for an opposition amendment to her own party's bill. The Gesetz über die Gleichstellung von Mann und Frau auf dem Gebiet des bürgerlichen Rechts ("Law of Equality between Man and Woman in Civil Law") was enacted on 18 June 1957 without the Stitch Clause.

Sources

• This article was translated from the equivalent article in the German Wikipedia on 9 July 2009. Article in der Zeit from 9 November 1950