Prof. Rita Süssmuth, former President of the Bundestag, one of the most important female politicians of the Federal Republic of Germany and a friend of Poland, has died at the age of 88.
In Helmut Kohl’s government, she became Minister for Youth, Family and Health in 1985, and a year later the first German Minister for Women. From the very beginning, she used her political engagement (she was a member of the CDU and its parliamentarian for many years) to support minorities, the vulnerable and the excluded.
In Polish-German relations, Prof. Rita Süssmuth was an institution. When she headed the Bundestag (1988-1998), the German parliament ratified the Border Treaty and the Treaty on Good Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation with Poland. She believed that Polish-German understanding was crucial both for Germany and Poland and for the whole of a unifying Europe. As a representative of the “great generation of reconciliation” (from the justification for the award of the Special Polish-German Prize to Rita Süssmuth in 2025), she left her mark on organisations working in the bilateral sphere. She was president of the German Institute for Polish Affairs in Darmstadt, chair of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Association of Polish-German Societies, honorary chair of the Polish-German Foundation for Science, and a member of the Board of the Genshagen Foundation.
It was from her circle that the idea emerged in the late 1990s of honouring with a memorial in Berlin the millions of Polish men and women who were victims of Nazi Germany.
She was awarded honorary doctorates by universities in Germany, Israel, France and Poland. She was a laureate of the Viadrina Prize.
In the person of Prof. Rita Süssmuth, the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation bids farewell to a great authority for several generations of those involved in Polish-German relations, as well as a friend and ally on whose support and enthusiasm we could always count.