Else Ackermann

Else Ackermann (6 November 1933 – 14 September 2019) was a German physician and pharmacologist who became an East German politician (Christian Democratic Union of Germany). The report on the power relationships between the citizen and the state which she drafted, and in 1988 presented, known as the "Neuenhagen Letter", was a significant precursor to the changes of 1989 which led to the ending, in the early summer of 1990, of the one-party system, followed by German reunification later that same year.

Life Career Ackermann was born in Berlin towards the end of 1933, the year during which Germany transitioned to one- party dictatorship. Her father was a railway official: her mother was a nurse. On 9 November 1989 protesters breached the Berlin Wall. It quickly became apparent that the Soviet troops in East Germany had received no orders to intervene, and the future trajectory of the Peaceful Revolution became a little clearer. In January 1990 Ackermann found herself invited to resume her teaching at the Charité where, in August 1991, she took over as acting director of the Pharmacology-Toxicology Institute.

German reunification formally took place in October 1990. This was accompanied by a dissolution of the East German Volkskammer, and the transfer of 144 (out of the 400 former members) Volkskammer members into an enlarged German Bundestag. Those making the transfer, which included Elise Ackermann, were elected by fellow members. The East German Christian Democratic Union had leap-frogged into first place in the March election, as a result of which 71 of the 144 eastern members transferring to the Bundestag on 3 October 1990 came from the eastern Christian Democratic Union and its close ally, the German Social Union. The eastern and western CDUs were now merged, leaving Ackermann as a member of the pan-German Christian Democratic Union. She remained a Bundestag member until the general election which took place in December 1990.

After reunification Ackermann found herself back in the Bundestag in October 1991 following the resignation from the assembly of Lothar de Maizière, who had served as East Germany's last prime minister during the summer of the previous year. Ackermann was selected to take on her former colleague's Brandenburg seat. She now remained a member till the 1994 election after which she withdrew from national politics, though she remained politically active in her own region.

Ackermann returned to the Charité, was appointed a director in 1994, and remained engaged as a teacher at the medical faculty's Institute for Clinical Pharmacology till her retirement in 1998. In Summer 2007 she resigned the chair after the majority of the group had indicated that the time had come for a change. Press reports indicated that this came as the culmination of a period of internal ructions in the group who had as much to do with personality differences as with policy differences. In September 2007 Ackermann also resigned her party membership. Her fellow council member, Susanne Ahrens, withdrew her support from the Christian Democratic Union faction in the council at the same time. They formed an alternative grouping which they called the "Christlich soziale Frauen" ("Christian Social Women"). Else Ackermann explained the move by criticising the misogynistic attitude of her replacement as Christian Democratic Union group leader on the council, Alfred Kuck, and some of his male colleagues. The local party reacted by submitting a motion at state level calling for Ackermann's exclusion from the party. Ackermann pointed out that she had already resigned. A certain amount of rancour was on very public display. Pointing out that the reason that she had retained her position with the Christian Democratic Union group on the Neuenhagen council was that she was the one who had always attracted the votes in local elections ("Ich habe immer die Stimmen geholt"), she again stood as a candidate for the local council in the 2008 municipal elections, now representing the "New Neuenhagen Citizen's Alliance" ("Neue Bürger Allianz Neuenhagen" /NBA). This time her candidacy was not successful, and she resigned from the NBA in February 2009.

Meanwhile, the motion submitted by the Neuenhagen party to have Ackermann excluded from the Christian Democratic Union was rejected by the party state leadership for Brandenburg. Ackermann was handed a reprimand for conduct damaging to the party and remained a Christian Democratic Union of Germany member. Wilhelm Wolf was the first regional chairman of the regional Christian Democratic Union of Germany in Brandenburg. He was killed in a motor accident in 1948, under circumstances that were never clearly explained during the period when Brandenburg was part of the Soviet occupation zone and the authorities were implementing a carefully crafted plan to impose one- party rule.