Else Hammerich

Else Hammerich (7 September 1936 – 20 March 2021) was a Danish politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1989. A member of the protest movement People's Movement against the EU, she was elected to the European Parliament for this association.

Early and personal life Born in Frederiksberg, Hammerich was the seventh of eight children, a daughter of naval officer and Valborg Rump. The family was involved in the resistance movement during World War II; one of her brothers was killed by the Gestapo. She attended school primarily in Gentofte, but spent a year in a Catholic school in Tokyo while her parents were overseas providing humanitarian aid during the Korean War.

She was married to Per Bethlowsky Rasmussen from 1958 to 1968, and to lecturer Søren Laurits Højmark-Jensen from 1977 to 1987. As her teaching career began, she also began to get involved in politics, and was part of the grassroots campaign in protest of nuclear weapons. She was married in 1958, and had three children before being divorced a decade later; after the marriage ended she continued her teaching education, and graduated from Danmarks Lærerhøjskole (Denmark School of Education). In 1971, she joined the Blaagaard Seminarium, and served as a faculty member there until 1978. She also joined the People's Movement against the EU upon its inception in 1972, but stayed politically independent in regard to Denmark's parties; she felt that the European Union was contradictory to the anti-nuclear movement that she supported. She aligned herself with the Technical Group of Independents, and became chairperson near the end of the five-year term. She ran for re-election in 1984, and then served as chairperson of the Rainbow Group in parliament. She served as a member of the Political Affairs Committee from 1984 to 1987, and was thereafter member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.

Selected works (With Mette Bugge, Lotte Kærsaa and Karin Vilien). (With Liselotte Taarup). (With Spæt Henriksen and Ruth Hougaard). (editor) (With Lisbet Bendix). (With Uffe Ellemann-Jensen and Frede P Jensen).