Renate Lepsius

Renate Lepsius (born Renate Meyer: 21 June 1927 - 28 June 2004) was a German journalist, historian and politician (SPD). She resigned from the German parliament ("Bundestag") ahead of the 1987 election, by which time she had spent almost fifteen years as a high-profile member of it. That same year saw the publication of, "Frauenpolitik als Beruf. Gespräche mit SPD Parlementarierrinnen" (loosely: "Politics as a profession for women. Conversations with SPD women politicians"), which the respected commentator Rolf Zundel, writing in 1987, described as "probably the most impressive book about women in politics for many years". Following a couple of years as a secretary-typist she resigned in order to accept a very much better paid job with the press office of the Inter Nationes organisation, securing rapid promotion. In 1955 she even joined a trades union, a source of continuing pride ("worauf ich doch recht stolz bin"), as she later told an interviewer. 1956 was the year in which she defied her father's world view further by becoming a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Around this time she also started working for the party on a voluntary (unpaid) basis. Their son, Oliver Lepsius, was born in 1964. Rainer Lepsius was by now based at LMU Munich, working on his habilitation. Renate therefore gave up her job in Bonn and moved to Munich to live with her new husband. She now undertook journalistic assignments, working from home.

In Munich, Renate Lepsius remained involved with the party. However, the long-awaited birth of her child, and her decision to take personal charge of his education during his earlier years enforced a further postponement of her own political career. Shortly after their son's first birthday, having passed his habilitation exam, accepted a post at what is now the University of Mannheim and the couple moved to nearby Weinheim, which is where the couple lived for the rest of their lives.

Regional politics Almost as soon as the couple moved to Weinheim, Renate Lepsius was appointed a delegate for the local party branch to the national party conference. Later in 1965, she became a member of the regional "state" party executive for Baden-Württemberg. Within it, she served on two working groups, in respect of "Young people and policy" ("Jugend und Politik") and "Women's policies" ("Frauenpolitik"). She found the level of work compatible with her domestic duties.

In 1968, however, her political commitment increased, as she engaged whole-heartedly in campaigning for that year's elections to the Baden-Württemberg regional / state parliament (Landtag), organising with a colleague the party's entire advertising campaign for the election, which included a programme of advertising targeted expressly at women voters. It was also in 1968 that she became a member of the SPD "party council" ("Parteirat"). After the election was over, in 1969 she also joined the advisory council ("wissenschaftliche Beirat") of the Bonn-based National Agency for Political Education ("Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung" / bpb).

National politics In 1972, she seized the opportunity to compete for a seat in the German parliament ("Bundestag"), in the election that in retrospect came to be known among supporters as the "Willy-Wahl", because it was won by the SPD under the national leadership of Willy Brandt. Principal themes of her campaign included national policy in respect of East Germany ("Ostpolitik"), economic stability, involvement of citizens in planning decisions (encompassed the so-called "Städtebauförderungsgesetz" if 1971) and, powerfully anticipating her subsequent campaigns, social provisions for vulnerable women, notably following divorce or bereavement. She also spoke out strongly in favour of abortion law reform (§218), an issue that was rising rapidly up the political agenda across western Europe in the wider context of Second-wave feminism. She failed to win the seat in her own Rastatt constituency where (as in every election between 1949 and 2017) the seat went to a candidate from the centre-right CDU candidate. However, her name was at position ten on the high enough up on the SPD candidate list for Baden-Württemberg, which was sufficient to win her a seat when seats allocated according to overall party vote-share were allocated.

Bundestag colleagues sometimes found Renate Lepsius a little unpredictable and headstrong. After 1973 she was no longer a member of the party executive for Baden-Württemberg. 1973 also saw her removed from the SPD "party council" ("Parteirat"). Her energy nevertheless made her hard to ignore. Much of the focus of her attention continued to be on "women's issues": she came to be particularly strongly identified with pressure for divorce law reform. In 1981, Lepsius was keen to succeed Marie Schlei as deputy chair of the SPD party group in the Bundestag. She enjoyed the support of the parliamentary group leader, Herbert Wehner. She nevertheless failed to gain support from colleagues in the parliament, which represented a significant and lasting setback to her political career.