Emilie (Emmi) Florine Auguste Welter (

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Merten; 7 August 1887 – 10 March 1971) was a German politician. She was a

Member of the Bundestag Member of the German Parliament () is the official name given to a deputy in the Bundestag, German Bundestag. ''Member of Parliament'' refers to the elected members of the federal Bundestag Parliament at the Reichstag building in Berlin. In G ...

from the Christian Democratic Union in the 1950s and 1960s.

Life and Job.

Emmi Welter, who came from a liberal Protestant family and was influenced by two world wars, the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...

and the

Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

, fought at a young age for a modern position for women in society, against their oppression in their choice and practice of their professions, and against their imposed role as exclusively active housewives and mothers with social commitment. In the 1920s, she was the first woman in the presbytery of her congregation in Aachen and chairwoman of the Evangelical Women's Aid in the Rhineland, where she was particularly instrumental in promoting the legal equality of female theologians with their male colleagues. In 1945 she joined the

Christian Democratic Party __NOTOC__ Christian democratic parties are political parties that seek to apply Christian principles to public policy. The underlying Christian democracy movement emerged in 19th-century Europe, largely under the influence of Catholic social tea ...

Aachen Aachen is the List of cities in North Rhine-Westphalia by population, 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, 27th-largest city of Germany, with around 261,000 inhabitants. Aachen is locat ...

, which was founded in the same year under the supervision of the military administration, which was renamed the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) on 16/17 December 1945 in Bad Godesberg. Only one year later, on August 20, 1946, she was one of the founding members of the Women's Union in the Aachen section, together with Clementine Norres and Helene Weber, which the committed women's rights activist had led as its elected chairwoman from 1955 to 1966. At the same time as she joined the Müttergenesungswerk in 1950, Emmi Welter was also elected to the council of the city of Aachen. She retained this mandate until 1961 and only gave it up due to her dual role as a member of the Bundestag. Emmi Welter had replaced Walther Kolbe, who died on 25 December 1953, on 4 January 1954. In the 1961 and 1965 Bundestag elections, she was elected to parliament on the North Rhine-Westphalia state list. She was a member of the Committee on Cultural Policy (later the Committee on Cultural Policy and Journalism), the Committee on Public Welfare (later the Committee on Local Policy and Public Welfare), the Committee on Petitions, the Committee on Family and Youth Issues and the Health Committee. In the German Bundestag, she was significantly involved in laws for the equalisation of family burdens, the Youth Welfare Act and social welfare legislation. In addition, since September 1953 she was active in the Evangelical Action Group for Family Issues (EAF), founded by Friedrich Münchmeyer and Hansjürg Ranke. This body, which had merged with the Family Federation of German Catholics and the German Family Association in the spring of 1954, also led her as first chairwoman from 1957 to 1962.

References

1887 births 1971 deaths Members of the Bundestag 1953–1957 Members of the Bundestag 1957–1961 Members of the Bundestag 1961–1965 20th-century German politicians 20th-century German women politicians Members of the Bundestag for the Christian Democratic Union of Germany Members of the Bundestag for North Rhine-Westphalia Female members of the Bundestag {{Germany-CDU-politician-stub