Renate Riemeck (4 October 1920 – 12 May 2003) was a German

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

and Christian peace activist who became known as former foster parent of the famous journalist and left-wing militant

Ulrike Meinhof Ulrike Marie Meinhof (7 October 1934 – 9 May 1976) was a German left-wing journalist and founding member of the Red Army Faction (RAF) in West Germany, commonly referred to in the press as the "Baader-Meinhof gang". She is the reputed author ...

. As a young woman, she joined the "Christian Community" (''Christengemeinschaft''), an

anthroposophical Anthroposophy is a spiritualist movement founded in the early 20th century by the esotericist Rudolf Steiner that postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world, accessible to human experience. Followers ...

denomination founded by a group of evangelical theologians in Switzerland in 1922 and which was banned in Germany in 1941. After the war, she was among the millions who relocated away from the center and east of Germany, moving to

Oldenburg Oldenburg may also refer to: Places *Mount Oldenburg, Ellsworth Land, Antarctica *Oldenburg (city), an independent city in Lower Saxony, Germany ** Oldenburg (district), a district historically in Oldenburg Free State and now in Lower Saxony *Old ...

, where she worked in teacher training, herself authoring one of the first democratic school text books of the period. In 1946, she joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In 1960, she was among the founders of the German Peace Union (DFU). In the early 1940s, while living at

Jena Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a po ...

, Riemeck befriended the newly widowed Dr Ingeborg Meinhof, moving in with the Meinhof family as a lodger. After the war, with Jena in the

Soviet occupation zone The Soviet Occupation Zone ( or german: Ostzone, label=none, "East Zone"; , ''Sovetskaya okkupatsionnaya zona Germanii'', "Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany") was an area of Germany in Central Europe that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a c ...

, the Meinhofs moved with her to Oldenburg where, following Ingeborg Meinhof's death from cancer in 1949, Riemeck formally became guardian to her friend's two orphaned children, one of whom,

, would subsequently gain notoriety as a leading member of the

Red Army Faction The Red Army Faction (RAF, ; , ),See the section " Name" also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang (, , active 1970–1998), was a West German far-left Marxist-Leninist urban guerrilla group founded in 1970. The ...

Sources and further reading

Renate Riemeck: ''Ich bin ein Mensch für mich. Aus einem unbequemen Leben.'' Stuttgart : Urachhaus, 2. Aufl. 1994.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Riemeck, Renate 1920 births 2003 deaths Writers from Wrocław People from the Province of Lower Silesia Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians German Peace Union politicians Christian Peace Conference members German pacifists Lutheran pacifists Anthroposophists

See also

Sources and further reading

References