Freda Meissner-Blau
Freda Meissner-Blau ( born March 11, 1927 in Dresden) is an Austrian politician and is considered a figurehead of the Austrian environmental movement. She was the first leader of the Austrian countryside.
Childhood - parents - school
Freda Meissner was born on 11 March 1927 as the youngest of four children in Dresden, her mother came from a wealthy industrialist family. Her father Ferdinand Meissner High Meiss, who came of an old Austrian officer gender, was an economist and journalist. He wrote articles against the Nazi regime, was subsequently as " public enemy " branded and 1939 he immigrated to the UK. In order to escape the threat of guilt by association, the couple divorced, the family moved around to Reichenberg in Bohemia. In Reichenberg Freda Meissner-Blau continued the started in Vienna means attending school. At 17, she fled from the Soviet army to Dresden, where she witnessed the bombing of the city up close. These experiences they made the decision to catch it, to use with all your strength for the peaceful coexistence of the people. In 1947 she went back to Vienna. With a war leaving certificate, she began to study journalism and journalism and at the same time working for the U.S. occupation forces. In the same year, she traveled to the UK to visit her father, graduated from a nursing school and eventually enrolled in Frankfurt am Main in medicine. In Frankfurt, she met Georges de Pawloff know, who worked for the French occupying power. It came in 1953 to marry.
World Travel - The globetrotter
The next stop was the globetrotter Central Africa, in the former Belgian Congo, she and her husband worked for a German company. 1954 there was her first child, Ted Oliver, was born. Another dramatic experience presented to them during their three- year stay in the Belgian Congo of the bloody struggle of the indigenous people against the exploitative colonial rule dar. your future commitment to the so-called "Third World" and, concomitantly, rooted their struggle for a more just world order in the formative experiences of this time.
After returning to Europe was Meissner-Blau associate in social science department of UNESCO in Paris. She also translated offers French companies on the topic of construction of nuclear power plants. This prompted them to become closer to deal with the civilian use of nuclear power, which it has become a nuclear power opponent, and gradually grew into the role of a pioneer in the ecology movement.
In 1962, she moved with her family again, this time back to Vienna. Her husband worked at the time at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. It became the general secretary of the recently founded Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS ) appointed ( 1962-1968 ). From 1967 she worked under director Ernst Florian Winter. Names such as Anton Pelinka, Traudl fire Staller, Peter Gerlich, Helmut Kramer and many other place from political science testimony for the excellent placement of the subject. 1963 their twins Nicolas and Aleksandra were born.
In 1968 she moved back to Paris, where they are the main concerns of the student revolts, the fight against the authoritarian structures and hierarchies, the struggle for democracy and for women's rights identified. Their marriage broke up in political disagreements. In 1970, she married Paul blue. Blue was a journalist and was active in the union movement. From 1967 to 1970 he was editor of the Arbeiter-Zeitung. Their political and environmental commitment, their ideas and goals agreed almost perfectly.
Return to Vienna
1972, the pair returned to Vienna, Meissner-Blau was education officer ÖMV, held training seminars for young workers and so came into contact with social democratic politicians, and finally joined the Social Democratic Party. Increasing environmental awareness and consequent thematization of the subject by the media was a fairly broad movement for environmental protection and against nuclear energy in Europe arise. In Austria as a front formed against the nuclear project of the then government. Freda Meissner-Blau belonged to the Vordenkerinnen and spokespersons of the environmental resistance movement (s). The commissioning of the nuclear power plant Zwentendorf was prevented by a popular vote on November 5, 1978, the ecology movement in Austria recorded an encouraging success. In 1984, the fight for the Hainburg wetlands Meissner-Blau was again one of the main fellow activists. Prior to the occupation of the Au she was also among the participants of the press conference of the animals. Negotiations with the government on which was also attended by Meissner-Blau, seemed at first unsuccessful, however, the government through the resolute struggle and direct action had to shelve the construction of power plants.
Political career
After the success in Zwentendorf and Hainburg Meissner-Blau became increasingly known and allowed himself to be persuaded to admit of being established in the spring of 1986 as a candidate for the office of President of the Confederation for the green movement. The main reason was the Fall in the extreme right-wing politician Otto FP Scrinzi. However, it was defeated in the first round with a 5.5 percent Kurt Waldheim ( 49.6 %) and Kurt Steyr ( 43.7 %). After fierce battles between conservative and emancipatory grave groupings within the ecology movement began in 1986, the party Green Alternative. Meissner-Blau joined as top candidate for national elections in 1986, reached 4.8 percent and a basic mandate in Lower Austria and pulled by seven men from their party in parliament. Despite its claim of gender parity layout, there was no balanced gender distribution within the green Parliament clubs. Meissner-Blau nevertheless was chairwoman. After the Group had consolidated in 1988, she put on December 6, 1988 down its mandate. The success of the Greens in Austria is as to appreciate their merit.
Chaired by Meissner-Blau and Gerhard Oberschlick took place in June 1995, the first International Human Rights Tribunal, in which the Republic of Austria, the violation of human rights homosexual, bisexual and transsexual people was found guilty in Vienna.
After leaving politics Meissner-Blau worked for international bodies, worked as a writer and gave many lectures. Some years ago she had to undergo a heart transplant. Her husband Paul Blue died on 27 October 2005.