Rut Brandt

Rut Brandt ( born January 10, 1920 in Hamar, Norway, † July 28, 2006 in Berlin, born Ruth Hansen, widowed Ruth Bergaust ) was a Norwegian- German author and the second wife of the German Chancellor Willy Brandt.

Life

She grew up as the third of four sisters Hjørdis, Tulla, Ruth and Olaug. Her father Andreas Hansen, who was employed as a private chauffeur on the estate Adlungstad in rod, died when Ruth was three years old. Her mother, who was described by her later as a socialist and a Christian had to earn the support of the family, after the death of her husband. They moved to Kapp on the other side of the Mjøsa where her mother found work in a milk factory, and a few years later, when Ruth was seven years old and the milk factory was relocated back in the near Hamar. After school, the 15 -year-old Ruth seller was in a bakery, then maids and finally tailor's apprentice.

As a 16 -year-old Ruth Brandt entered, the later as " born socialist " described himself, a socialist youth group at. The group was active against the already threatening Europe fascism, when he was still a long way from Norway. After the unexpected German occupation of Norway in 1940, the group was banned, they met privately on and informed itself by regularly listening to the Norwegian news from BBC, even after the possession of radios had been banned. The group was about half a year the illegal newspaper " Radionytt - H7 " out, which appeared with a circulation between 1000 and 3000 copies have been distributed by railwaymen and reliable contacts and Norwegians supplied with politically significant messages. This Rut Brandt was part of the Norwegian resistance against the German occupiers.

When the group in the summer of 1942 flew open, Ruth fled with her ​​two- year-old sister Tulla to Sweden. There she met her friend again, those active in the Norwegian resistance also railwaymen Ole Olstadt Bergaust she called Brum and married in the fall of 1942 in exile in Stockholm. It was, as he also employed by the press office of the Norwegian Embassy. Brum was strong through many sports, but he suffered from an initially deemed to be harmless " persistent smoker's cough ". He soon became ill and several operations on the lungs. In 1946 he died of a lung disease.

The emigrated from Lübeck Willy Brandt, whom she had seen for the first time at their wedding in 1942, got to know Ruth Hansen in 1944. Although both were still married, she joined soon a solid relationship. 1947 was followed by Ruth Bergaust Willy Brandt to the Norwegian military mission to Berlin, where she worked as a secretary Brandt. Bergaust wore the rank of lieutenant. She gave the end of 1947 to determine their position on the military mission after Willy Brandt had done this.

After the death of her husband and Brandt's divorce in 1948, they were married in the same year. The wedding ceremony was performed a Norwegian military chaplain, who came from his unit in the resin to Berlin. Since her husband was still called civil Herbert Frahm, she wore until 1949 the name Ruth Frahm. The marriage produced three sons were born: Peter ( b. 1948 ), Lars (* 1951) and Matthias Brandt ( born in 1961 ). Although Rut Brandt devoted to the "classic work " of a politician 's wife, then political associates and observers agree that Willy Brandt his political career without Ruth at his side could not have been: the politicians stood with Ruth, a woman's side, the earned him a lot of sympathy with their open communicative style, and often acted as a "mouthpiece".

In the years after Brandt's resignation as Chancellor himself lived the two apart. As Ruth learned of her husband's relationship to his future wife Brigitte Seebacher in the spring of 1979, she separated from him and filed for divorce. On the day of divorce in December 1980, the two met for the last time.

Rut Brandt remained present even after separation by Brandt in the social life of the former German capital of Bonn, which documented that they have placed their affection was derived not only from the social position Brandt. From 1982, her partner was the Danish journalist Niels Norlund († 2004). When she published her memoirs in 1992 under the title " friendly country ", she lived with him in Roisdorf near Bonn.

After Willy Brandt's death in October 1992 Rut Brandt did not take part in the official ceremony and the burial. She was not invited and, according to her son Peter ( on the occasion of the 100th birthday of Willy Brandt ), this corresponded to a his father's wishes and, second, that his mother expressed to him that she had not participated in an invitation: " she was not stupid. that would have been the seizure found for the media. [ ... ] the two widows. " Nevertheless, they would like to receive an invitation, but would be gone the next day to the grave, to say goodbye in their own way. In many cases, has been rumored in the years after Brandt's death in public, that Brandt's third wife Brigitte Seebacher -Brandt had operated an explicit projection of Rut Brandt, but for which there is no clear evidence.

Rut Brandt moved in 2004 into a retirement home in Berlin and died in 2006 after a long illness at the age of 86 years. She was buried at Forest Cemetery in Berlin -Zehlendorf, where Willy Brandt's grave is located.

About her relationship with her ​​native country Norway and Germany, where she spent most of her adult life and where their sons were born, she said:

" I do not feel split between Norway and Germany. I'm here at home there, and live in both languages ​​. I know Norway with the familiarity of childhood, I lived with Germany and fought and suffered all my adult years. "

Awards

Works

• Friends country. Memories. Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-455-08443-5. (Ruth Brandt's autobiography, zugl. Biography of Willy Brandt for the period 1944-1974 )
• Who to whom his heart lost. Encounters and experiences. 1st edition, List Verl, Munich 2003 ( = List Paperback, 60348 ), ISBN 3-548-60348-3.