Albert Vinzens

Approaches to a controversial figurehead of the peace movement in the still young Federal Republic. The author, historian, and educator Renate Riemeck (1920-2003) was also one of the leading figures of the peace movement in the 1950s. As the youngest professor in post-war Germany, she was on her way to an academic career. In 1960, she was forced out of her position in North Rhine-Westphalia due to alleged contacts with the East, which led to nationwide protests and the first sit-in in front of the Ministry of Culture in Düsseldorf: hundreds of students demanded the rehabilitation of their professor. Riemeck had early on become a foster mother to Ulrike Meinhof and became a conflict partner during the era of RAF terror. After the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, she withdrew from political life. In the 1980s, she returned to pedagogy and teacher education. Research in numerous archives, as well as documents from the estate discovered in 2018, allow for a nuanced approach to this biography shaped by the twentieth century.