At the age of 36, Rita Süssmuth was designated to the professorship for “General Pedagogy” at the Pädagogische Hochschule (PH) Ruhr in Dortmund. After the combination of the PH Ruhr into the University of Dortmund in 1980, she furthermore assumed the position of deputy head of the Institute for Social Pedagogy within the Department of Educational Science. At the exact same time, Süssmuth started to engage politically: she served on the Scientific Advisory Board for Household Affairs of the Federal Ministry for Household Affairs and on the third Household Report Commission. In 1982, her scholastic career took her to Hanover, where she headed the research institute “Female and Society” up until 1985.
Rita Süssmuth will be remembered above all for her political engagement from 1985 onward. A Christian Democrat, she was the very first Federal Minister for Youth, Family, Women and Health, advocated for females’s flexibility of choice between family and profession, supported a more liberal abortion law, and wared the exemption of individuals with help. From 1988 to 1998, she held the office of President of the Bundestag and, at the head of the German parliament, oversaw its reform demanded by German reunification along with its moving to Berlin. Süssmuth continued to take clear public positions, for example on problems of ladies’s policy. She remained a member of the Bundestag up until 2002, where she was dedicated, among other things, to immigration and integration.
Rita Süssmuth last went back to TU Dortmund University in 2018: on the event of its 50th anniversary, the university awarded an honorary doctorate to Donald Tusk, who at the time was President of the European Council. In her laudatory speech, Süssmuth applauded Tusk’s passionate commitment to the European Union.
With Rita Süssmuth, TU Dortmund University loses an exceptional and highly prestigious character– and will preserve her memory with honor.