First woman at the head of the country
Schleswig-Holstein’s ex-Prime Minister Heide Simonis is dead
7/12/2023 5:03 p.m
The SPD politician Heide Simonis died at the age of 80. This is confirmed by SPD state chairwoman Serpil Midyatli. She was prime minister in Schleswig-Holstein for twelve years before she withdrew after a scandalous failed re-election.
The former Schleswig-Holstein Prime Minister Heide Simonis is dead. According to the SPD state chairman Serpil Midyatli, the SPD politician died in the morning a few days after her 80th birthday at home in Kiel.
On May 19, 1993, Simonis became the first female Prime Minister of a German federal state. She replaced Björn Engholm, who failed due to the aftermath of the Barschel scandal in 1987. First, Simonis led a one-party SPD government, then from 1996 to 2005 a red-green coalition.
Her political career ended spectacularly: in the prime ministerial election on March 17, 2005, a dissenter refused her vote in four rounds; because of this her re-election in the state parliament failed. After a close state election, Simonis wanted to continue governing with a red-green minority government – supported by the South Schleswig Voters’ Association (SSW), the party of the Danish minority in Schleswig-Holstein.
After this failed, the then CDU state chairman Peter Harry Carstensen took over the helm in Kiel at the head of a grand coalition with the SPD. In 2014, the then Prime Minister Torsten Albig awarded Simonis honorary citizenship.