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Hildegard Hamm-Brücher

German politician (1921-2016)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ215201 ↗
Source-derived summary

Hildegard Hamm-Brücher (11 May 1921 – 7 December 2016) was a liberal politician in Germany. She held federal state secretary positions from 1969 to 1972 and from 1977 to 1982. She was the Free Democratic Party's candidate in the first two rounds of the federal presidency elections in 1994.

Early life and education

Hamm-Brücher was born in Essen, Germany and grew up with four siblings in a non-political, bourgeois family. Her father was director of an electric firm; her mother maintained the household. Unexpectedly, her parents died within a year of each other when she was only ten and eleven years old. After the death of her parents, along with her siblings, she was brought up by her widowed grandmother in Dresden. Her grandmother came from an industrial family, whose ancestors had converted from Judaism to Protestantism. Hamm-Brücher received her Abitur in 1939 and studied chemistry in Munich. She received her doctorate in chemistry in 1945 and began working as a science journalist for the Neue Zeitung, an American-run newspaper, in what was then still occupied Germany.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Hildegard Hamm-Brücher” as german politician (1921-2016). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Hildegard, Hamm-Brücher and German.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1921, 2016, 1969, 1972—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1921-05-11. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Hildegard, Hamm-Brücher and German providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Hildegard Hamm-Brücher”, the useful work is to connect “german politician (1921-2016)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q215201. VIAF identifies the subject as 64000158. The Library of Congress control number is n80125559. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1921, 2016, 1969 and 1972.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Hildegard Hamm-Brücher”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Hildegard Hamm-Brücher primary sources, Hildegard Hamm-Brücher archive and Hildegard research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hildegard Hamm-Brücher”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Hildegard Hamm-Brücher” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.