Petra Kelly
Encyclopedia
Early life
Kelly was born in GünzburgGünzburg
Günzburg is a Große Kreisstadt and capital of the district of Günzburg in Swabia, Bavaria. This district was constituted in 1972 by combining the city of Günzburg—which had not previously been assigned to a Kreis —with the district of Günzburg and the district of Krumbach.Günzburg lies...
, Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
(then American Occupation Zone
Allied Occupation Zones in Germany
The Allied powers who defeated Nazi Germany in World War II divided the country west of the Oder-Neisse line into four occupation zones for administrative purposes during 1945–49. In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, US forces had pushed beyond the previously agreed boundaries for the...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
), in 1947, as Petra Karin Lehmann. She changed her name to Kelly after her mother married a US Army officer. She was educated in a Roman Catholic convent in Günzburg and later attended school in Georgia and Virginia after her family relocated to the United States in 1959. She lived and studied in the United States until her return to West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
in 1970. She retained her (West) German citizenship throughout her life.
An admirer of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...
, she campaigned for Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...
and Hubert Humphrey
Hubert Humphrey
Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. , served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and...
in the 1968 U.S. elections. She studied political science at the School of International Service at American University
American University
American University is a private, Methodist, liberal arts, and research university in Washington, D.C. The university was chartered by an Act of Congress on December 5, 1892 as "The American University", which was approved by President Benjamin Harrison on February 24, 1893...
(Washington, DC), from which she graduated in 1970. She graduated from the European Institute at the University of Amsterdam in 1971.
While working at the European Commission
European Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
(Brussels, Belgium, 1971–83), she participated in numerous peace and environmental campaigns in Germany and other countries.
Die Grünen
Petra Kelly was one of the founders of Die Grünen, the German Green PartyAlliance '90/The Greens
Alliance '90/The Greens is a green political party in Germany, formed from the merger of the German Green Party and Alliance 90 in 1993. Its leaders are Claudia Roth and Cem Özdemir...
in 1979. Between 1983 and 1990, she was a member of the Bundestag
Bundestag
The Bundestag is a federal legislative body in Germany. In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house. The Bundestag is established by the German Basic Law of 1949, as the successor to the earlier...
(German Parliament).
Kelly received the Right Livelihood Award
Right Livelihood Award
The Right Livelihood Award, also referred to as the "Alternative Nobel Prize", is a prestigious international award to honour those "working on practical and exemplary solutions to the most urgent challenges facing the world today". The prize was established in 1980 by Jakob von Uexkull, and is...
(also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1982 "...for forging and implementing a new vision uniting ecological concerns with disarmament, social justice, and human rights."
Kelly wrote the book Fighting for Hope in 1984, published by South End Press
South End Press
South End Press is a non-profit book publisher run on a model of participatory economics. It was founded in 1977 by Michael Albert, Lydia Sargent, John Schall, Pat Walker, Juliet Schor, Mary Lea, Joe Bowring, and Dave Millikan, among others, in Boston's South End...
. The book is an urgent call for a world free from violence between North and South, men and women, ourselves and our environment.
Murder
In 1992, according to police, she was shot dead in Bonn while sleeping by her partner, ex-general and Green politician Gert BastianGert Bastian
Gert Bastian was a German military officer and politician with the German Green Party.Born in Munich, Bastian volunteered the Wehrmacht at the age of nineteen. In World War II he served on the Eastern Front being wounded by a bullet in the right arm and in the head by a grenade fragment. He was...
(born 1923), who then killed himself. She was 44, he was 69. Her body was discovered on 19 October, and it was determined she had died on 1 October. Petra Kelly was buried in the Waldfriedhof in Würzburg
Würzburg
Würzburg is a city in the region of Franconia which lies in the northern tip of Bavaria, Germany. Located at the Main River, it is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. The regional dialect is Franconian....
, near the village of Heidingsfeld in Lower Franconia
Franconia
Franconia is a region of Germany comprising the northern parts of the modern state of Bavaria, a small part of southern Thuringia, and a region in northeastern Baden-Württemberg called Tauberfranken...
, Bavaria.
Honors
- 1982: Right Livelihood AwardRight Livelihood AwardThe Right Livelihood Award, also referred to as the "Alternative Nobel Prize", is a prestigious international award to honour those "working on practical and exemplary solutions to the most urgent challenges facing the world today". The prize was established in 1980 by Jakob von Uexkull, and is...
(a.k.a. "Alternative Nobel Prize")
In 2006 Kelly was placed 45th in the UK Environment Agency
Environment Agency
The Environment Agency is a British non-departmental public body of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and an Assembly Government Sponsored Body of the Welsh Assembly Government that serves England and Wales.-Purpose:...
's all-time list of scientists, campaigners, writers, economists and naturalists who, in its view, have done the most to save the planet. Kelly was positioned between the tropical ecologist Mike Hands and the national parks visionary, John Dower
John Dower
John Gordon Dower was a civil servant and architect, who, as secretary of the Standing Committee on National Parks, produced in 1945 the first post-war official report which set out what National Parks in England and Wales should be like:This report, and a subsequent one by Sir Arthur Hobhouse,...
.
Legacy
With the goal of furthering Petra Kelly's ideas and political message, the Petra Kelly Foundation was founded in 1997 as part of the Heinrich Böll FoundationHeinrich Böll Foundation
The Heinrich Böll Foundation is a German, legally independent political foundation. Affiliated with the German Green Party, it was originally founded in 1987 and rebuilt in 1997...
. Since 1998, the foundation has presented the Petra Kelly Prize for Human Rights, Ecology, and Nonviolence. The city of Barcelona has established the Jardi Petra Kelly on Montjuïc
Montjuïc
Montjuïc is a hill located in Barcelona, Catalonia.-Etymology:Montjuïc is translated as 'Jew Hill' in medieval Catalan, or is perhaps related to the Latin phrase Mons Jovicus . The name is found in several locations in the Catalan Countries: the Catalan cities of Girona and Barcelona both have a...
.
In the words of her friend, the Dalai Lama: "Petra Kelly was a committed and dedicated person with compassionate concern for the oppressed, the weak, and the persecuted in our time. Her spirit and legacy of human solidarity and concern continue to inspire and encourage us all." Another of her close friends, philanthropist and Greatest Planet founder David Gilmour, wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , short F.A.Z., also known as the FAZ, is a national German newspaper, founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt am Main. The Sunday edition is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung .F.A.Z...
: "EVERGREEN is the word that comes to mind when describing Petra Kelly. If not quite a daughter of the soil, she was a granddaughter of it, and her concern for our planet led her to become an environmentalist, indeed the first female environmentalist to achieve such resounding political success."
External resources
- Parkin, Sara. The Life and Death of Petra Kelly, Rivers Oram Press/Pandora, 1995 (ISBN 0-04-440940-0)
- Kelly, Petra K. Thinking Green! Essays on Environmentalism, Feminism, and Nonviolence, Parallax Press, Berkeley, California, 1994 (ISBN 0-938077-62-7)
- Kelly, Petra K. Nonviolence Speaks to Power, online book, almost complete text (also, out of print, published by Matsunaga Institute for Peace, University of Hawaii, 1992, ISBN 1-880309-05-X)
External links
- Curriculum Vitae with picture
- Happiness is a Warm Gun. Film on Petra Kelly's death
- Right Livelihood Award website
- Petra Kelly Archives at the Heinrich Böll Foundation
- Petra Kelly Prize for human rights, ecology and non-violence
Green ban
Green ban
A green ban is a form of strike action, usually taken by a trade union or other organised labour group, which is conducted for environmentalist or conservationist purposes.-Background:...