Dr. Hildegard Bartels was born in Duisburg on 23 December 1914. and died on 16 September 2008.
After obtaining her university entrance qualification, Hildegard Bartels studied in Marburg, Leipzig, Cologne and Berlin from 1934 to 1944, first mathematics and natural science and then economics; in November 1944 she obtained a doctor’s degree (Dr. rer. pol.) in Berlin. After briefly working for the Reich Ministry of Economics, she started her career in official statistics by joining the Hessian Land Statistical Office in 1946, which had just been set up. Under difficult conditions, she conducted the first housing census in the new Land of Hessen, which had been created by the Allied Powers. Like Dr. Dr. h.c. Gerhard Fürst, she was one of those designing the Statistical Law for the United Economic Territory, which was the basis for setting up a central Statistical Office for the three zones.
In the new Office, Dr. Bartels worked in the Department of “General Subject-Related Co-ordination, National Accounts” from April 1948. In 1949, she was appointed Head of that Department and in 1967 Vice-President. In 1972, she became President of the Federal Statistical Office and Federal Returning Officer (1 May 1972). The economist was the first woman to be head of a federal authority in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Under her lead, Bundestag elections were held on 19 November 1972 (voting age lowered from 21 to 18 years) and on 3 October 1976 (age of eligibility reduced to 18 years), and the first election to the European Parliament was conducted on 10 June 1979.
