Freda Meissner-Blau

Freda Meissner-Blau (11 March 1927 – 22 December 2015) was an Austrian politician, activist, and prominent figurehead in the Austrian environmental movement. She was a founder and the federal spokesperson of the Austrian Green Party.

Freda Meissner was born in Dresden in 1927, the youngest of four children. Her mother was from a wealthy family of industrialists. Her father, Dr. Ferdinand Meissner Hohenmeiss, was an economist and journalist. Freda spent her first three years growing up in Reichenberg (now Liberec) before the family moved to Linz where Freda went to school. She grew up in a liberal, educated household and enjoyed nature, culture, and art. The Meissners moved to Vienna in 1938, where Ferdinand became editor of a newspaper that was critical of the Nazi movement. He was deemed an enemy of the state for his outspoken opposition and he was fled to the United Kingdom in 1939. To avoid the Nazi reprisal of Sippenhaft (kin liability), Freda's parents divorced and the family moved back to Liberec. Freda continued her education there, and then in Vienna and Dresden. During this time many of Freda's relatives and friends perished during the war, and Freda's own experiences witnessing the bombing of Dresden galvanized her ambition to pursue progressive and activist causes.

Freda returned to Vienna in 1947 and obtained a leaving certificate before going on to communication studies and journalism, working during her studies for the American occupation in Vienna. She travelled to England that same year to visit her father, before completing nursing school and then finally moving to Frankfurt, Germany to study medicine at the Goethe University Frankfurt. Whilst studying there she met Georges de Pawloff who was working for the French occupation in West Germany. They married in 1953.

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