Helga Magdalena Timm (11 July 1924 in Hamburg – 6 December 2014 in Darmstadt[1]) was a German politician.
Timm studied History, Classics and Education from 1946 to 1952. She earned a doctorate at the University of Hamburg in 1952. Her doctoral thesis, supervised by Fritz Fischer, investigated the grand coalition formed by Hermann Müller, and its ultimate breakdown in 1930. The Commission for Parliamentary History and Political Parties published the dissertation in 1953 as the first study that dealt with the subject.[2]
From 1953 to 1965, Timm worked as a scientific fellow of the UNESCO Youth Institute in Gauting. She then lectured at the Institute of Labour, affiliated with the University of Frankfurt. From 1946 until 1952, Timm was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Socialist German Student Union. Timm was elected to the Bundestag (German Federal Parliament) from a regional list of candidates of the SPD party in Hessen, and served for six terms between 20 October 1969 and 20 December 1990. From 1973 to 1987, she was chief whip of the SPD party, responsible for ensuring that members are present at voting time. In addition, Timm had a seat on the German Society Committee for the United Nations.[3]
^Helga Timm: Die deutsche Sozialpolitik und der Bruch der großen Koalition im März 1930 (Beiträge zur Geschichte des Parlamentarismus und der politischen Parteien, Bd. 1), Droste Düsseldorf 1953.