IN MEMORIAM — PETRA WEISS

By Scott C. Tips

July 17, 1965 – December 3, 2023

After a sudden and unexpected brief illness, NHF-Germany Executive Director Petra Weiß passed away in the local hospital on December 3, 2023. Petra became ill on a Friday, was rushed to the hospital, and was gone by Sunday.

Throughout the Fall of 2023, Petra had been diligently working on staging an NHF event in Europe and just the previous month had met with NHF President Scott Tips to continue their planning for it.

Petra Weiß was the National Health Federation’s amazingly dynamic representative in Germany. A superb organizer, she had helped, among other events, to stage a Michael Jackson concert in Germany, hardly an easy feat to accomplish.

In 2011, she arranged a weekend meeting at a German castle in Baden-Württemberg for all of the other NHF representatives in Europe to get together, deepen their acquaintances, and to synergize their work efforts. The event took place with Petra’s characteristic signature perfection as NHF representatives from Ireland, Great Britain, Sweden, Belgium, and France flew or drove to attend the meeting. Petra lived in a large house in Gundelsheim am Neckar, not far away from the castle. Some of the participants stayed at her home, while most stayed at the castle. It showed her typical generosity of spirit when she opened up her home to others.

I last saw Petra in Berlin, Germany on November 12, 2023, as we left to go our separate ways after having attended a Coronavirus symposium with many speakers at the German Parliament building. We had been meeting a number of people there who were and still are willing to work with NHF.

The Petra whom I knew was non-partisan but politically engaged and with firm opinions. She was committed to a government with more transparency for responsible citizens, for more citizen participation, and she was most decidedly against the so-called “free trade” agreement called TTIP, and especially against its arbitration courts.

Knowledgeable about Codex Alimentarius and NHF’s work there, she also could speak at length on European policy and the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty. Her motto was the same as that of her friend Professor Dr. Klaus Buchner (Member of the European Parliament, ÖDP): “Those who sleep in democracy wake up in dictatorship.”

For the last many years, Petra cared for her elderly mother, Gudrun Weiß, without complaint and who now survives her. She also cared greatly for animal welfare and their protection from cruelty and abuse. Petra was a unique and talented woman with much compassion and insight. She will be dearly missed.