We deeply mourn the loss of our esteemed colleague Dr Antonie Katharina Nord, who passed away on 18 May 2025 after a long illness. In various roles, most recently as head of the international division, Antonie shaped the work of the Heinrich Böll Foundation like few others. With her death, the foundation has lost an impressive leader and a clever strategist, but above all, a humorous and warm-hearted human being. We are struggling to comprehend this profound loss.
As a fighter for democracy and human rights and a deeply committed feminist, Antonie will be greatly missed – by us and by many others. Her clarity and consistency made her a powerful role model, both within the Heinrich Böll Foundation and beyond. She was skilled in providing orientation, with a strategic sense for politics and strong emotional awareness and empathy for those around her. Antonie made a significant contribution to shaping and developing the work of the foundation in all of the roles she occupied: as head of the Middle East and North Africa department, during her time as head of office in Cape Town/South Africa, and especially in the last six years as the head of the international division.
Antonie was passionate about the foundation's international work. She knew that a strong network of relationships between politics and civil society is crucial for protecting democracy from its enemies and for strengthening human and women's rights, and she used all the means at her disposal to maintain and strengthen these links.
In 2002, when Antonie joined the Heinrich Böll Foundation, it was just five years old. Internationally, the foundation was represented in 17 locations and on all continents; around half of its international offices were in the Global South. Politically, the period was marked by the shock of the Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001 and the subsequent wars waged by the West in Afghanistan and Iraq – inauspicious conditions for strengthening democracy and human rights. The red-Green federal government’s response to this tense situation was to increase investment in development cooperation, which also enabled the foundation to expand its international work. From 2010 onwards, this dynamic gained further momentum with the Arab Spring.
With her expertise in democratisation processes on the African continent, Antonie's arrival at the foundation came at just the right time. She was the only Africa desk officer, responsible for the international offices in Addis Ababa, Lagos, Nairobi, and Cape Town. Very soon, she was driving forward the foundation’s conceptual work on democracy promotion – with conferences and publications on the different approaches taken by the countries in which the foundation had a presence, and together with Green MPs and international partners.
Democratisation is often associated with conflict, especially when ruling powers have an interest in excluding competing groups from political participation and maintaining their privileges. As a passionate feminist, Antonie was quick to ask what role gender relations play in these processes and how the foundation could help to achieve gender equality and strengthen women in particular in their fight for self-determination and democracy, even under these difficult conditions.
But Antonie's work did not only demonstrate her impressive analytical skills; it also underlined her political drive. She had come to the foundation to make a concrete contribution to changing the world.
It therefore comes as no surprise that Antonie took an interest in the young democracy of South Africa. From 2006 to 2011, she headed the office in Cape Town, where she did pioneering work for the foundation by coordinating studies on the effects of climate change, an issue that was not yet at the centre of political attention. She was ambitious in connecting the work of the foundation with that of civil society organisations, the scientific community, and the South African parliament, creating links and building bridges between them. She also recognised early on how important it was for the foundation to defend those who are most persecuted and ensured that the rights of LGBTQI+ people became an integral part of the funding programme.
With the magazine Perspectives Africa, Antonie breathed life into her idea of providing a platform for African experts that would make their voices more audible within the German expert community. Its success spread to other regions. Soon, the Perspectives series had expanded to Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and South-East Europe. The decision to discontinue the magazine was taken by Antonie herself several years ago when, due to developments in online media and in the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic, she realised that new formats were needed. With her characteristic positivity and creative drive, she developed Böll.Global, a series of online discussions featuring German and international experts that initially focused on the global impact of the pandemic in an attempt to counter the physical separation and sense of isolation it triggered.
In 2011, Antonie took over as head of the North Africa-Middle East department and, with the new offices in Tunis and Rabat, was able to take advantage of the opportunities created by the Arab Spring to support civil society and democratisation.
At the same time, the situation in Syria under Bashar al-Assad was coming to a head. Assad suppressed the initially peaceful demonstrations for reform with massive violence and conducted an increasingly brutal crackdown on the Syrian population and civil society. Antonie had the foresight to recognise that legally addressing the Assad regime’s human rights violations was crucial for a democratic future. Her unwavering support of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) in Berlin and Syrian human rights organisations in exile in Germany and elsewhere in Europe helped enable Syrian torturers to be tried and convicted. Moreover, in a groundbreaking court case against representatives of the Assad regime in Koblenz, Joumana Seif of the ECCHR was able to prove how the regime systematically used sexualised violence as a weapon against women, men, and children. Thanks to her efforts, this was finally added to the list of criminal charges – an issue on which Antonie had also campaigned.
In 2019, Antonie took over the management of the foundation’s international division, where she worked with typical energy to develop structures and drive forward its work. This included the Compass for Gender Democracy and Feminism, which sets out the gender strategy for the foundation's international work. The development of a guideline for protection from sexual abuse and harassment was also a key priority for Antonie. The establishment of a contact point on these issues for the international division was another example of her pioneering work for the foundation.
In recent years, pressure on the foundation’s work and on civil society partners has noticeably increased, in Germany and beyond. At an early stage, Antonie recognised the rise of illiberal, right-wing, and authoritarian forces and developed possible counter-strategies. She was instrumental in ensuring that the foundation created a unit in Brussels to support partners in crisis situations, and if their work became impossible to carry out on the ground, she did everything within her power to ensure that it could continue in exile. She stood up for partners experiencing persecution with great solidarity and tireless personal commitment.
For us, Antonie was a valued advisor and a trusted confidante. She was someone who could inspire others – with her precise analyses and her infectious humour, with her ability to keep a cool head, and with her tremendous empathy and solidarity with colleagues and partners. Her lightness and elegance in the face of adversities large and small could sometimes make you forget her discipline and persistence in fighting for our values, for the strong and effective work of the foundation in the world, and not least against her illness.
We bid her farewell with sadness and great respect and gratitude for the time we spent together. Our deepest sympathy goes to her family, especially to her husband and sons.
The Heinrich Böll Foundation owes Antonie Nord a great deal. We will honour her memory by continuing her dedicated work – with a clear vision, and with heart and soul.
Imme Scholz, Jan Philipp Albrecht and Steffen Heizmann
Executive Board and Executive Management of the Heinrich Böll Foundation
This article first appeared here: www.boell.de