Monika Krause-Fuchs

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Monika Krause-Fuchs (born April 8, 1941 as Monika Krause in Schwaan ; † May 20, 2019 in Glücksburg an der Ostsee) was a German - Cuban expert in sexual education and worked in this field as a university teacher in Cuba.

Life

Studies and early years in Cuba

Monika Krause studied Latin American Studies at the University of Rostock , a new and privileged subject in the GDR , which was supposed to train cadres for future contacts between the then relatively young GDR and Latin American countries. In 1961 she met her future husband, Jesús Jiménez, a Spanish captain of the Cuban merchant navy who grew up in Cuba.

The GDR authorities put obstacles in the way of Monika Krause's planned marriage. At that time, Cuba was considered a so-called “ non-socialist economic area ” , although it was already socialist . She was threatened with not being able to finish her studies. Diplomatic interventions by the Cuban government, with which her fiancé had good contacts, made the marriage possible later.

After their marriage in 1962, the newly wedded couple traveled together on the freighter commanded by their husband to Cuba, where they worked as an interpreter for the GDR trade agency. She graduated from the University of Havana in 1970 with a diploma in Spanish language and literature after two baby breaks and some stays abroad due to her husband's job, including one and a half years in the Netherlands and almost two years in New York .

After successfully completing her studies at the University of Havana, through her husband, she found a job in the Cuban women's association FMC, headed by Vilma Espín , Raúl Castro's wife , where she soon worked as a sector manager for international relations.

First, however, she went with her husband to Chile , where Salvador Allende had just assumed the presidency. After the situation there before the brief coup by Pinochet was too violent and dangerous, the family returned to Havana back. There Monika Krause discovered that two of her closest friends had been arrested for alleged counter-revolutionary machinations. As it turned out, the real reason was the homosexual relationship of the two, which they could only secretly live out. According to her own statements, Monika Krause did not feel free of homophobic views at this time either , which, however, should change radically with her further work in the FMC.

Monika Krause received the Cuban citizenship without giving up that of the GDR and became a member of the Communist Party of Cuba .

Activity as a sex educator

Krause suffered a broken neck in a serious traffic accident. Afterwards she was no longer able to sit in the interpreter's booth for a long time and continue doing this job. Instead, she was commissioned by the President of the Women's Association, Vilma Espín, to work out comparative studies that could be useful for sex education in Cuba. Among other things, she made contact with her compatriot Siegfried Schnabl , whose standard work Mann und Frau intim she published in Cuba in Spanish - initially censored for content on homosexuality, among other things - and which was out of print very quickly. Later, Cuban students were sent to Schnabl to teach. She also created a Cuban edition of Heinrich Brückner's educational book . Monika Krause considered frequent teenage pregnancies to be the main problem. In their opinion, this was caused by the traditional Catholic-Latin American understanding of the role of women, which in part still exists in Cuba today, but also by the life of 12 to 18-year-olds in boarding schools far away from their parents. During her work, she repeatedly encountered problems in enforcing the knowledge she had gained in the Ministry of Education or other authorities.

In 1977 Monika Krause founded the National Working Group on Sex Education at the Standing Commission of the National Assembly for the Care of Children, Adolescents and Equal Rights for Women , which later became the National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX), of which she became director.

As part of her work, she developed concepts for sexual counseling, education, therapy and family planning. She has appeared in numerous articles in the Cuban press, including radio and television, and has written numerous academic and popular science books. In the 1980s she first showed a condom in educational programs on Cuban state television and explained how it worked, which is why she was nicknamed Reina del condón (Queen of the Condom). In her weekly afternoon broadcast series "Wir und die Liebe" she was not allowed to pronounce the term "condom". In the Cuban macho society she received numerous hostilities even from the highest circles. Accordingly, Monika Krause was also referred to as the “spoiler of youth” or “Mónica the terrible”. However , she could always be sure of the support of Fidel Castro's sister-in-law Vilma Espín. Her semi-official "honorary title" was "Mónica from the sex education".

In 1983 Monika Krause did her doctorate at the University of Rostock in the field of "Sex Education and Psychology" with summa cum laude . After her habilitation in 1986, she became a professor at the Institute for Medical Sciences at the University of Havana.

Return to Germany

In 1975 Krause's husband was drafted into Angola for military action. According to his wife, after his return after 1½ years, he turned out to be a “typically Cuban macho” who, among other things, could not bear to be seen only as an appendage to his wife at public events, as she was now much better known than him. The couple grew increasingly apart. Years after the separation, Monika Krause-Fuchs called him a friend.

Disaffected by the Cuban Revolution and after a broken marriage, she and her two sons, who were born in Cuba, returned permanently to Germany at the end of 1990, under the pretext of a vacation trip to their mother. Monika Krause-Fuchs married a second time and lived in Glücksburg on the Baltic Sea until her death . She wrote several books about her experiences in Cuba, gave lectures and ran workshops.

Monika Krause-Fuchs died in May 2019 at the age of 78.

Works (selection)

  • Preparing the young generation for love, marriage and family in the Republic of Cuba (with a special focus on the role of the Cuban Women's Federation FMC). Rostock, Univ., Diss. A, 1983
  • The Cuban sexual policy between claim and reality , in: Ottmar Ette , Martin Franzbach (editor): Cuba today. Politics. Economy. Culture. , Vervuert 2001, ISBN 3-89354-575-1
  • Machismo is far from dead !: Cuba: Sexuality in Transition , Projekt-Verlag Cornelius, Halle 2008, ISBN 978-3866344693
  • Cuba - my hell, my paradise. 30 Years of Castro and an End , Projects-Verlag Cornelius, Halle 2008, ISBN 978-3866346239 (autobiography, original Spanish version: Monika y la Revolución , Centro de la Cultura Popular Canaria, 2002, with a preface by Jesús Díaz , ISBN 84-7926- 402-0 )

Cinematic reception

  • Silvana Ceschi and Reto Stamm: La reina del condón (Switzerland 2007), documentary about Monika Krause-Fuchs ( trailer )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Verena Friederike Hasel: The Cuban taboo: How a German became the enlightener of the nation. In: Tagesspiegel of March 26, 2014
  2. ^ Peter Burghardt: Queen of the condom. In: SZ Online. Süddeutsche Zeitung Digitale Medien GmbH / Süddeutsche Zeitung GmbH, 23 August 2015, accessed on 22 May 2019 .
  3. ↑ Time travel: The condom grandma of Cuba. ( Memento from July 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) In: NDR TV , program information on the program Schleswig-Holstein Magazin from July 3, 2011, accessed on October 31, 2013
  4. ^ Bert Hoffmann: Kuba , 3rd edition, Beck Verlag, 2009, p. 148
  5. ↑ Muere Monika Krause, precursora del CENESEX y defensora del derecho de la mujer sobre su cuerpo (Spanish), diariodecuba.com, accessed on May 21, 2019
  6. ↑ La reina del condón in the Internet Movie Database (English)
personal data
SURNAME Krause-Fuchs, Monika
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Krause, Monika (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Cuban sexologist and sex educator in Cuba
DATE OF BIRTH April 8, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Swaan
DATE OF DEATH 20th May 2019
Place of death Glücksburg (Baltic Sea)