Ada Lessing

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Ada Lessing, here as a young woman;
Cabinet photography, atelier court photographer Alexander Möhlen , Georgsplatz, around 1900

Ada Lessing (born February 16, 1883 in Hanover ; † November 10, 1953 in Hameln ) was a German and Czechoslovak journalist, local politician , pioneer of German adult education and co-founder and first manager of Ada-und-, who was later named after her and her murdered husband. Theodor Lessing Adult Education Center .

Life

Ada Lessing was born as Adele Minna Abbenthern in the early days of the German Empire as the eldest of three children of Bodo Abbenthern, a businessman and employee of the municipal lager brewery . She first grew up in the Hanover district of Südstadt , then from 1890 on in the Bischofshol forest management, which her father had taken over the management.

In 1902 she married Ernst Grote, who was 31 years old at the time and was the tenant of a manor with whom she moved to Bemerode . However, this marriage failed in 1904; as a result, Ada Grote moved back to her parents.

After the death of her mother, Ada Grote moved to Berlin in 1907 - for the purpose of further training - although she had actually wanted to go to Great Britain , which prevented her lacking foreign language skills. In Berlin she learned typing , shorthand and English. For a short time she worked in a children's home near Cottbus. She then worked as a publishing clerk for the magazine Schönheit , for which she also wrote articles - especially book reviews.

She probably met her second husband, the philosopher and publicist Theodor Lessing , around the turn of the year 1908/1909. Although they did not get married until 1912 - it was also the second marriage for Theodor Lessing - they lived together before the wedding.

Former home of Ada and Theodor Lessing in Hanover- Anderten
Stumbling block for Ada and Theodor Lessing in front of their house in Hanover-Anderten

When the war began in 1914, Ada fought for women's rights and was involved in the SPD . From 1919 Ada worked for the Linden adult education center . The facility was opened on January 25, 1920. Until 1933 she worked as managing director. In the Reichstag elections in 1932 and 1933, she ran for the SPD but fell in 1933 to the purges of the Nazis in the city administration to the victim and had to vacate their posts at the community college. The National Socialists had been agitating against Theodor Lessing since 1926, who finally lost his teaching license and fled to Marienbad in Czechoslovakia , where he was murdered in 1933. Ada followed him into exile and received Czechoslovak citizenship in 1937. In good time before the German troops marched in, she was able to flee to Great Britain and worked in a children's home in Wales .

After the end of the Second World War , she returned to Hanover in 1946, but was unable to return to her old place of work. The Lower Saxony minister of education, Adolf Grimme , then commissioned her with the construction and management of the Schwöbber Castle Teacher Training Center near Hameln as part of the Teacher Reeducation of the British occupying power . Ada Lessing held this position until her death. From July 16, 1951 to November 9, 1952 she was a member of the SPD in the district council of the Hameln-Pyrmont district , where she was active in the welfare and health committee.

Her daughter Ruth from her marriage to Theodor Lessing survived the war in Germany and worked with her mother in the teacher training home, which she ran after her mother's death until it closed in 1970.

Appreciation

In 1999 the Ada Lessing secondary school in Hanover-Bothfeld was named after her. In 2006 the Volkshochschule Hannover was named after Ada and Theodor Lessing. In 2011 a stumbling block was laid in front of the former home of Ada and Theodor Lessing in the street Am Tiergarten in Hanover's Anderten district .

literature

  • Charlotte Ziegler: 1919–1969 Volkshochschule Hannover. An educational-historical study. Hanover 1970.
  • Knowledge is power, education is beauty. Ada & Theodor Lessing and the Volkshochschule Hannover. In: Catalog for the exhibition of the city archive on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the VHS (January 26 - March 4, 1995). Hanover 1995.
  • Hiltrud Schroeder (Ed.): Sophie & Co. Important women of Hanover. Biographical portraits. Hannover 1996, pp. 246-247.
  • Jörg Wollenberg : "14 years of work at the adult education center ... I will not allow that to be deleted from the history of Hanover." Ada Lessing as managing director of the VHS Hanover 1919–1933. In: Paul Ciupke , Karin Derichs-Kunstmann (ed.): Between emancipation and “special cultural task of women” (= women's education in the history of adult education. Vol. 13). Klartext, Essen 2001, pp. 133–148.
  • Jörg Wollenberg: Ada and Theodor Lessing: return undesirable. In: Social.History . Vol. 21, 2006, No. 2, pp. 52-66.
  • Helga Altkrüger-Roller: Ada Lessing. In: Courageous women from Hameln & the surrounding area. GG, Hameln 2012, ISBN 978-3-939492-39-9 , pp. 38-51.

Web links

Commons : Ada Lessing  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Lothar Pollähne: Ada Lessing under the heading 150 personalities of the Hanoverian social democracy from the SPD city association Hanover , last accessed on March 30, 2017
  2. ↑ a b c d Hugo Thielen : Lessing, (1) Ada , in: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon , p. 231f.
  3. ↑ Jörg Wollenberg : "14 years of work at the adult education center ... I will not allow that to be deleted from the history of Hanover." Ada Lessing as managing director of the VHS Hanover 1919–1933. In: Paul Ciupke , Karin Derichs-Kunstmann (ed.): Between emancipation and “special cultural task of women” (= women's education in the history of adult education. Vol. 13). Klartext, Essen 2001, pp. 133–148, here p. 137.
  4. ^ Homepage of the Ada Lessing secondary school in Hannover-Bothfeld ( Memento from August 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ^ Homepage of the Volkshochschule Hannover
personal data
SURNAME Lessing, Ada
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Pioneer of German adult education as well as co-founder and first partner of the adult education center in Hanover
DATE OF BIRTH February 16, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH November 10, 1953
Place of death Hamelin