Agnes Wabnitz

Gravestone of Agnes Wabnitz cemetery of the free religious community in Pappelallee in Berlin - Prenzlauer Berg

Agnes Wabnitz (born December 10, 1841 in Gleiwitz , † August 28, 1894 in Berlin ) was a German trade unionist , political speaker and women's rights activist .

Life

Wabnitz grew up in a middle-class family and attended the Gliwice citizen school . However, after the death of their father, the family became impoverished. After working as governess on aristocratic estates in Congress Poland for a few years , she moved to Berlin in the early 1870s. Here she lived with her younger brother and earned her and her mother's livelihood with tailoring and sewing. When her brother was arrested under the Socialist Act in 1879 and then expelled, Agnes began to get involved in party work.

Wabnitz became a wandering agitator and worked in a union, for example in the association for the representation of the interests of women workers , in the association of workers in Berlin (north) and in the professional association of Berlin coat seamstresses , on whose board she also joined. This association was dissolved by the police in 1886. In addition, because of her speaking activities, Wabnitz increasingly came into conflict with the state authorities. After she was sentenced to 10 months in prison in 1892, among other things for insulting majesty , and arrested, she went on a hunger strike . The police first arranged for force-feeding in the Charité and later transferred to the Dalldorf insane asylum . After her release, the prosecution's incapacitation proceedings failed and Wabnitz began again to give lectures. But the Reichsgericht rejected the appeal against her conviction in 1894. When she was about to begin her sentence, on August 28, 1894, she committed suicide with potassium cyanide in the cemetery of those who died in March in Berlin-Friedrichshain .

Her death evoked a great echo. According to estimates by Vorwärts, more than 40,000 people attended her burial in the cemetery of the Free Religious Community in Pappelallee on September 2, 1894 . "The strong-willed spirit separated from the shell," wrote the forward , "because the society that pursues the 'agitator' with all its hatred should not enjoy the triumph of slowly torturing her to death." "The agitator Agnes Wabnitz had become an idol and, through her voluntary death, a martyr of social democracy ”(Klaus Kühnel).

Bruno Schönlank designed Agnes in his novel . Roman from the time of the socialist law her life.

A street was named in her honor on October 23, 2000 in the Alter Schlachthof development area in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg .

literature

gl : Agnes Wabnitz in memory . In: The Socialist. Organ of the Socialist League . September 7, 1895.
Agnes Wabnitz . In: Franz Osterroth : Biographical Lexicon of Socialism . Deceased personalities . Vol. 1. JHW Dietz Nachf., Hanover 1960, p. 321.
Bertha Glogau: Agnes Wabnitz. A woman's voice from the bourgeoisie . Hoffmann, Berlin 1894.
Jochen Gester: Agnes Wabnitz (1842–1894). "Social democratic agitator" and fighter against reactionary association law . In: SoZ - Sozialistische Zeitung , March 2009, p. 21 digitized
Klaus Kühnel: Freedom you win, life and death of Agnes Wabnitz (1841-1894) . A biographical collage of files, records and articles. trafo Wissenschaftsverlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-89626-817-4 .

Web links

Literature by and about Agnes Wabnitz in the catalog of the German National Library
Klaus Kühnel: touring speaker of the SPD , Deutschlandradio Berlin, August 30, 2004
Agnes Wabnitz (1842-1894) (Free Religious Congregation Berlin)

References and comments

↑ The German Biographical Encyclopedia gives January 2, 1847 as the date of birth. Wabnitz's tombstone is December 10th, 1842. Her biographer, Bertha Glogau , mentions 1841 as the year of birth. Klaus Kühnel confirms this on the basis of the family news of Der Oberschlesische Wanderer , where the Christmas edition of 1841 reports that the “innkeeper Wabnitz has a daughter , Agnes, was born “.
^ Franz Osterroth names January 3, 1857 as the date of birth and Glatz as the place of birth.
↑ Ursula Baumann: On the right to one's own death. The history of suicide from the 18th to the 20th century . Weimar 2001, pp. 287-90, cit. 290
↑ Der Bücherkreis, Berlin 1929.
↑ Agnes-Wabnitz-Strasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near Kaupert )

personal data
SURNAME	Wabnitz, Agnes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German women's rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH	December 10, 1841
PLACE OF BIRTH	Gliwice
DATE OF DEATH	August 28, 1894
Place of death	Berlin

[1] The German Biographical Encyclopedia gives January 2, 1847 as the date of birth. Wabnitz's tombstone is December 10th, 1842. Her biographer, Bertha Glogau , mentions 1841 as the year of birth. Klaus Kühnel confirms this on the basis of the family news of Der Oberschlesische Wanderer , where the Christmas edition of 1841 reports that the “innkeeper Wabnitz has a daughter , Agnes, was born “.

[2] Franz Osterroth names January 3, 1857 as the date of birth and Glatz as the place of birth.

[3] Ursula Baumann: On the right to one's own death. The history of suicide from the 18th to the 20th century . Weimar 2001, pp. 287-90, cit. 290

[4] Der Bücherkreis, Berlin 1929.

[5] Agnes-Wabnitz-Strasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near Kaupert )