Agnes von Zahn-Harnack

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Agnes Harnack , from 1914 von Harnack (born June 19, 1884 in Gießen , † May 22, 1950 in Berlin ) was a German teacher , writer and civil women's rights activist .

family

She was the daughter of the theologian Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930) and Amalie Thiersch (1858-1937), the granddaughter of the surgeon Carl Thiersch and great-granddaughter of the chemist Justus von Liebig , who founded the baronial house of the Liebig family . Agnes' younger brother Ernst von Harnack was executed in 1945 as a resistance fighter against National Socialism, as was her cousin Arvid Harnack and his wife Mildred about two years earlier.

Agnes von Harnack married Karl von Zahn (1877–1944), Ministerialrat at the Reichsarchiv in Potsdam on December 8, 1919 in Berlin . The couple had three children: Amalie Gabriele, who died a few days after giving birth (1920), Edward (1921–1977) and Margarete (1924–2010).

Life

Berlin memorial plaque on the house, Dorotheenstrasse 24, in Berlin-Mitte
Tomb of the couple from Zahn

Agnes Harnack (not until 1914 was her father bestowed the hereditary title of nobility) attended two high schools for girls in Berlin-Charlottenburg from 1890 to 1900 . She grew up in the educated middle class in West Berlin and was friends with the children of the Delbrück , Bonhoeffer, Dryander, Mommsen, Lüders and others families . a. From 1900 to 1903 Harnack's training as a teacher for middle and higher girls' schools took place, which she completed in the spring of 1903 with the teacher examination at the Royal Margaret School in Berlin. From October 1903 she worked as a teacher at the Wellmann-von Elpons secondary school in Berlin-Charlottenburg. From 1906 to 1908 Harnack prepared privately for the Abitur, which she passed in 1908 as an external student at the Sophien-Realgymnasium in Berlin. On October 6, 1908, she was the first woman to be entered on the matriculation lists of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin , after the Prussian Ministry of Education had issued the "reorganization of the higher girls' schools" on August 18, 1908. a. also included the regular admission of women to study (as guest auditors, women were allowed to attend lectures beforehand, if the respective professors permitted this). Harnack studied German, English and philosophy until 1912 and completed her studies with a doctorate as Dr. phil. from. Her dissertation dealt with the at that time unpublished tragedy Aloys and Imelde by Clemens Brentano .

In 1914 Harnack joined the National Women's Service . After the end of the First World War, she joined the DDP .

On May 11, 1926, she co-founded the German Association of Women Academics (DAB) in Berlin , which wanted to further promote university women's education and three years later, with Margarete von Wrangell and Mathilde Vaerting, received the first German women's chairs. The plan to found the association went back to Marie Elisabeth Lüders . In addition to Zahn-Harnack (as chairman), Lüders and von Wrangell, Ilse Szagunn , the Schöneberg director of studies Anna Schönborn as deputy chairwoman and Maria Schlüter-Hermkes as secretary, and Gabriele Humbert, Kampf and Lührßen as ordinary members. The DAB in turn joined various umbrella organizations and spawned further sub-organizations.

In the period from 1919 to 1933 she wrote a whole host of writings on the women's movement, on church and theological questions and on socio-political problems. Most important was the story of the women's movement, Die Frauenbewegung , published in 1928 . History, problems, goals . Zahn-Harnack was a representative of the so-called bourgeois, liberal-Protestant-minded wing of the first German women's movement.

In 1931 she became chairwoman of the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine , which dissolved itself in 1933 under the National Socialist restriction of any academic women's education in order not to be absorbed by the Nazi organizations (so-called Gleichschaltung ). In addition, Zahn-Harnack was also a member of the Evangelical Social Association (Landesgruppe Berlin-Brandenburg). a. Wilhelm Schneemelcher was.

During the time of National Socialism , Zahn-Harnack largely withdrew from the public, but remained connected to the circle around Anna von Gierke , to which Marie Baum , Helmut Gollwitzer , Romano Guardini , Hermann Maas , Theodor Heuss and Elly Knapp , Fritz Klatt , Selma Lagerlöf , Martin Niemöller and Alice Salomon belonged, as well as the Confessing Church, which they approved of in their attitude against National Socialism, but not in terms of their theological approaches. During the time of “inner emigration” Zahn-Harnack wrote the biography of her father Adolf von Harnack, published in 1936, in which she also expressed her own liberal-Protestant-humanistic stance in opposition to National Socialism by means of a biographical description. During the war, Zahn-Harnack privately taught children of Jewish descent who were officially banned from attending school.

After the war she closed u. a. the “ Freundeskreis von Frauen ” around Freda Wuesthoff , who protested against nuclear weapons with his work program for lasting peace . The circle included u. a. also Gertrud Bäumer , Elly Heuss-Knapp, Marie Elisabeth Lüders and Clara von Simson . Immediately after the Second World War, Agnes von Zahn-Harnack and other former activists met to prepare for the establishment of a new “German Women's Association”. This resulted in the "Berliner Frauenbund 1945 eV". After the re-establishment, the women from the very beginning campaigned for an association whose main goal should not only be charitable work. They advocated “setting a long-term goal”, especially the active political participation of women. In order to implement local women's policy, the BFB developed a network between association women, politicians and experts from the authorities very early on - and also designed a “local women’s program”. The BFB submitted the draft of a peace paragraph to the constitutional committee of the Berlin city council and the draft of a right to conscientious objection to the Parliamentary Council, which drafted the Basic Law. Influenced by the women's movement at the beginning of the eighties, the project-oriented work emerged, which is still an important focus of the BFB today. Larger, independent projects aim to improve women's opportunities in training and employment. The BFB combines the demands of the women's movement of the time for equal rights in all areas of society with the feminist forms of work of today's women's movement.

On the occasion of her 65th birthday on June 19, 1949, the Theological Faculty of the Philipps University of Marburg awarded Agnes von Zahn-Harnack an honorary doctorate in recognition of her commitment “in the spirit of free and determined Protestantism and in a truly evangelical-social spirit”. The "AGNES - Teaching and Examination Online" system at HU Berlin was named after Agnes von Zahn-Harnack. Zahn-Harnack died on May 22, 1950 and was buried in the Berlin-Zehlendorf cemetery. (Field 008-380)

Fonts

  • Women and the right to vote , in: German Reading eV (Hrsg.): Handbook for men and women for the National Assembly , Berlin 1919.
  • The women's movement. History, problems, goals. Berlin 1928.
  • with Hans Sveistrup: The question of women in Germany 1790–1930. Berlin 1934.
  • Anna von Gierke on her sixtieth birthday. In: The woman. Year 1933/1934, pp. 332–334.
  • Adolf von Harnack . Berlin-Tempelhof 1936, 2nd edition Berlin 1951,
  • The Apostolic Controversy of 1892 and its significance for the present, Marburg a. L. 1950,

literature

  • Gisa Bauer : Cultural Protestantism and early bourgeois women's movement in Germany: Agnes von Zahn-Harnack (1884–1950) (= work on the history of churches and theology , volume 17), Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 978-3-374-02385-1 (Dissertation University of Leipzig, Theological Faculty, 2005, 417 pages).
  • Björn Biester: Critical notes on Agnes von Zahn-Harnack's “Adolf von Harnack”. In: Quaderni di storia. 27, issue 54, 2001, pp. 223-235.
  • Hans Cymorek, Friedrich Wilhelm Graf : Agnes von Zahn-Harnack (1884–1950). In: Inge Mager (Hrsg.): Women's profiles of Lutheranism. Life stories in the 20th century. Gütersloh 2005, pp. 202-251.
  • Ilse Meseberg-Haubold: A woman with a perspective. A picture of the life of Agnes von Zahn-Harnack. In: Leopold Esselbach (Hrsg.): Church on Brandenburg Sand: Pictures from the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg. Leipzig 1991, pp. 59-70.
  • Genealogical handbook of the nobility (= noble houses B Volume XV, Volume 83 of the complete series). Starke, Limburg (Lahn) 1984, ISSN  0435-2408 , p. 212.
  • Peter Reinicke : Zahn-Harnack, Agnes von. In: Hugo Maier (Ed.): Who is who of social work. Lambertus, Freiburg 1998, ISBN 3-7841-1036-3 , pp. 651f.

Web links

Commons : Agnes von Zahn-Harnack  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ University Women's International Networks Database, see link below
  2. ↑ Angelika Schaser , Women's Movement in Germany: 1848–1933, Darmstadt 2006, p. 118.
  3. ↑ Quoted from Bauer: Cultural Protestantism and early bourgeois women's movement in Germany. P. 340.
personal data
SURNAME Zahn-Harnack, Agnes von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Harnack, Agnes; Harnack, Agnes von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German teacher, writer and women's rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH June 19, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH to water
DATE OF DEATH May 22, 1950
Place of death Berlin