Amalie Lauer

Statue on the Cologne town hall tower

Amalie Lauer (born March 29, 1882 in Bornheim , † October 15, 1950 in Fulda ) headed the social women's school in Cologne , was a social politician for the Center Party and active in the Catholic women's movement.

education and profession

Lauer attended a high school for girls and then became a teacher. Then she trained to become a qualified commercial teacher. Then she studied law and political science in Gießen and Tübingen . She also taught at vocational schools. In 1915 Lauer received his PhD. phil with a thesis on agriculture and home work in Germany. She then worked at vocational schools in Frankfurt am Main and volunteered in welfare work. In 1917 Lauer became the first director of the "Welfare School of the City of Cologne". She held this position until 1932. From 1930 to 1931 she interrupted her work there to take over a professorship for social education at the vocational education institute in Cologne. Because she did not agree with the direction of the institute, Lauer soon resigned the professorship. During her time at the university she promoted the Catholic student movement.

Political action

From 1919 to 1921 Lauer was a member of the Prussian State Constitutional Assembly for the Center Party . From 1921 to 1924 and from February 28, 1925 to 1933, she was a member of the Prussian state parliament . Her focus there was on cultural, socio-educational and socio-political work with women. In addition, she campaigned for the modernization of marriage and family law. She criticized marital property rights, for example, as the financial deprivation of rights for women. Lauer sharply criticized the popular rejection of women's work. Their view of the role of women differed significantly from the prevailing image of marriage and women in the Catholic milieu .

Already relatively early on, Lauer recognized a threat to women's rights under National Socialism . She tried to warn of the movement in numerous lectures. In 1932, Lauer published a pamphlet on this: “The woman in the view of National Socialism.” This anti-National Socialist engagement contradicted certain rapprochements between her party and the NSDAP in the middle of 1932. This led to Lauer being dismissed as headmistress.

After the beginning of the National Socialist rule , Lauer and her partner withdrew to a small country house near Bensberg , monitored by the authorities .

literature

• Manfred Berger :  Lauer, Amalie. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 22, Bautz, Nordhausen 2003, ISBN 3-88309-133-2 , Sp. 768-775.
• Manfred Berger : Lauer, Amalie , in: Hugo Maier (Ed.): Who is who of social work . Freiburg: Lambertus, 1998 ISBN 3-7841-1036-3 , p. 345ff.

Web links

• Literature by and about Amalie Lauer in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Herbert Hömig : The Prussian center in the Weimar Republic. Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Mainz 1979 (Publications of the Commission for Contemporary History, Series B: Research, Volume 28), ISBN 3-786-70784-7 . P. 301.