Amalie Wündisch

Amalie Wündisch , b. Junker (born April 5, 1875 in Kassel ; † March 13, 1956 ) was a German women's rights activist and social worker and in 1919 one of the six first women elected to the 72-member city ​​council of Kassel.

Life

Amalie Wündisch was a laundress by profession. She had five children with her husband Eduard Wündisch. Despite her considerable work and family stresses, she was involved in youth work and in social organizations. She was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and on March 2, 1919, after the active and passive right to vote for women had been introduced in Germany on November 12, 1918, she was elected city councilor along with Minna Bernst on the list of the SPD. She worked there for two legislative periods until 1929, during which she dealt with socio-political issues, but also emerged as a budget and financial politician.

Wündisch and Bernst campaigned for immediate measures to support war victims and the needy at the local level, and at the beginning of 1920 they founded the Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO) in Kassel with other like-minded people , which started their work with a warming hall and a people's kitchen for the unemployed and starving children in the Kettengasse on the Fulda Bridge began. A sewing room was added later, in which shirts for unemployed men were made, as well as a home for apprentices, a social counseling center and a home for the elderly. Wündisch remained chairwoman of the Kassel AWO and the AWO district of Hessen-Kassel for many years.

Honor

On the Marbachshöhe in Kassel- Wilhelmshöhe a street is named after her. There are also the women Minna Bernst , Elisabeth Consbruch , Julie von Kästner and Johanna Wäscher elected to the city council in 1919 and streets named after the first Kassel city ​​councilor Johanna Vogt , who was also elected in 1919 .

Footnotes

1. ^ Gilla Dölle, Cornelia Hamm-Mühl, Leonie Wagner: Women's elections: the female city councilors in Kassel 1919–1933. Archive of the German Women's Movement, Kassel 1992, ISBN 3-926068-08-6 , pp. 44, 71.
2. ↑ Including the later city councilor of Kassel (from 1952), SPD parliamentary group chairman (1956–1960), city council, chairman of the “Association for People's Welfare” Kassel (1961–1975) and finally mayor (until 1972) Georg Wündisch (1908–1975).
3. ↑ From 1908 women had the right to become members of associations and to get involved in politics.
4. ↑ The election list of the SPD, which received 51.4 percent of the vote in the election, comprised three women in a total of 72 places.

Web links

• 100 years anniversary: ​​"Women of Cassels, you have to vote!" "Cassel's new men": This is how the region reacted to women's suffrage , Hessische / Niedersächsische Allgemeine , November 12, 2018 (accessed on June 3, 2020)

literature

• Gilla Dölle, Cornelia Hamm-Mühl and Leonie Wagner: Women's elections: The female city councilors in Kassel 1919–1933 (series of publications by the Archives of the German Women's Movement). Archive of the German Women's Movement, Kassel, 1992, ISBN 3-926068-08-6 .
• Jochen Lengemann : Citizens' Representation and City Government in Kassel 1835–2006. (Historical Commission for Hesse) Elwert, Marburg, 2009, ISBN 978-3-86354-135-4 .