Bertha Kipfmüller

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Bertha Kipfmüller (around 1900)

Bertha Friederika Kipfmüller (born February 28, 1861 in Pappenheim , † March 3, 1948 ibid) was a German teacher , women's rights activist , pacifist and private scholar . In 1899 she was the first woman in Bavaria to become a Dr. phil. received his doctorate. After her retirement, she received her doctorate again in 1929 at the age of 68, this time as Dr. jur. both rights .

Life

Bertha Kipfmüller was the daughter of the goldsmith Christian Albert Kipfmüller (1822–1898) and his wife Christina Sabina, nee. Rist (1827–1916), who together had eleven children. She grew up in Pappenheim. After completing primary school, she was privately prepared by the Pappenheim teacher Fleischmann from 1874 to 1877 for the entrance examination for the “Kreislehrerinnenseminar für Oberbayern” in Munich , because at that time the three-year “preparatory school” leading to the qualification for a seminar was only for boys. In 1879 she passed the teacher examination in Munich. From 1879 to 1896 she worked as a primary school teacher in Eysölden , Heilsbronn Abbey and in the then still independent town of Schoppershof , now a district of Nuremberg. In Nuremberg itself she could not teach because Nuremberg only allowed men as elementary school teachers at that time.

In 1886 she founded the "Middle Franconian Teachers' Association" in Nuremberg as the first professional women's association in Bavaria. In 1890 she was one of the co-founders of the General German Teachers' Association . She was involved in the women's rights movement of the time around the women's rights activists Auguste Schmidt , Helene Lange and the editor of the magazine “The Teacher in School and Home” Marie Loeper-Housselle and ensured that the Middle Franconian teachers' association worked together with the General German Women's Association .

In April 1893 she joined the German Peace Society, which was founded at the end of 1892 . Under the pseudonym "Berthold Friederici" she published the pacifist brochure "Sedansgedanken" in 1896.

In 1895, alongside Helene von Forster, she was the initiator and co-founder of the Nuremberg Women's Welfare Association . With the help of wealthy Nuremberg citizens, the association set up a maternity leave for needy women and an institute for the blind. The association also organized sewing and handicraft courses and set up a library.

The protest against the view that women are unsuitable for studying, as well as their private Kantian and language studies, prompted them to pursue a degree in philology. Since there were no regular high schools for girls in Germany at that time, she would have had to take her Abitur as an external person abroad - for example in Switzerland. When, from 1895, the University of Heidelberg allowed elementary school teachers as guest auditors without legal entitlement to a degree, she applied there and was admitted for the winter semester 96/97. Since 1894 she had worked on the Abitur material of the grammar schools in self-study, but without taking the Abitur.

Studies and PhD

In 1895, Kipfmüller received a special permit from the Philosophical Faculty of Heidelberg University to study German , Sanskrit , comparative linguistics, philosophy , history and economics . In 1899 she received her doctorate there with a thesis on Das Ifflandsche Lustspiel. A contribution to the comedy technique of the 18th century for a doctor of philosophy After completing her studies, she returned to Bavaria and from October 1899 became a teacher at the Höhere Töchterschule am Frauentorgraben in Nuremberg. She was the first woman in Bavaria to receive a doctorate. In contrast to her male colleagues, who were paid as a grammar school teacher, she initially only received her salary as an elementary school teacher, but received salary increases over time. It was only when she retired that she was appointed to the teaching position.

Even after completing her studies, Kipfmüller was still active in various associations or helped found them. She co-founded the Richard Wagner Association of German Women and the Bavarian Teachers Association . In 1919 she joined the SPD , later also in the Association of Socialist Teachers. She was also chair of the Nuremberg section of the Association for Germanness Abroad (VDA) .

In Nuremberg she took care of Germans expelled from Alsace-Lorraine and Poland under the Versailles Treaty and the Germans in South Tyrol , Poland and Czechoslovakia who were no longer under German or Austrian rule . With the seizure of power by the Nazis, she was forced to resign from the VDA a Nazi organization was.

After her retirement in 1926, she studied law at the University of Erlangen , where she received her doctorate for the second time in 1929 with a thesis on The Woman in Rights of the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg .

Lifelong learning was a constant in Kipfmüller's life: She learned twelve languages, including Chinese, for which she moved to Berlin for a few months in 1938 at the age of 77 to the Dahlem Harnack House of the then Kaiser Wilhelm Society to study Sinology at the Humboldt University to study. In 1934 she conducted religious-philosophical studies in Jena. She learned Polish in 1939/40. At the age of 85 she began to learn Russian in Pappenheim and gave Russian lessons - also because she feared that the Russians would occupy Pappenheim.

In 1935 she returned to Pappenheim. In the last years of her life, she set up the city's cultural department in Pappenheim.

Street names

On the occasion of her appointment as honorary citizen of her hometown Pappenheim in 1946, the street in which she lived was named after her (Dr.-Dr.-Bertha-Kipfmüller-Straße). In Ingolstadt and in the Munich district of Aubing-Lochhausen-Langwied there is now also a “Bertha-Kipfmüller-Straße”.

A street in Munich commemorates the first PhD student. Bavaria

Estate and Kipfmüller archive

Bertha Kipfmüller wrote a diary from the age of 23 until four days before her death. Her “memoirs”, numerous manuscripts of lectures, as well as newspaper and magazine articles and some letters are mostly in the “Dr.-Dr.-Bertha-Kipfmüller-Archive” in Karlsruhe , z. Partly as an estate in the Eichstätt-Ingolstadt university library . In 2013, the great-great-nephew Hans-Peter Kipfmüller published a biography of the diaries, some of which were written in Gabelsberger shorthand .

Publications (selection)

  • (under the pseudonym Berthold Friederici): Sedansgedanken , Leipzig 1896
  • Das Ifflandsche Lustspiel , inaugural dissertation of the Philosophical Faculty of the Grand Ducal Baden Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Darmstadt 1899
  • Kant's mother , in: Frauenbildung, Leipzig 1905 (article in magazine)
  • The woman in rights of the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg , inaugural dissertation of the law faculty of the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen, Dillingen 1929

literature

  • Bertha Kipfmüller: “Never bow down” memoirs. First published 65 years after her death based on handwritten records. Mattes Verlag, Heidelberg, 2013 ISBN 978-3-86809-066-6
  • Hans-Peter Kipfmüller: Die Rote Bertha (self-published brochure), Pappenheim 2011, new edition 2012, Mattes Verlag, Heidelberg, ISBN 978-3-86809-065-9 .
  • Hans-Peter Kipfmüller: The first female students and their life in Heidelberg from 1896 to 1899 . Mattes Verlag, Heidelberg, 2013 ISBN 978-3-86809-066-6 . (announced)

Web links

Wikisource: Bertha Kipfmüller  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Iffland comedy. A contribution to comedy technique of the 18th century Online archive, Openlibrary.org (accessed October 5, 2012)
  2. ↑ Bertha-Kipfmüller-Str. - Ingolstadt map. Retrieved August 22, 2020 .
  3. ↑ State Capital Munich Editor: Street renaming Bertha-Kipfmüller-Straße. Retrieved August 22, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Nl 49 - Eichstätt-Ingolstadt University Library. In: Kalliope union catalog. Retrieved August 22, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Kipfmüller, Bertha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kipfmüller, Bertha Friederika (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German teacher, women's rights activist, pacifist and private scholar
DATE OF BIRTH February 28, 1861
PLACE OF BIRTH Pappenheim
DATE OF DEATH March 3, 1948
Place of death Pappenheim