Bund Queen Luise

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Luisenbund conference in Potsdam 1932. Cecilie von Preußen at the lectern during the rally in the exhibition hall. Front right Wilhelm of Prussia
Berlin 1933, Luisenfeier in the sports palace Cecilie von Prussia at her address

The Bund Königin Luise ( BKL ), also known for short as the ( Queen ) Luisenbund , was a monarchist women's organization during the Weimar Republic and at the beginning of National Socialism .

history

The Luisenbund was a nationalist, anti-Semitic and monarchist women's organization founded in Halle in 1923 by Else Reichenau (Sennewald married from 1930) and named after Queen Luise of Prussia . Until 1928, the BKL was the unofficial women's organization of the Front Fighter Association Stahlhelm and was close to the conservative-monarchist DNVP . He was supported by the House of Hohenzollern , the patron of the federal government was Cecilie von Prussia . According to his own statement, the motivation for the establishment was the occupation of the Ruhr area by French troops. The aim of the federation, according to the local group statutes, was the “education of the female sex to help prepare the great liberation work of Germany from its enemies, in the spirit of our ancestors from 1813 and the unforgettable Queen Luise.” The federation described its concerns and activities as apolitical . However, both the activities of the federal government and the construction of its self-image speak against this self-portrayal. This can be shown not least in his interpretation of Queen Luise's biography. With its patron, Cecilie von Prussia, always called “Crown Princess Cecilie” and “First Woman of the Country” by the federal government, the federal government explicitly linked to the ruling house of the Hohenzollern and thus to the monarchy as a form of government. The family relationship to her great-grandmother legitimized Cecilie von Preußen also genealogically as the central present representative of the legacy of Queen Luise. The BKL represented ethnic, anti-Semitic ideas in a supposedly apolitical, conservative-traditionalist guise. In 1933, the BKL stated that it had 200,000 members and was one of the largest women's associations in the Weimar Republic .

The Queen Louise League was characterized by its hierarchical structure. It was organized in individual regional associations, which in turn were subdivided into different districts, which were composed of the individual local groups. Each organizational unit was headed by a woman as the “leader”. Marie Netz was the 'federal leader' of the BKL from 1923 to 1932 , in 1932 Charlotte Freifrau von Hadeln took over this office; from 1925 she was the 'regional leader' of Brandenburg. Reichspressewart Franziska von Gaertner described the leadership style of the federal government in retrospect in 1934 as follows: "The leaders in the confederation, Queen Luise, learned a sense of responsibility and loyalty to their followers, while the followers learned unconditional loyalty and trust in the leaders." In a way, the supreme leader was Queen Luise, the one in the song Bund Queen Luise was called: “O Queen Luise, be our guide”. For the self-image and the 'imaginary order' of the actors, this means that they claimed leadership skills and justified this claim with reference to the queen, among other things. Girls between the ages of six and thirteen were organized as so-called cornflowers , young people as Jungluisen. “Service to the Fatherland” was also at the center of these two groups.

In 1930 a group of 31 federal leaders made a trip to Italy, where they met with Angiola Moratti, at that time secretary of the Fasci Femminili (FF), and Maria Pezzé Pascolato, director of the FF in Veneto. Together they visited the facilities of the Opera Nazionale Balilla and the Opera Maternità ed Infanzia , the mother's and children's aid organization. In Rome they were received by Benito Mussolini . In her speech to Mussolini, Charlotte von Hadeln pointed out commonalities between the nationally conservative German women and the fascists: “The fascist women and we feel one in the holy will to do everything for the future of our children and to contribute with full devotion to the refinement, Strengthening and freedom of our nation, as far as our abilities allow us. "Looking back on the audience, Hadeln wrote in her autobiography 1935:" At that time we still had the longing for a strong guide of German destinies in our hearts - but now it has been fulfilled. "

The Bund Queen Luise was one of the first women's associations to openly support the NSDAP and, as an ally of the new rulers, survived the Nazis' seizure of power in 1933, but dissolved in 1934 together with other monarchist associations in the course of the Gleichschaltung .

In Berlin, however, the federal government survived underground for decades. Until the 1960s, federal women laid wreaths in the mausoleum on the anniversary of the Queen's death. On the 200th anniversary of her death (July 19, 2010), the Queen Luise Association was founded by women from all over Germany in Crimmitschau in memory of Luise. To distinguish it from the political goals of the old federal government, a different order in the name was deliberately chosen. Outside of Hohenzieritz Castle, the Villa Vier Jahreszeiten Crimmitschau houses one of the few permanent exhibitions on Luise (adoration of Luise in the imperial era with an extensive library).

literature

  • Bund Queen Luise: 10 years of struggle for freedom, 1923–1933. Vaterländischer Verlag, Halle adSaale.
  • Yearbooks 1932–1934 , Bund Königin Luise.
  • Geraldine Horan: Mothers, Warriors, Guardians of the Soul. (= Studia Linguistica Germanica , Volume 68). Walter de Gruyter, 2003, ISBN 3-11-017232-1 .
  • Claudia Koonz: Mothers in the Fatherland. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-499-19519-4 .
  • Hans-Jürgen Arendt, Sabine Hering , Leonie Wagner (eds.): National Socialist Women's Policy before 1933. Dipa-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-7638-0340-8 .
  • Birte Förster : The Queen Luise Myth. Media history of the "ideal image of German femininity". (= Forms of memory 46). v & r unipress, Göttingen 2011, pp. 329–346, ISBN 978-3-89971-810-2 .
  • Birte Förster: The “pure woman” against the “Corsican demon” - media depictions of external relations in the 19th and 20th centuries . In: Corina Bastian / Eva Dade / Christian Windler (eds.): The gender of diplomacy. Gender roles in external relations from the late Middle Ages to the 20th century . Cologne et al. 2014, pp. 145–162, ISBN 978-3-412-22198-0 .
  • Birte Förster: The leader is looking for protectors. The predecessors of the "Reichsbürger": women who denied legitimacy to the Weimar Republic created an alternative world for themselves in the "Bund Königin Luise" . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , December 28, 2016.
  • Eva Schöck-Quinteros : The Queen Luise Bund. "Our battleground is the family!" In this. / Christiane Streubel (Ed.): »Responsible to your people!« Women of the political right 1890–1937. Organization - agitation - ideology (= series of publications by the Hedwig Hintze Institute 9). Berlin 2007, pp. 231-270, ISBN 978-3-89626-302-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bernhard Mahlke: Stahlhelm. Bund der Frontsoldaten (Stahlhelm) 1918–1935 (1934–1935: “National Socialist German Front Fighters Association [Stahlhelm] [NSDFB]”). In: Dieter Fricke et al. (Ed.): Lexicon for the history of parties. The bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties and associations in Germany (1789–1945). Volume 4. Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1986, ISBN 3-7609-0879-9 , pp. 145–158, here p. 146. In 1928 a separate Stahlhelm-Frauenbund was founded.
  2. in: Schock-Qunteros / Streubel 2007, p. 330 (Ed.): Local group statutes of the Queen Luise Federation .
  3. Untitled . In: The German woman . tape 21 , 1928, pp. 419 .
  4. a b c Birte Förster: The Queen Luise myth. Media history of the "ideal image of German femininity" . v & r unipress, Göttingen 2011, p. 329 ff .
  5. Eva Schöck-Quinteros: The union of Queen Luise. 'Our battleground is the family ...'. In: Eva Schöck-Quinteros, Christiane Streubel (Ed.): Your people responsible. Women of the political right (1890–1933). Organizations - agitations - ideologies. trafo Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-89626-302-5 , p. 232.
  6. ^ A b Christiane Streubel: Women of the political right in the empire and republic, an overview and research report. ( Memento of November 24, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 358 kB) Historical Social Research , 2003 Volume 28, No. 4, p. 141.
  7. Gaertner, Franziska von: Der Bund Queen Luise. Its creation in 1923 was a popular necessity. His achievement was a national motherly education within the German people . Karras, Halle 1934.
  8. Birte Förster: The 'pure woman' against the 'Corsican demon' - media representations of external relations in the 19th and 20th centuries . In: Corina Bastian / Eva Dade / Christian Windler (eds.): The gender of diplomacy . Cologne 2014, p. 156-160 .
  9. a b Charlotte von Hadeln: In sun and storm . Rudolstadt 1935, p. 320 .
  10. Birte Förster, "The Queen Luise Myth. Media History of the" Ideal Image of German Femininity "", v & r unipress, Göttingen 2011 (Cultures of Memory 46), pp. 341–346.