Clara of Simson

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Clara von Simson (born October 4, 1897 in Rome , † January 26, 1983 in Berlin ) was a qualified scientist, German politician ( FDP ) and member of the Berlin House of Representatives .

Life

Clara von Simson, was the great-granddaughter of the temporary President of the Frankfurt National Assembly 1848/49 Eduard von Simson, daughter of the bank director Georg von Simson (1869-1939) and his wife Clara nee. Eckhoff (1873-1964). After initially receiving private tuition, she attended a secondary school for girls, then a women's school and an English college. She trained as a library secretary in Berlin in 1914/15 and passed her Abitur in 1918. She then briefly studied mathematics and physics in Heidelberg and from 1918 to 1923 physics and chemistry at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin . In 1923 she received her doctorate in experimental physics on the subject of X-ray structure studies. She completed her dissertation on x-ray examination of amalgams with Franz Simon , Max von Laue and Max Bodenstein . From 1927 to 1930 she was an assistant at the Physico-Chemical Institute in Berlin. In April 1931 she became acting lecturer for mathematics and physics at the Pedagogical Academy in Dortmund , but stopped at her own request and became a private scholar. When the National Socialists came to power , she encountered difficulties because of her pedigree certificate, which was not "pure" in the sense of the National Socialists, was no longer allowed to attend the Physics Colloquium from 1935 and lived on translations, supported among others by her sponsor Max von Laue, to whose circle of friends she belonged. From 1939 to 1945 she worked for the Wüsthoff patent attorney's office in Berlin and also supported people persecuted politically and racially.

Politically unencumbered, she was able to work again at the Technical University of Berlin from 1945 , became chief engineer for thermodynamics in chemistry at the chair for inorganic chemistry, and in 1951 was the first woman to do her habilitation in physics (thermal conductivity of ammonium chloride ). In 1949/50 she spent a research stay in Oxford with her former doctoral supervisor, Franz Simon, who had emigrated there. In 1952, however, she left the Technical University of Berlin and became director of the Lette Association , which she remained until 1963.

politics

Clara von Simson had been a member of the FDP (or originally LDPD ) since 1948 . From 1963 to 1971 she sat for the FDP in the Berlin House of Representatives. In parliament she was a member of the committees for science and art as well as the school system.

From 1958 to 1977 she was a member of the board of trustees of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation , the last nine years of which as chairwoman.

Together with Agnes von Zahn-Harnack , Gertrud Bäumer , Elly Heuss-Knapp and Marie-Elisabeth Lüders, she belonged to a group of friends around Freda Wuesthoff who protested against nuclear weapons with his work program for lasting peace .

Honorary grave of Clara von Simson in Berlin-Kreuzberg

Clara von Simson died in Berlin in 1983 at the age of 85. She was buried in the hereditary funeral of the Simson family in Cemetery III of the Jerusalem and New Church in Berlin-Kreuzberg .

Honors

Clara von Simson was made an honorary senator of the TU Berlin in 1966 and the city ​​elder of Berlin in 1973. In 1967 she received the 1st Class Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, and in 1978 the Great Cross of Merit .

The final resting place of Clara von Simson in Cemetery III of the Jerusalem and New Churches (grave location 342-EB-256b) is dedicated as an honorary grave of the State of Berlin .

The Clara von Simson Prize of the TU Berlin for the best theses by female students, especially the natural and technical sciences, and a street in Berlin-Charlottenburg in the Spreebogen are named after her.

literature

  • Werner Breunig, Andreas Herbst (ed.): Biographical handbook of the Berlin parliamentarians 1963–1995 and city councilors 1990/1991 (= series of publications of the Berlin State Archives. Volume 19). Landesarchiv Berlin, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-9803303-5-0 , p. 351 f.
  • Cornelia Denz / Annette Vogt (eds.): Einstein's colleagues. Physicists yesterday & today , TeDiC, Bielefeld 2005, ISBN 3-933476-08-9 , p. 18.
  • Monika Fassbender: Clara von Simson. In: Irmgard Schwaetzer (ed.): The liberal women's movement - images of life , Liberal-Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 3-920590-20-1 , pp. 137–149.
  • Ulla Galm : Clara von Simson. Daughter from a liberal family. Stapp, Berlin 1984 (= Prussian Heads ), ISBN 3-87776-164-X .
  • Doris Obschernitzki: The woman her work - Lette-Verein. On the history of a Berlin institution from 1866 to 1986. Hentrich, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-926175-06-0 .
  • Barthold C. Witte : Education to come of age. In memory of Clara von Simson. In: ders .: Of the freedom of the spirit. Position determinations of a decade. Comdok, Sankt Augustin 1998, ISBN 3-89351-104-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , p. 246.
  2. ↑ Honorary graves of the State of Berlin (as of November 2018) . (PDF, 413 kB) Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection, p. 82; accessed on March 30, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Simson, Clara von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (FDP), MdA
DATE OF BIRTH October 4, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Rome
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 1983
Place of death Berlin