Clementine Chandler

Clementine Sophie Kramer (born Cahnmann * 7. October 1873 in Rheinbischofsheim ; † 4. November 1942 in the Theresienstadt concentration camp ) was a German-Jewish writer of the early 20th century, which is also known as addition to their literary activities feminist , social activist and pacifist dedicated . By the end of the 20th century, it had been increasingly forgotten. But with the revived interest in German-Jewish history, especially that of the prewar period, so does interest in its writers, whose works provide important information about the conditions and tensions of their time.

Life

Her life was probably best summed up by her nephew Werner Jacob Cahnmann in his work German Jewry . Clementine Krämer lived in a time that was marked by two world wars . Her life and works not only provide information about the socio-political situation of her time, but also about the reactions of the Jewish community to the drastic changes that accompanied the First and Second World Wars . Clementine Kramer's life cuts many of the most important moments in German history . She was born in the unrest shortly after the founding of the German Empire and in times of Jewish emancipation , grew up during rapid industrialization and urbanization and lived through the First World War. As an adult, she lived in the Weimar Republic and witnessed the development of the Nazi regime until her life finally ended in a concentration camp .

Early childhood and adolescence

Clementine Sophie Cahnmann was born in Rheinbischofsheim in 1873 as the second child of Gustav Cahnmann and Auguste (née Levi) from Mühringen . When they were seven and their brother Sigwart eight, they moved with their parents to Karlsruhe , where their father opened a haberdashery . In these early years her life was strongly influenced by industrialization, which became more prevalent in the young German Empire . Her family was part of the resulting urbanization. Before that, her grandparents were traders in smaller towns around Rheinbischofsheim and Möhringen.

Adult life

In 1891 she married Max Krämer, a wealthy banker from Munich , and moved with him to Munich. The couple remained childless, so they had more capital and enough free time. This is seen as the reason that Clementine Krämer was able to get involved in the growing Jewish women's movement from 1900 onwards. After 1905, Krämer and other wealthy women helped Jewish women and girls from Eastern Europe who had to immigrate to Germany due to pogroms , poverty and anti-Semitism . She taught them the German language and literature in evening courses in the B'nai B'rith -Loge in Munich. She was also involved in founding the Munich branch of the Association for Women's Suffrage in 1909. These activities introduced her to like-minded individuals, such as Erna Rheinstrom Feuchtwanger , who became one of her best friends and introduced her to the Jewish Women's Association . Through her work there, she got to know Paula Ollendorff , Henriette May , Ottilie Schoenewald and Bertha Pappenheim , the head of the women's association, and became friends with them. She was also in contact with the Jewish Household School in Wolfratshausen and was a member of the federal executive committee of the Jewish Women's Association from at least 1929 to 1933.

During the First World War, she was involved in various women's institutions of various denominations that offered support to women in need in Munich. As part of the National Women's Service , it distributed food, clothing, heating equipment and household goods, as well as work recommendations and work assignments to the needy and offered courses to encourage self-employment. Together with other partner organizations, she supervised the district office of the War Welfare Office on the Coal Island (today: Museum Island) in the Isar . Towards the end of the war, the office was confiscated by the owners' association, and Krämer and her friend Erna Feuchtwanger were forced to retire from their posts.

Already in the early post-war years she suspected that war and anti-Semitism were closely related. Both arose from chauvinistic hatred and violence. Her texts became increasingly open and clearly recognizable pacifist and Jewish. In 1924, Krämer was finally included in a survey of prominent liberal Jews on the subject of "The most important tasks of the Jew in the New Year". Kramer's answer was that it is the duty of all Jews to actively combat violence and to resolve conflicts between and within people.

The war was the trigger for many economic unrest, which even the Krämers could not escape. In the interwar years, hyperinflation occurred in 1923/24 and the Wall Street Crash in 1929 . As a result, Max Krämer's banking system was disrupted and in 1929 the business, Max Krämer & Co., finally collapsed. As a result, Clementine Krämer had to work as a saleswoman in the department store Eichengrün and Co. and soon rose to become a manager.

Life during the Nazi era and death

When Hitler came to power in 1933, life in Munich became increasingly dangerous for Jews. During this time, Krämer hardly worked as a writer, but was only in correspondence with her nephew Werner Jacob Cahnmann, who had emigrated to the USA . Instead, she continued to get involved in the Jewish women's movement to help her ailing community. Many friends and relatives made several attempts to organize a safe escape from the Nazi state . However, all attempts were unsuccessful. First, Krämer wanted to go to her Danish friend and writer Karin Michaëlis , where Bertolt Brecht lived in exile for a while. But before she could set off, Michaelis had already emigrated to the USA. Since this route was blocked, her nephew tried to get visas for her and his parents. After he had the money he needed, he applied for visas for Cuba and the USA. In the summer of 1941 the visas were finally confirmed. Shortly afterwards, the American consulates in the German Reich and Krämer closed, and her brother and sister-in-law were stuck in the Nazi state. Werner Jacob Cahnmann then tried to find other escape routes for them, such as Switzerland or Spain, without success. Ultimately, he wrote to US embassies all over Europe asking for help. He even wrote a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt asking for help.

Max Krämer died of natural causes in 1939. Clementine Kramer's brother died in January 1942. Shortly thereafter, his wife was deported to the Piaski camp in Poland, where she was murdered on arrival. In the spring of 1942, Clementine Krämer, already seriously ill, was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp . A few months later in November 1942 she died there of dysentery . A cousin of Kramer, who was trapped in the ghetto at the same time, wrote that Clementine Kramer's death was a relief for her in the end.

Ideologies

Pacifist

Clementine Kramer was not overtly pacifist or anti-war. She did not openly condemn the German motivation and action in the First World War and did not reject the war in her texts as fundamentally immoral. In this she differed from other Jewish pacifists, like Albert Einstein , who expressed her opinion openly. In contrast to the more energetic pacifists, Krämer's attentive publications were not silenced by war censorship .

Many of her pacifist works, dealing with World War I, were inspired by her work at the social welfare office . They represent the experiences of poor German working class citizens and criticize the disproportionate material losses suffered by the poor population during the First World War. But they also show that war can act as a great equalizer and that heroic behavior and the run of a ball do not differentiate between social classes . Krämer concentrates her depictions of the war on the perspective of the soldiers and gives an unrestricted view of the fighting and its effects. She humanizes the enemy in works like The Schoolmaster by depicting the patriotism of the opponents or depicting positive relationships between individuals on opposing sides. She also focuses on the common history and culture of the warring countries and writes on both emotional and material suffering in different social classes . She published her pacifist works in regular and popular media , so she was able to pass on her covert pacifist ideology uncensored and thus reached a broad public .

feminist

Clementine Kramer's feminist ideology was closely tied to her pacifist beliefs. Krämer together with the feminist Jewish Women's Association and its leader Bertha Pappenheim believed in the traditional idea that pacifism and motherliness are the nature of women and education is the calling of women. But on the other hand, she advocated inclusion and equality of women in the world of work, arguing that "women's jobs" are just as important as "men's jobs". Together with the German Association for Women's Suffrage, she also campaigned for the right to vote for women. She presented cosmopolitanism and internationalism , two characteristics that are associated with feminism but also with Jewish pacifism.

Krämer's feminism manifests itself as "spiritual motherhood", that is, "spiritual motherhood". She sees the opportunity for women in education . Many of the characters in her works are wives, mothers, or teachers, as in the undated work Education . She herself taught Jewish women and girls, but never became a mother. In her works lies the power of women in "spiritual motherhood". Women raise, teach and teach not only their own children, but all children. Women therefore function as mothers or educators of society and are consequently just as responsible for them as men. The women's movement and "spiritual motherhood" serve as missing links for Krämer who can bring their different identities together. She sees herself as the spiritual mother of the Jewish community, the German non-Jewish community, but also the German-Jewish community.

Works (selection)

Most of her works were donated by her nephew Werner Jakob Cahnmann to the Leo Baeck Institute in New York and can be viewed online. It is believed that Clementine Krämer sent her works to her nephew in the USA via Basel with the intention of following up with his parents soon. Her active creative period spanned from 1900 to at least 1933. She published almost 100 short stories in local and national magazines and one novella, so her literary output was very extensive. Her works have appeared in edited volumes, in large Jewish and German-language magazines and in local and regional newspapers. Her novel Die Rauferei was published by Gustav Kiepenheuer , one of the most renowned publishing houses of the Weimar period.

The full list of her works can be found on Wikisource: Clementine Krämer .

prose

Krämer's prose works include vignettes , short stories , novellas , reviews , scripts and aphorisms . Most of her works have been published in magazines or by publishers. Women and their role in society play a predominant role in many of her works. Often her works also depict Jewish life in what was then rural Germany. B. The way of the young Hermann Kahn, From the grandfather and the farmer , memories or the scuffle . The Brawl is Clementine Kramer's only published novel . The novel is about rural Bavaria and advocates peace and the condemnation of violence. Children also play a central role in their works. Often they are modeled on their six nieces and nephews, the children of Sigwart and Hedwig Cahnmann. Some texts are written in the Bavarian dialect .

Dated

• Marianne , 1900.
• Enlightenment , 1913.
• If you are a woman , Münchner illus. Zeitung, 1913
• Lessons , 1914.
• Children , 1914-1915.
• Visit from the trenches . The Propylaea. March 19, 1915.
• You shall not steal! , 1915.
• From the grandfather and the farmer , 1915.
• The Muckl and the French Woman , 1915.
• The grotesque , youth, 1916.
• The schoolmaster , 1916.
• The path of the young Hermann Kahn , 1918.
• Berlin impressions of a woman from Munich , 1920.
• The rose landlady , 1922.
• The mother , 1924.
• The bride poem , 1926.
• The scuffle , Gustav Kiepenheuer Publisher: Potsdam, 1927.
• Against the restriction of women's rights !, Jüdisch-Liberale Zeitung, 1930.
• Fashion chat , 1935.
• In separate bedrooms , 1939.

Undated

• Upbringing, k. A.
• Frauenwille, k. A.
• The Purim story, k. A.
• How we should dress , k. A.

Poetry

Most of the poems that have survived have been archived as handwritten notes or typewritten drafts. Some of them have also been published in magazines. The focus of the poems lies in the First World War with main themes such as death, mourning, soldiers returning home, the longing for an end to the war and peace. Other topics also include the relationship between mothers and daughters, romances, spring, nature, aging and death.

Dated

• War poems, 1914 [?] - 1918.

Undated

• Early spring , k. A.
• A collection of unclassified poems, k. A., 1940.
• A collection of notebooks, k. A., 1902-1904.

further reading

• Jörgensen, Kirsten, Bäuml-Stosiek, Dagmar .: We lived in an oasis of peace: the story of a Jewish girls' school 1926-1938. 1st edition Dölling and Galitz, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-937904-52-8 .
• Painter, Corinne Jayne: The Life and Works of Clementine Kramer (1873-1942). December 2015. PhD thesis, University of Leeds. Online as e-print .

Web links

• Leo Baeck Institute: Clementine Kraemer Collection, 1894-1963.
• Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main: Digital Collections, Judaica, Compact Memory.
• Memorial book for the home of the Jewish Women's Union in Neu-Isenburg (1907–1942)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c d e f g h i} Elizabeth Loentz: "The most famous Jewish pacifist was Jesus of Nazareth": German-Jewish Pacifist Clementine Kramer's Stories of War and Visions for Peace . In: Women in German Yearbook . tape 23 , 2007, ISSN  1058-7446 , p. 126-155 , JSTOR : 20688282 .
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Corinne Jayne Painter: The Life and Works of Clementine Krämer (1873-1942) . December 2015, p. 8-36 ( whiterose.ac.uk [accessed April 17, 2020] University of Leeds).
3. ^ German Jewry
4. ↑ Joseph B. Maier, Judith Marcus, and Zoltan Tarr, Eds. German Jewry, its history and sociology: Selected essays of Werner J. Cahnman. New Brunswick, NJ, and Oxford . In: Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences . tape 28 , no. 4 , October 1992, ISSN  0022-5061 , p. 437-438 , doi : 10.1002 / 1520-6696 (199210) 28: 4 <437 :: aid-jhbs2300280432> 3.0.co; 2-q .
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Guide to the Papers of Clementine Kraemer (1873-1942) 1894-1963AR 2402 / MF 783. Retrieved May 7, 2020 . 
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Gudrun Maierhof, Cornelia Wenzel: Protagonists of the 'old' Jewish women's association . In: Ariadne: Forum for Women's and Gender History . No. 45-46 , 2004, ISSN  0178-1073 , p. 90-93 , doi : 10.25595 / 1592 .
7. ^ Corinne Jayne Painter: The Life and Works of Clementine Kramer (1873-1942) . December 2015, p. 132-154 ( whiterose.ac.uk [accessed May 28, 2020] University of Leeds).
8. ↑ Elizabeth Löntz: The Literary Double Life of Clementine Krämer: German-Jewish Activist and Bavarian "home" and Dialect Writer . In: Donahue, William Collins; Helfer, Martha B. (Ed.): Nexus: Essays in German Jewish Studies . tape 1 . Camden House, 2011, ISBN 978-1-57113-501-8 , pp. 109-136 .