DRK sisterhood
A DRK sisterhood - in the long form “Sisterhood of the German Red Cross” - is a registered association in which nurses and members of other health and care professions are organized. A DRK sisterhood is legally independent, but organizationally closely integrated into the network of the German Red Cross . There are 31 regional DRK sororities in Germany. Their common umbrella organization is the Association of Sisterhoods of the German Red Cross e. V.
The sororities as permanent organizations emerged from the movement of the Red Cross Sisters , who initially cared for war wounded as voluntary helpers and later also took on civilian nursing and welfare tasks. Today's Red Cross nurses work full-time as health and nursing staff , surgical technicians , health and nursing assistants , geriatric nurses and midwives . The sisters are organized as members of the DRK sororities and until recently were not considered employees in the sense of the law.
The DRK sororities have a total of around 21,000 sisters. Together they operate 64 nursing schools with around 4,000 training positions for nursing professions. The DRK sororities are a market-relevant provider of temporary work in the health care system, in that they provide all or most of the nursing staff for entire hospitals via provision contracts. They also operate a total of 25 hospitals, 22 inpatient care facilities, 22 short-term and day care centers, 17 outpatient care services, 9 assisted living facilities, 4 day care centers and 3 hospices.
History of the Red Cross Sisters
Neutral help for war wounded
In 1859, Swiss businessman Henry Dunant happened to be an eyewitness on the battlefield after the Battle of Solferino . He was shocked that, in addition to 30,000 dead, around 10,000 seriously wounded people were simply left lying there by their armies and bled to death and died of thirst under cruel suffering. Dunant spontaneously rushed to help the wounded and organized emergency care with volunteers from the local civilian population, mainly women and girls. Under the slogan “Tutti fratelli” (“All are brothers”), the helpers took care of all the injured regardless of nationality. However, the success of the effort was very limited. There was a lack of almost everything: helpers, specialist knowledge, medical material and food. Dunant set up makeshift hospitals and had bandages and relief supplies brought in at his own expense. Despite the help, many wounded died.
In the years that followed, Dunant campaigned across Europe for an international treaty to care for wounded soldiers. In 1864, the first Geneva Convention was signed by twelve states . It was also agreed on a uniform symbol to protect the wounded and those who helped: the easily recognizable Red Cross on a white background , an inversion of the Swiss flag. At the same time, Dunant and his colleagues tried to set up an international organization to carry out this care professionally. Aid organizations should be founded in all countries on the basis of neutrality and voluntariness. The trained nurses should behave neutrally during war and stand by all wounded soldiers regardless of their affiliation. In 1863 the group founded the “ Committee of Aid Societies for the Care of Wounded ” in Geneva , which since 1876 has been known as the “ International Committee of the Red Cross ”.
In Germany, the Baden Women's Association was founded in Karlsruhe in 1859 . A year later this resulted in the first sisterhood of what would later become the Red Cross. She should organize the training and the use of the nurses. Until then, the care of the sick in Europe had almost exclusively been taken over by church institutions and religious communities, as a form of charity and as an opportunity to convert people without religion. The job title "sister", which is still used today, goes back to the nuns who performed this task for centuries. Dunant's idea of neutrality required ideologically and denominationally independent organizations. The Red Cross sororities, however, modeled - in a kind of secular order - the organizational structures of church nursing that were common at that time. The nurses lived under one roof, were looked after by the sisterhood, wore uniform clothing, had to remain celibate and had their superiors determine essential questions of their private life. Many terms were also adopted, the head of a sisterhood was called a superior , as in religious orders , the sisterhood and its main building were often referred to as the mother house .
In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, the approximately fifty nurses who had been trained up to that point entered the service of the Baden Army. At the same time, the Baden Women's Association was recognized by the International Committee in Geneva as a national aid society. After the Karlsruhe and international models, more than thirty regional sororities gradually emerged in Germany. In 1869, the individual national companies formed an umbrella organization for the “German associations for the care of wounded and sick soldiers in the field”.
Civil nursing and health care
Also in 1869, the famous doctor and social reformer Rudolf Virchow called for "full commitment to a peace program in the field of public health care, regardless of readiness for war" at the second international Red Cross conference. He also campaigned for the introduction of vocational training in nursing and for the nationwide establishment of nursing schools at every large hospital.
After the fundamental decision to provide nursing care in peacetime, the Red Cross sororities became more professional. Some were attached to university hospitals, and most of them built their own hospitals over time. In 1882, fifteen associations and institutes met for a conference to discuss the standardization of admission, training, employment and further training for nurses. Initially seven of them joined together to form the “Association of German Nursing Institutes from the Red Cross”. In the great cholera, typhoid and tuberculosis epidemics at the end of the 19th century, the Red Cross Sisters expanded their field of work to include health education. They imparted hygiene and nutrition knowledge to the population. The sororities set up lung sanatoriums, convalescence and rest homes for those who were already ill. In the 1908 earthquake in Messina , the worst natural disaster in Europe in the 20th century with around 100,000 victims, after an appeal by the International Red Cross, German Red Cross Sisters got involved in an expedition with relief supplies, including disaster relief.
As early as the beginning of the 20th century there was dissatisfaction with the quasi-religious forms of organization of the DRK sororities and their regulations for the way of life of nurses. In 1901, the former Red Cross sister Agnes Karll turned against the lecture of a Red Cross Superior at a general assembly of the General German Women's Association , who viewed the occupation of nurses without belonging to a parent house and subordination to its regulations as unacceptable and impracticable. In contrast to these ideas, Karll founded the professional organization of nurses in Germany in 1903 , in which freelance nurses came together. The new association stated that the primary goal was to enable nurses to be independent, to have a say and to share responsibility.
Use in the world wars
The First World War was the first major emergency in the sense of the Red Cross founders. Tens of thousands, later hundreds of thousands, of nurses from all over the world took care of the wounded. In Germany, around 6,000 fully trained nurses, 1,000 auxiliary nurses and 7,000 helpers were on hand at the beginning of the war. This strength was not nearly enough for the hundreds of thousands wounded in the first great mass war. The nurses reported that the prepared logistics had failed and that a large number of the wounded could not be adequately cared for due to a lack of staff. The total numbers for the German Red Cross are given as 19,773 nurses in the army medical service and 85,858 nurses in their home area.
In the Nazi dictatorship the German Red Cross and with it the German Red Cross sororities were gradually brought into line . As early as 1933 National Socialists occupied all important positions and abolished the central Red Cross principle of neutrality through a new statute. In 1935 the umbrella organization of the DRK sororities appointed the National Socialist Luise von Oertzen as superior general. The 1935 "Reichsarzt" the SS appointed Ernst-Robert Grawitz was used early 1937 in the set up especially for him post of "Executive President" of the German Red Cross. He was supposed to curtail civil health care and welfare work and prepare the Red Cross for the war effort. Nurse training, ambulance service and medical teams should be expanded and become "Wehrmacht-like" through drill and tight organization. Without a legal basis, Grawitz had all 400 independent Red Cross associations still remaining at that time, including the sororities, dissolved and incorporated into the more controllable unified organization “Deutsches Rotes Kreuz e. V. ". He reported on it: "Today a new, powerful German Red Cross, organized in a tight military manner and led by the National Socialists, is ready for any operation".
With the " Law on the German Red Cross ", which came into force on December 9, 1937 , the legal situation was subsequently adapted to this compulsory union. The Red Cross Sisters were managed centrally by the “Office for Sororities” under the direction of Otto Stahl. General Superior von Oertzen was appointed "General Hauptsturmführer". The DRK controlled by the SS , from whose assets the SS business enterprises raised millions in loans, insisted on its organizational independence. As a result, it prevented the Red Cross Sisters from uniting with the Nurses of the National Socialist People's Welfare , also known as the “ Brown Sisters ”.
On August 24, 1939, a week before the start of the attack on Poland , the DRK Presidium ordered everything to be done in order to be able to carry out "the tasks set by the Wehrmacht" immediately. After the start of the war, the experiences of 1914 were repeated: Despite years of war preparations, the medical personnel and logistics were insufficient to treat the large number of wounded. Tens of thousands of women were quickly trained as Red Cross helpers. The DRK supported the National Socialist Wehrmacht until the end of the Second World War . After the military defeat, DRK leader Grawitz killed himself and his family with a hand grenade in his Babelsberg villa in the last days of the war. Superior General von Oertzen left Babelsberg shortly before the end of the war and fled with some employees after she had handed over the official business to Clare Ports, the superior of a DRK state office.
Professional Nursing Organizations
After the end of National Socialist rule, the DRK was initially dissolved in the Soviet and French occupation zones. In the American zone of occupation, the DRC was able to continue to work in its previous legal form of a corporation under public law, while in the British zone of occupation, and later also in the French zone, DRC regional associations were newly founded as registered associations. Many DRK sororities were also re-established as independent associations. In 1948 the umbrella organization was re-established under the name “Association of Mother Houses of the Red Cross”. In 1952 Luise von Oertzen was again elected General Superior of the umbrella organization.
In the following decades the DRK sororities became organizations for professional nursing. There were controversies about the status of nurses and their employment relationships at an early stage, which the European Court of Justice only ended with a landmark ruling in 2016.
Controversies about employee status and agency work
The nursing staff working for the sororities were not employees , according to the longstanding case law of the Federal Labor Court . The regulations laid down in general labor law, for example on protection against dismissal or employee participation, therefore did not apply to the sisters; instead, the entitlements were determined by the membership regulations of the sororities. Accordingly, there was no jurisdiction of the labor courts, but an internal arbitration system was set up. The umbrella organization justified this with the fact that the sororities formed a “community of responsibility with a special charitable profile” and protection and opportunities for participation through membership rights sometimes went beyond normal employee rights. The German trade union federation criticized, however, that the obligation to perform work on the basis of membership under the law of an association leads to the circumvention of mandatory statutory law.
The sorority's main field of business is “provision contracts”, through which - comparable to a temporary work model - workers are transferred to hospitals and care facilities. The Federal Labor Court referred the question of whether members of the sororities are to be regarded as temporary workers to the European Court of Justice in March 2015 for a preliminary ruling. The occasion was the legal dispute between the University Hospital Essen and its works council over the employment of a DRK sister.
In November 2016, the ECJ ruled that the protective rules for temporary workers established in European law also apply to members of sororities who work full-time and for remuneration. When supplementing the Temporary Employment Act in autumn 2016, the association sought an exception, as it fears that if the Federal Labor Court takes the ECJ ruling into account in the future, the "DRK, as a national aid company, will be severely restricted in its future capability". In accordance with the preliminary ruling of the European Court of Justice, the Federal Labor Court ruled in February 2017 that the works council of a hospital can refuse the necessary approval if the deployment of a Red Cross nurse violates the ban on non-temporary temporary employment.
In the run-up to the changes to the Temporary Employment Act that came into force on April 1, 2017, the Coburg regional sorority association filed for insolvency on January 31, 2017 due to impending insolvency. There, 500 nurses had accepted the offer of the local clinic based on the new legal regulation to replace the "provision" with a direct permanent position and ended their membership in the sisterhood.
At the University Hospital Essen, the starting point of the fundamental judgment, the hospital management announced the appointment contract on September 30, 2018 and offered all DRK nurses to take on regular employment while maintaining their long-term employment status. This offer was accepted by almost 1,000 sisters, while only around 50 to 80 stayed with the DRK Sisterhood Essen. The DRK sisterhood in Essen almost completely lost its business model and had to join the Westphalia sisterhood.
List of DRK sororities in Germany
As of February 2019, there are 31 independent DRK sororities in Germany in the legal form of a registered association , all of which are listed in the following list. The number of sororities is constantly changing, because in the first few decades new regional organizations were continuously founded, while sororities later merged or dissolved. Due to the forced dissolution under National Socialism, from a purely legal point of view, there has been no sisterhood - with the exception of some founded after the war - since the founding years. Many refer in their tradition to their local predecessor organizations and indicate their founding date. Due to the break in the organization, some of the founding data can hardly or no longer be verified today.
| Surname | Seat | founding |
|---|---|---|
| Sisterhood Wallmenich House of the Bavarian Red Cross e. V. | On the mountain | 1949 |
| DRK Sisterhood Berlin e. V. | Berlin | 1875 |
| DRK sisterhood Bonn e. V. | Bonn | 1906 |
| Bremen Sisterhood of the Red Cross e. V. | Bremen | 1872 |
| Alice-Sisterhood of the Red Cross Darmstadt e. V. | Darmstadt | 1867 |
| DRK sisterhood Essen e. V. | eat | 1913 |
| DRK sisterhood Elsa Brändström e. V. | Flensburg | 1948 |
| Sisterhood of the Red Cross Frankfurt am Main 1866 e. V. | Frankfurt am Main | 1866 |
| DRK sisterhood Bad Homburg-Maingau e. V. | Frankfurt am Main | 1975 |
| DRK Sisterhood of Westphalia e. V. | Gelsenkirchen | 1905 |
| DRK sisterhood Georgia-Augusta e. V. | Goettingen | 1927 |
| DRK Sisterhood Hamburg e. V. | Hamburg | 1868 |
| DRK sisterhood Clementinenhaus e. V. | Hanover | 1875 |
| DRK Sisterhood of East Prussia V. | Itzehoe | 1916 |
| Baden Sisterhood of the Red Cross e. V. - Sisters of Luis | Karlsruhe | 1859 |
| DRK Sisterhood Kassel e. V. | kassel | 1875 |
| DRK-Anschar-Sisterhood Kiel e. V. | Kiel | 1873 |
| DRK Heinrich Sisterhood e. V. | Kiel | 1921 |
| DRK sisterhood Krefeld e. V. | Krefeld | 1939 |
| DRK sisterhood Lübeck e. V. | Lübeck | 1903 |
| DRK Augusta Sisterhood V. | Luneburg | 1875 |
| Alice-Sisterhood Mainz from the DRK e. V. | Mainz | 1870 |
| DRK sisterhood Marburg e. V. | Marburg | 1919 |
| Sisterhood of Munich from the Bavarian Red Cross e. V. | Munich | 1872 |
| DRK sisterhood Rheinpfalz-Saar e. V. | Neustadt an der Weinstrasse | 1942 |
| Sisterhood Nuremberg from the Bavarian Red Cross e. V. | Nuremberg | 1940 |
| Oldenburg Sisterhood of the Red Cross e. V. | Sands | 1912 |
| Württemberg sisterhood of the Red Cross e. V. | Stuttgart | 1912 |
| DRK Sisterhood of Orange e. V. | Wiesbaden | 1885 |
| DRK sisterhood overseas e. V. | Wilhelmshaven | 1935 |
| DRK sisterhood Wuppertal e. V. | Wuppertal | 1911 |
Umbrella organization of sororities
| Association of the sororities of the German Red Cross e. V. | |
|---|---|
|
|
| purpose | Association of all sororities of the German Red Cross , promotion of public health care as well as assistance for people in need |
| Chair: | Superior General Gabriele Müller-Stutzer |
| Establishment date: | 1882 |
| Seat : | Berlin |
| Website: | www.rotkreuzschwestern.de |
The Association of Sisterhoods of the German Red Cross e. V. (VdS) is the umbrella organization of the regional sororities. Their membership is voluntary. The VdS states that the most important goals are to promote the professionalization and academization of the care professions, to improve the framework conditions for the practice of care workers, to shape the health and care system and to represent the interests of members effectively. Organs of the association are the general assembly and the board elected by it. This consists of 14 members, eight of whom form the executive board, including the President of the German Red Cross. The President of the VdS, currently General Superior Gabriele Müller-Stutzer, is active on a full-time basis. The office in Berlin employs eight people.
history
The association of sororities was originally founded in 1882 under the name Association of German Nursing Institutes from the Red Cross e. V. founded as a welfare institution for the sisters. In 1896 the association represented around 600 sisters and students. In 1919 the seat of the association was moved to Berlin . After several attempts in 1903 and 1907, it was decided in 1920 that the sororities should now each establish a council of sisters . This was intended as the sisters' self-advocacy towards the sorority leadership. He was responsible for " maintaining the reputation of the sisterhood and maintaining a good understanding between the sisters, the superior and the board ". The sister insurance association founded by the Red Cross in 1921 had 22 members in 1926 and 32 in 1932 with 1,377 insured sisters.
Due to a change in the statutes in 1922, it continued to appear as the Association of German Mother Houses of the Red Cross and introduced the sisters' personal membership in the sororities. In 1930, 37 mother houses with 2,108 sisters and 62 pensioners belonged to the association; later it is reported from 57 mother houses with 9,164 sisters. After a restructuring, the association became a sisterhood of the German Red Cross eV . designated. By the DRK law of 1937, the umbrella organization and the sororities were dissolved. In its place came a central leadership through the “Office for Sororities”.
In 1948 the association was re-established under the title Association of Mother Houses of the Red Cross , based in Hamburg . In 1949 he moved to Frankfurt am Main and in 1954 to Bonn , where the General Secretariat of the DRK was also located. Since 1967 it has been renamed the Union of Sororities of the Red Cross .
Central educational institutions of the sororities
In addition to numerous hospital-related schools for nurses, the DRK sororities also run central educational institutions for nursing managers. These were initially set up by individual sororities, later by the umbrella organization of sororities, partly together with the DRK.
In 1903 the head of the Munich DRK sisterhood, Clementine von Wallmenich , founded a training center for managers in nursing under the name “Oberinnenschule”. Von Wallmenich also connected this with the goal of further developing and systematically passing on the knowledge of care. After internal disputes in Munich, the school moved to Kiel as early as 1905 and became part of the sisterhood there. During the economic crisis in 1923, the facility had to be closed. In 1927 it was re-established as the Werner School by the German Red Cross in Berlin, with an expanded offering that also included further training for nurses. After its building was destroyed in the war, the school moved to Göttingen in 1944, where it resumed operations in 1947 after an interruption at the end of the war.
In 2002, the DRK and the umbrella association of sororities also founded the University of Applied Sciences in the German Red Cross in Göttingen , which offered bachelor's degrees in the subjects of social management and care management . The university was closed in 2008 due to economic difficulties. Due to decreased demand and a lack of profitability, the Union of Sisterhoods also closed the Werner School at the end of 2016.
See also
literature
- Hartmut Brosius: The legal status of the Red Cross sisters from an employment law perspective. Doctoral thesis University of Cologne 1968.
- Association of the sororities of the German Red Cross e. V. (Ed.): Red Cross Sisters: the nursing professionals: Humanity - the idea lives . 1st edition. Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim u. a. 2007, ISBN 978-3-487-08467-1 .
- Astrid Weber: Is the Red Cross Sister an employee of her sorority ?: At the same time, an examination of the employee status using the general terms and conditions control . 1st edition. Peter Lang Publishing Group, Frankfurt / M. u. a. 2009, ISBN 978-3-631-58610-5 .
- Ludger Tewes : Red Cross Sisters: Their deployment in the mobile medical service of the Wehrmacht 1939–1945 . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2016, ISBN 978-3-506-78257-1 .
- Ludger Tewes, arr.,: Diary (1926 to 1945) of the Red Cross nurse Klara in the Army Medical Service. A construction of reality (= contributions and miscelles 11) . 2nd Edition. Gustav Siewerth Academy, Cologne / Bonn 2020, ISBN 978-3-945777-02-2 .
Web links
- rotkreuzschwestern.de - Homepage of the association
Individual evidence
- ↑ Portrait: Association of Sisterhoods of the German Red Cross e. V. (PDF) In: Website of the Association of Sisterhoods of the German Red Cross. April 17, 2018, accessed January 25, 2019 .
- ↑ The DRK from its beginnings until today. In: Website of the German Red Cross. Retrieved January 24, 2019 .
- ↑ Ruth Elster : The Agnes Karll Association and its influence on the development of nursing in Germany: A contribution to the history of the nursing professions and a professional association. Frankfurt am Main 2000.
- ^ Quotation from Ernst Klee : Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Second updated edition. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , p. 198.
- ↑ Birgitt Morgenbrod, Stephanie Merkenich: The German Red Cross under the Nazi dictatorship 1933 to 1945. Verlag Schoeningh 2008, ISBN 978-3-506-76529-1 , p. 417
- ^ Sigrid Schmidt-Meinecke: The call of the hour , W. Kohlhammer Stuttgart 1963, page 34
- ↑ Legal protection for the hood . In: Der Spiegel . No. 26 , 1957 ( online ).
- ^ Marion Schink: The special legal status of Red Cross Sisters. (PDF; 181 kB) In: The Red Cross Sister, issue 1/2010. Retrieved January 25, 2019 .
- ↑ Dorothee Müller-Wenner: Special rights for Red Cross sisters in temporary work? , DGB Rechtsschutz GmbH of August 10, 2015
- ↑ ECJ submission from March 17, 2015, 1 ABR 62/12 (A). Federal Labor Court
- ↑ The verdict causes great unrest among the DRK sisterhood. In: Neue Ruhr Zeitung online. November 30, 2016, accessed October 11, 2018 .
- ↑ Judgment in Case C-216/15 of November 17, 2016. European Court of Justice
- ↑ Special status of Red Cross Sisters: ECJ refers back to BAG . Association of sororities from the DRK, press release, November 17, 2016
- ^ Federal Council adopts AÜG . Association of sororities from the DRK, press release, 25 November 2016
- ↑ Temporary employment - DRK sister. Federal Labor Court, press release 10/17 on decision 1 ABR 62/12 of February 21, 2017
- ↑ Sororities provide temporary workers . Legal Tribune Online, February 21, 2017
- ↑ Red Cross Sisterhood, the members run away . Münchner Merkur , message dated February 2, 2017
- ↑ Red Cross Sisterhood Coburg files for bankruptcy. Insolvenz-Portal.de, press release from February 1, 2017
- ↑ DRK in Essen loses almost 1000 Red Cross sisters. In: Neue Ruhr Zeitung online. October 11, 2018, accessed October 11, 2018 .
- ↑ 31 DRK sororities throughout Germany. In: Website of the Association of Sisterhoods of the German Red Cross. Retrieved February 4, 2019 .
- ^ Association of sororities of the German Red Cross: Red Cross Sisters - the nursing professionals: Humanity - the idea lives. Publishing company? Hildesheim 2007, page 223 ff.
- ↑ Association for professional care. In: Website of the Association of Sisterhoods of the German Red Cross. Retrieved February 4, 2019 .
- ↑ Organization, statutes and board. In: Website of the Association of Sisterhoods of the German Red Cross. Retrieved February 4, 2019 .
- ↑ Association of Superiors of the Red Cross: Becoming and Working . Berlin 1930, pp. 114 f., 119.
- ↑ Sigrid Schmidt-Meinecke: The call of the hour. Sisters under the Red Cross. Association of Superior Women in the German Red Cross, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1963, p. 28.
- ^ Association of Superiors of the Red Cross: Werden und Wirken , Berlin 1930, p. 124.
- ↑ Sigrid Schmidt-Meinecke: The call of the hour. Sisters under the Red Cross. Oberinnen-Vereinigung in the German Red Cross, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1963, pp. 16-17.
- ↑ History of the Werner School from the DRK . Website of the Werner School of the DRK ( Memento in the Internet Archive of April 7, 2016)
- ↑ No perspective for the DRK University of Applied Sciences in Göttingen . Press release of the DRK General Secretariat of March 12, 2007. In: Website of the University of Applied Sciences in the German Red Cross ( Memento in the Internet Archive of March 12, 2007)
- ↑ Current: Werner School. (PDF; 4.5 MB) In: Rotkreuzschwester, the specialist magazine of the Association of Sisterhoods of the German Red Cross, issue 1/2017, p. 6. Accessed on January 29, 2019 .