German Association for Women's Suffrage

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Brochure Equal Rights, Women's Suffrage. Wake up you German women of all classes of all parties! (1907) of the association

The German Association for Women's Suffrage was founded on January 1, 1902 in Hamburg as the German Association for Women's Suffrage , and in 1904 it was converted into the German Association for Women's Suffrage. The association was the first from the bourgeois-radical spectrum of the women's rights movement , which saw its goal primarily in gaining active and passive voting rights for women and was the largest umbrella organization of the fragmented German women's suffrage movement . In 1916, the Association and the German Association for Women's Suffrage merged to form the German Reich Association for Women's Suffrage.

founding

The direct reason for the establishment was the First International Conference on Women's Suffrage , which was to take place in Washington DC in February 1902 . Since no German organization existed yet to promote women's suffrage, no German delegates could be sent. In addition to Anita Augspurg and Lida Gustava Heymann , who became chairman and vice-chairman, the founding members included Minna Cauer , Charlotte Engel-Reimers , Agnes Hacker , Käthe Schirmacher , Helene Stöcker and Adelheid von Welczeck (there were 13 in total). Other well-known women's rights activists joined in the next few months, including Marie Raschke , Anna Pappritz and Marie Stritt . The Hamburg Women's Welfare Association also joined. After the founding, Augspurg was able to telegraph a greeting address to the international women's suffrage conference on behalf of the association.

The founding of the association sparked great interest in the German Empire , as magazines of the German women's movement had reported for a long period of time about women's suffrage and women's suffrage associations in other European countries. The Hamburg association gained many members in a short time and was regarded as a model for founding local branches in other countries of the German Empire where this was legally possible. In the same year, a great success was celebrated, 35 women were able to get an audience with Reich Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow and present their demands there. The main focus here was on the amendment of the Association Act, which prevented political activities by women in many German countries.

In 1904 the club participated in the of Susan B. Anthony led the Second International Women's Suffrage Conference in Berlin part and joined the set up there World Alliance for Women's Suffrage (ger .: International Alliance of Women ), the international women's movement to. The IWSA only accepted national umbrella organizations. Accordingly, after the conference, the German voting rights association was transformed into an association called the German Association for Women's Suffrage (with branch associations and local groups).

In addition to publications, lectures and numerous petitions that spoke out in favor of democratic voting rights for everyone, but especially for women, the women were involved as "election assistants" in state elections as well as in city council elections in order to promote those candidates who were positive about the question of women's suffrage, and tried beyond that to get bourgeois parties interested in their cause. In addition to the Liberal People's Party and the Liberal Association , the only parties to which women, albeit not with equal rights, could become members, the SPD remained, in the long term, the only party that was prepared to campaign for women's suffrage.

Dispute about direction from 1907

From 1907 onwards, a dispute arose in the association about how one could advocate democratic suffrage without party-political determination. For the association members, there was a conflict between the feminist demand for women's suffrage and other political convictions. The left, radical wing of the bourgeois women's movement that dominated the early years lost more and more influence. In response to the Social Democrats' accusation that they were the only ones who campaigned for universal and equal suffrage, the association specified what it meant by political equality at its second general assembly in 1907. The clarification in § 3 of the association statutes led to a dispute lasting several years:

“The association does not represent any political party, nor any party or direction within the women's movement. The association strives for the general, equal, direct and secret right to vote for both sexes in the legislative bodies and the organs of self-government. "

- 1907 resolved § 3 of the association statutes

This paragraph contained a contradiction for contemporaries at the time, since universal and equal suffrage for men was only demanded by part of the party spectrum, namely the social democracy and the radical liberal democratic association .

The dispute over direction triggered the resignation of the Cologne member association in 1908/09 and the establishment of further women's suffrage associations, which demanded the same citizenship rights for men and women, but no specific right to vote, in particular not the abolition of the three-class suffrage in Prussia. These associations eventually merged to form the German Association for Women's Suffrage.

In 1911 the association's statutes were reformulated. Instead of both sexes, the "general, equal, direct and secret, active and passive right to vote" was now only required for women. The fights over direction led to the resignation of Augspurg and Heymann from the board, as they were not prepared to work with the also elected Marie Stritt. The board now consisted of Marie Stritt as chairwoman as well as Martha Zietz, Anna Lindemann, Maria Lischneska and Käthe Schirmacher and was thus strongly nationally-liberal. The new wording was also controversial, but since the members could not agree on any further changes, it remained in force the following year. Augspurg and Heymann, several hundred other members and two provincial associations (Hamburg and Bavaria) then left the association. In 1913, Augspurg and Heymann founded the German Women's Suffrage Association, which brought together the clubs that had resigned. There were now three three civil women's suffrage associations, which Minna Cauer described a year later as follows:

“There is now enough choice so that everyone can choose their field; the conservative, the moderate and the democratic. So now women have to reckon with these three directions of the bourgeois women's suffrage movement in Germany. "

- Minna Cauer 1914 : Zeitschrift für Frauenstimmrecht 8 (1914) 4, p. 11.

Cartel attempt

On a proposal from Augspurg and Heymann towards the agreed 1914 German association for women's suffrage , the German women's suffrage Confederation and the German Association for Women's Suffrage a cartel to show with the aim outwards a "united front". The cartel was supposed to facilitate cooperation in demonstrations, petitions and representation in the International Woman Suffrage Alliance . The common denominator was the demand for women's suffrage, details of how this right to vote were not given.

Merger to form the German Reich Association for Women's Suffrage

In 1916 the cartel was abandoned. The moderate and conservative electoral fractions had, unlike the radical, a common basis in national and patriotic thinking. The German Association for Women's Suffrage and the German Association for Women's Suffrage, led by Marie Stritt, merged to form the German Reich Association for Women's Suffrage . The executive committee consisted of Ida Dehmel , Li Fischer-Eckert and Illa Uth, who came from the association, and Rosa Kempf, Luise Koch, Alma Dzialoszynski and Emma Nägeli from the previous association. Section 3 in the 1911 formulation has now been abandoned. The Reichsverband represented limited women's suffrage. Several member associations of the previous association then resigned. Three of them joined the Women's Suffrage Association. In the new association the members of the previous association had a majority, but the demands of the new association corresponded more to those of the women's suffrage association, ie the association now represented the conservative direction of the women's movement.

After women's suffrage was introduced in Germany in 1918, the German Reich Association for Women 's Suffrage was dissolved in 1919.

Association structure and number of members

Until a change in the statutes in 1904, only individual memberships were possible. After that, corporate members could also be accepted. Where the Prussian association laws prohibited the formal establishment of local groups, the association built up a network of confidants who established the connection between the board and the individual members in the cities.

After the liberalization of the association laws , the number of members, which had remained small until then, rose sharply (in 1907/08 just under 2,500 members in 7 regional and 19 local associations, including more than 200 men). The association has now also been able to convert its previous sub-organizations into regional associations. From 1911 the association gained around 1,000 members every year. Shortly before the outbreak of World War I , it had almost 10,000 members. In 1918 the Reichsverband consisted of ten regional associations, eleven provincial associations and 86 local groups with a total of around 10,000 members.

Association body

First edition of the magazine Frauenstimmrecht from April / May 1912 with the song “Weckruf zum Frauenstimmrecht”, which was to be sung to the melody of the Marseillaise at meetings.

After it was founded, the journal Die Frauenbewegung, published by Minna Cauer since 1895, became the organ of the association. With reference to party-political neutrality, it was decided at the second general assembly in 1907 that the journal Die Frauenbewegung, published by Minna Cauer, could no longer be the organ of the association, since it represented the radical direction of the women's movement. The organ of the association was the newly founded magazine for women's suffrage , which appeared both as an independent magazine and as a monthly supplement to the magazine The Women's Movement and was edited by Anita Augspurg. The magazine's motto was “Justice exalts a people”. The title page showed an allegorical representation of the struggle for the right to vote, in which a female figure triumphantly held a broken height in front of the rising sun.

In 1912 the magazine Frauenstimmrecht was launched, which in turn was published by Augspurg (the supplement Zeitschrift für Frauenstimmrecht to The Women's Movement continued to appear, no longer as an association organ and now edited by Minna Cauer). At the Eisenach general assembly in 1913 it was decided that the content and form should be edited in agreement with the association's board. Augspurg then gave up the editorial team, which Adele Schreiber took over. In 1914 the magazine was renamed Die Staatsbürgerin .

See also

literature

  • Richard J. Evans: The feminist movement in Germany 1894-1933 (=  Sage studies in 20th century history . Volume 6 ). Sage Publications, London 1976, ISBN 0-8039-9951-8 .
  • Barbara Greven-Aschoff: The bourgeois women's movement in Germany 1894-1933 (=  critical studies on historical science . Volume 46 ). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1981, ISBN 3-525-35704-4 , urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb00052495-9 .
  • Christina Klausmann: Politics and culture of the women's movement in the empire. The example of Frankfurt am Main (=  history and gender . Volume 19 ). Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-593-35758-5 .
  • Ulla Wischermann: Women's movements and publics around 1900. Networks - counter-publics - protest stagings (=  Frankfurt Feminist Texts / Social Sciences . Volume 4 ). Helmer, Königstein 2003, ISBN 3-89741-121-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. Hamburg was chosen as the place of the foundation because the association law in Prussia forbade female participation in politically oriented associations. This only became possible in 1908 through the Reich Association Act .
  2. Evans 1976, pp. 71-72.
  3. Bärbel Clemens: The struggle for women's suffrage in Germany . In: Christl Wickert (Ed.): Out with women's suffrage. The struggles of women in Germany and England for political equality (=  women in history and society . No. 17 ). Centaurus, Pfaffenweiler 1990, ISBN 3-89085-389-7 , p. 51–131, here p. 76 .
  4. Clemens 1990, p. 76.
  5. Clemens 1990, p. 78.
  6. Clemens 1990, p. 77.
  7. Wischermann 2003, pp. 107-109.
  8. For a long time, the petition was the only political right of women to participate.
  9. Klausmann 1997, p. 248.
  10. Clemens 1990, p. 79.
  11. Gisela Notz: "Bring on the universal, equal suffrage for men and women!" The international socialist women's movement at the beginning of the 20th century and the struggle for women's suffrage . Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Historical Research Center, Bonn 2008, ISBN 978-3-89892-981-3 , p. 18 .
  12. Kerstin Wolff: Again from the beginning and told anew. The history of the struggle for women's suffrage in Germany . In: Hedwig Richter, Kerstin Wolff (Hrsg.): Women's suffrage Democratization of democracy in Germany and Europe . Hamburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-86854-323-0 , pp. 35–56, here p. 49 .
  13. Klausmann 1997, p. 259.
  14. Greven-Aschoff 1986, pp. 134-136
  15. Greven-Aschoff 1986, pp. 137-139.
  16. Evans 1976, p. 103.
  17. Greven-Aschoff 1986, pp. 137-140.
  18. Evans 1976, pp. 104-105.
  19. quoted from Wolff 2018, p. 51.
  20. a b Greven-Aschoff 1986, pp. 137-140.
  21. a b Evans 1976, pp. 106-107.
  22. Angelika Schaser: Women's Movement in Germany 1848–1933 . WBG, Darmstadt 2006, ISBN 978-3-534-15210-0 , p. 53 .
  23. a b Wischermann 2003, pp. 107-109.
  24. Greven-Aschoff 1986, p. 134.
  25. Klausmann 1997, pp. 242-246.
  26. Evans 1976, pp. 93-94.
  27. Wischermann 2003, p. 115.
  28. Wischermann 2003, pp. 107-109.
  29. Greven-Aschoff 1986, pp. 134-135.
  30. Clemens 1990, p. 77.
  31. Klausmann 1997, pp. 266-267.
  32. Wischermann 2003, p. 114.