Edith Mendelssohn Bartholdy

Edith Louise Ida Mendelssohn Bartholdy b. Speyer (born January 6, 1882 in Berlin , † July 9, 1969 in Cologne ) was a German social and cultural politician.

Live and act

Edith Speyer was born as the eldest child of the Berlin businessman Paul Speyer and his wife Rosa, née Stern. Her brother, who was five years her junior, was the writer Wilhelm Speyer . Edith received the usual training for girls of her class. After completing secondary school for girls, she decided, against her father's will, to become a teacher. At the age of 19 Edith Speyer successfully passed the teacher examination for secondary schools in her hometown. She then taught at the Queen Luisen Foundation in Berlin. On November 6, 1905, at the age of 23, Edith Speyer married the banker Ludwig Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1878–1918), a son of the chemist Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy , who was four years older than him . The marriage remained childless.

In 1908 Edith Mendelssohn Bartholdy and her husband embarked on an extensive world tour, on which the painter Heinrich Hübner accompanied them. They spent over five months in China, Japan and also in North America. After returning from their trip about two years later, the Mendelssohn Bartholdy couple moved to Leipzig . Ludwig Mendelssohn Bartholdy took over the management of a bank branch there, and his wife volunteered in the city's social and cultural policy. She and her husband became "a member of the Leipziger Kunstverein , the Association of Leipzig Annual Exhibitions (LJA) and the Society of Friends of the Museum of Applied Arts (GFKGM), to which Edith Mendelssohn Bartholdy gave some valuable pieces from China and Japan".

Care for young children was a particular concern of her, especially since Edith Mendelssohn Bartholdy wanted to counteract the high infant mortality rate at the time. As a result, in 1912 she founded the Leipziger Krippen Verein e. V., "who set himself the goal of creating the crèches that were still missing in this city of the strongest industrial women’s work". As early as March 10, 1912, the first day nursery with space for 18 children was opened. Since the demand for crèche places was enormous, the association set up a second crèche on October 13, 1912. Motherless children, orphans or children of single mothers were given preference. In both crèches, courses were held to train young girls and women in caring for babies and toddlers, organized by Mendelssohn Bartholdy.

She was also a member of the Association for Maternity Protection, of which she was elected in 1916. During the First World War she worked as an expert for the crèche system at the women's labor center in Berlin and in this responsible position had "war cribs", "factory cribs" and in particular "nursery cribs and nurseries" within or in the immediate vicinity of companies throughout Germany Called to life:

"The War Office Women's Labor Center is ready to name experienced and suitable personalities in every part of the empire for advice on setting up new facilities, for managing and monitoring the company, and to provide evidence of suitable nursing staff."

The need for such facilities was very uneven, "even in large cities with apparently similar living conditions, the need was seldom the same at the same time: every industrial city had different experiences".

Especially during the war, Edith Mendelssohn Bartholdy supported the expansion of the nursery as an expert at the women's center, in accordance with the “German Crèche Association”. The focus of interest was the economic aspect, namely the release of female labor. This could only develop fully if the working mothers could assume that their children were well looked after in the daycare center. Because only then does the mother work “without nervous excitement and maternal worry and concentrate her strength on her performance”.

On October 14, 1918, her husband was killed near Bolowsk .

“Now she was alone with all problems and worries. Nevertheless, in 1919 she was one of the first women to stand for election to the Leipzig city parliament and worked as a member of the German Democratic Party until 1927 in the constitutional committee, in the field of social welfare, especially child welfare, and on cultural problems. Numerous motions on social issues, 'submitted' by her and initially strongly opposed by the council, have almost all been implemented since 1919. "

In 1930 Edith Mendelssohn Bartholdy took over the chairmanship of the Leipzig branch of the Association of German and Austrian Artists and Art Lovers, which was established in the same year . Just one year later, the first female artist exhibition took place in Leipzig. In 1932 she was appointed honorary chairman of the Leipzig GEDOK, since Edith Mendelsohn Bartholdy was meanwhile chairwoman of the GEDOK local group in Berlin. When the National Socialists came to power, she, baptized Protestant but of Jewish origin, had to give up all her offices and emigrated to England in 1936. There she got a job at the Stoatley Rough School founded and led by Hilde Lion .

Grave in the Melaten cemetery

In the mid-1950s Edith Mendelssohn Bartholdy moved to Cologne, where she initially lived in Marienburg. A few years before her death, she moved to the Riehler Heimstätten , a city residential complex for the elderly that was built in 1926 on the initiative of Hertha Kraus in a former barracks. Until the end she was interested in the old generation, from whose "often sad situation" she was shaken. She advocated that people do not end up without work in old age, "because nothing makes old and sick faster than inactivity". According to a dedication to The End of Life , she was friends with Therese Frank for seventy years.

Her grave is in the Melaten cemetery in Cologne (lit. G, between lit. C + D).

Works

• Cribs in War , in: Krippenzeitung 1917, p. 33 ff.
• Industry and child welfare , in: Krippenzeitung 1917, p. 72 ff.
• Start-ups of cribs. Estimation for the establishment and operation of a crèche , in: Krippenzeitung 1918, p. 7 ff.
• The German artist. A memorial book , Leipzig 1933
• Retirement , Gütersloh 1959

literature

• Rita Jorek: Edith Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1882–1969). Social and cultural politician ; in: Louise-Otto-Peters-Gesellschaft e. V. Leipzig (Ed.): Leipziger Lerchen. Remember Women , 2nd episode; Leipzig 2000, p. 32 ff.
• Marie-Luise Nissen: Edith Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1882–1969) - Your contribution to the origin and development of the day nursery in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century ; Munich 1999 (unpublished diploma thesis).
• Sebastian Panwitz: Edith Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Life Memories (Part I) ; in: Mendelssohn Studies 20 (2017), pp. 187–226.

Web links

• Heroine city of Leipzig: 20th century ; on the website of women in connection eV, lesbenfruehling.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jorek 2000, p. 33
2. ↑ Quoted from Jorek 2000, p. 33
3. ↑ cf. Nissen 1999
4. ↑ cf. Nissen 1999
5. ↑ Mendelssohn Bartholdy 1917, p. 74
6. ↑ Mendelssohn Bartholdy 1917, p. 33
7. ↑ Mendelssohn Bartholdy 1917, p. 72
8. ↑ Jorek 2000, p. 35
9. ↑ Mendelssohn Bartholdy 1959, p. 11
10. ↑ Mendelssohn Bartholdy 1959, p. 192