Elisabeth Busse-Wilson

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Elisabeth Johanna Auguste Busse-Wilson , b. Wilson , (born February 19, 1890 in Sondershausen , † November 11, 1974 in Oberursel , Taunus ) was a German historian . She belonged to the first generation of German women who received a university education.

biography

Elisabeth Wilson was the daughter of a senior judicial officer ; her mother had trained as a teacher . She grew up in Frauensee . Until she was 15, she attended a higher girls' school in Erfurt , and from 1905 a high school class. In 1909 she passed her high school diploma - as was customary at the time - as an external examination, which was so difficult that even in later years she described it as the “greatest achievement she had achieved”.

From 1909 Wilson studied history, art history , social sciences and ethnography at several German universities. During her studies in Jena she belonged to the Serakreis initiated by publisher Eugen Diederichs . In 1914 she received her doctorate in Leipzig on the subject of ornament on an ethnological and prehistoric basis . In the following year she married the art historian Kurt Heinrich Busse , who was close to the left wing of the Free German youth ; their son Konrad was born in 1929.

Together with her husband, Elisabeth Busse-Wilson was involved in the Free German youth , she gave lectures and worked as a chronicler of the movement. In 1920 her book The Woman and the Youth Movement was published , in which she assessed the "socialization conditions of the female youth of the bourgeoisie without exception as discriminatory and subject to male moral laws". She took the view that existing psychological divergences between the sexes were not due to biological differences, but to socialization-related aspects. Accordingly, she followed the life plan of an academically educated woman herself throughout her life.

From 1921 to 1931 Elisabeth Busse-Wilson worked at the Leibniz Academy in Hanover and the local adult education center, and she also gave lectures and published. In 1931 her essay The moral dilemma in modern girl education and the 300-page monograph The Life of Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia , whose 700th anniversary of death fell in the same year, appeared. The work about Elisabeth of Thuringia met with divided reactions: colleagues accused her of a “naive” and “sentimental” view of Elisabeth. The historian Ulrike Wiethaus, meanwhile, refers to Busse-Wilson's feminist approach, according to which Elisabeth von Thuringia was a self-destructive young woman who, in the face of restrictive expectations and norms, developed suicidal tendencies that ended in an early death. Many historians reject Busse-Wilson's demystifying point of view, but Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse were positive about the book. Despite these controversial discussions, Busse-Wilson's publication is considered an outstanding scientific publication on Elisabeth of Thuringia in the 20th century.

The book about Elisabeth von Thuringia was intended as a habilitation thesis with which Elisabeth Busse-Wilson applied for a job at the Pedagogical Academy in Dortmund . Because of her political views and her gender, however, she was not accepted, which she later described as a "serious professional disappointment". For a short time she worked for her husband's publishing house, which had to close due to financial problems. In the early 1930s the family moved to Berlin-Zehlendorf . Kurt Busse had got a job with the post office there, but the family continued to suffer from financial problems. In 1937 Busse-Wilson got a job at the " German Institute for Psychological Research and Psychotherapy ", also known as the "Göring Institute", which she lost again after differences with her head of training. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1938, and Elisabeth Busse-Wilson was expelled from the Reichsschrifttumskammer because the number of her publications was deemed insufficient for membership.

Due to the financial hardship, Busse-Wilson had to "capitulate in their persistent fight against the abandonment of their 'educated middle class'". She was making some money by closing a private library and had to move in with her son to live with his mother. For a short time she worked as a teacher and housemother in the Lietzschen Landerziehungsheim Haubinda , in 1942 she moved to the Landerziehungsheim Gaienhofen on Lake Constance . In the last years of the war she lived first in Überlingen on Lake Constance and later in Bonn . In 1948, after more than ten years of work, she finished her book on Annette von Droste-Hülshoff , but couldn't find a publisher. From the 1950s onwards she was financially supported by her son Konrad († 2013), who was employed by UNESCO . Elisabeth Busse-Wilson died in 1974 at the age of 84 in a nursing home in Oberursel.

Publications (selection)

  • The woman and the youth movement. A contribution to female characterology and the critique of anti-feminism . Freideutscher Jugendverlag Saal, Hamburg 1920.
  • The social position of women in cultural and historical development . Chamber of Employees, Bremen 1925.
  • Stages of the youth movement. A section from the unwritten history of Germany . Eugen Diederichs , Jena 1925.
  • The life of Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia. The image of a medieval soul . CH Beck , Munich 1931.
  • The moral dilemma in the modern upbringing of girls . In: Ada Schmidt-Beil (ed.): The culture of women . Berlin 1931.

literature

  • Britt Großmann: "To be an academic meant a lot back then, to be a woman meant nothing at all". Elisabeth Busse-Wilsons (1890–1974) construct of the 'academic' . In: Johannes Richter (Ed.): History policy and social work: Interdisciplinary perspectives (=  social work in theory and science ). Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2017, ISBN 978-3-658-16721-9 , pp. 59-92 .
  • Britt Großmann: Elisabeth Busse-Wilson (1890–1974): a work and network analysis . Beltz, Weinheim / Basel 2017, ISBN 978-3-7799-1325-2 .
  • Ulrike Wiethaus: The German Historian Elisabeth Busse-Wilson (1890–1974). Academic Feminism and Medieval Hagiography (1890-1931) . In: Jane Chance (ed.): Women Medievalists and the Academy . University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI 2005, ISBN 0-299-20750-1 , pp. 353-365 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Großmann, Akademiker , p. 61.
  2. ↑ Großmann, Akademiker , p. 62.
  3. ↑ “To be an academic meant a lot back then, to be a woman meant nothing”. In: link.springer.com. January 5, 2017, accessed May 1, 2020 .
  4. ↑ 800 years of Elisabeth of Thuringia. In: ekkw.de. November 6, 1974, accessed May 2, 2020 .
  5. ^ Wiethaus, Elisabeth Busse-Wilson , p. 354.
  6. ^ Wiethaus, Elisabeth Busse-Wilson , pp. 353/54.
  7. ↑ Reviews: Britt Großmann: Elisabeth Busse-Wilson (1890-1974). In: socialnet.de. March 30, 2017, accessed May 1, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Busse-Wilson, Elisabeth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wilson, Elisabeth (maiden name); Busse-Wilson, Elisabeth Johanna Auguste (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH February 19, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Sondershausen
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 1974
Place of death Oberursel , Taunus