Elisabeth Frerichs

Johanne Henriette Elisabeth Frerichs , née Seifert, divorced Oppel (born October 13, 1883 in Lower Saxony , † May 22, 1967 in Oldenburg ) was a German SPD politician .

Life

Early years

Frerichs was the daughter of post office assistant Karl Seifert and his wife Pauline geb. Hotze. From 1890 she attended elementary school in Clausthal-Zellerfeld and then also the secondary girls' school there. After successfully completing school, she worked for the Reichspost from 1899 to 1903 and also took an active part in the social life in the Upper Harz city, which was shaped by the students of the Bergakademie . In 1903 she married Johann Oppel, a member of the Navy and moved to Kiel with him. Their son Hans was born there on March 27, 1904. Frerichs bridged the frequent absence of her husband due to official duties by participating in further education events of various kinds. In 1910 and 1913, she attended two summer courses at the University of Jena . After the family moved to Wilhelmshaven in 1914, Frerichs sought contact with free-spirited associations and discussion forums ( Monistenbund , Vorrupp , Friedensgesellschaft ). Her political career began in 1917 when she joined the SPD. In the same year she separated from her husband.

In the Weimar Republic

In October 1919 Frerichs was elected to the education committee of the SPD in Wilhelmshaven / Rüstringen. In 1920 the SPD district executive commissioned them to set up the workers' welfare in the Oldenburg-Ostfriesland-Osnabrück district. At the district party convention on July 31, 1921 in Oldenburg, it was decided to anchor the Arbeiterwohlfahrt as a working group within the SPD organization and Frerichs was elected as a female confidante (women's officer) on the district executive board and as the first district chairman of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt. From 1921 until the SPD and these aid and substitute organizations were banned by the National Socialists in the summer of 1933, it performed this dual function.

Furthermore, she was city ​​councilor in Rüstringen from 1925 . From 1932 until its dissolution by the National Socialists, she was a member of the Oldenburg state parliament . In total there were only four women in the Oldenburg state parliament: Maria Brand , Elisabeth Frerichs, Auguste Henke and Ilsa Wübbenhorst .

On April 15, 1922, Elisabeth Frerichs married Friedrich Frerichs (1882–1945), party secretary and social democratic parliamentary group leader in the Oldenburg state parliament. The marriage, characterized by contemporary witnesses as very harmonious, and the joint commitment of the spouses to the objectives of the SPD in the years of the Weimar Republic made it possible for Frerichs to build up the social democratic women's movement in the Oldenburg-Ostfriesland-Osnabrück district with an above-average amount of work. Her field of activity included the establishment of local committees of the workers' welfare and coordination of all political and social tasks at the district level as well as the representation of the northwest region at the national level. In addition to the convening and conducting district and regional women's conferences, the annual events taking place on International Women's Day , as well as politically motivated but also of socializing women's meetings , to Frerichs committed as strong in the party work of the SPD in Wilhelmshaven / Rüstringen. She also wrote regular press reports on the activities of the social democratic women's movement in the district, which were published in local and national newspapers as well as in the SPD women's magazines Die Gleichheit and Die Comossin . From 1924 onwards, she was responsible for organizing vacation stays for needy children in the district, which was carried out with the association “Land Stay for City Children eV” in Berlin until 1932 . Within the party, Frerichs was also responsible for the planning and management of training events and seminars for the female SPD members. In the final phase of the Weimar Republic, she also took over the screening of socially critical films. With this variant of public relations work in the run-up to elections, the aim was to mobilize passive comrades, but also politically indifferent women. She traveled to the most remote parts of the district, showed the films herself and then gave a lecture on current political issues. Furthermore, her strong commitment was the fight against the dismantling of the social achievements of the Weimar Republic and against the political radicalization in those years.

In the time of National Socialism

After the seizure of power by the National Socialists in Germany continued repression, persecution and murder of a political dissenters. Immediately after the SPD was banned on June 22, 1933, Elisabeth Frerichs and her husband were forced to leave Wilhelmshaven / Rüstringen. They moved first to Bohlenbergerfeld, later to Zetel . In the course of the grating , in which former members of the democratic parties and opponents of the Nazi regime were arrested after the assassination attempt on Hitler , Friedrich Frerichs was arrested by the GeStaPo on August 22, 1944 and sent to the Neuengamme concentration camp . Your attempt at the Reich Security Main Office to obtain his release failed, he probably died when the Cap Arcona was sunk in early May 1945.

In the Federal Republic of Germany

After the end of World War II Frerichs was organized by the British military government as a member of the local parliament of the Frisian Wehde and of the district Friesland used and was one of two women next Margarete Gramberg (FDP) from January to November 1946 as deputy to the appointee parliament of Oldenburg on . After the establishment of the state of Lower Saxony , she was briefly a member of the appointed Lower Saxony state parliament in March 1947 and, after the state election in spring 1947, also a member of the Lower Saxony state parliament for a legislative period . Within the party, she took part in a large number of events as a speaker during the reconstruction phase of the SPD. As before 1933, she was also a member of the SPD district executive. In 1951 she moved from Zetel to Oldenburg, where she had been a member of the city council since 1952. For reasons of age, she decided not to run again in 1961.

In addition, she devoted her energy to rebuilding workers' welfare and the SPD. Until 1959 she was chairwoman, then honorary chairwoman of the district association of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt Weser-Ems eV created in October 1948

Honors

Elisabeth Frerichs must be counted among the few exposed women who represented the tradition of the SPD women's movement beyond the time of National Socialism. In 1952 she was awarded the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. She continued to receive the Albert Schweitzer Medal and the Lower Saxony Medal of Merit for her commitment to the workers' welfare organization. In recognition of her work, a workers' welfare home in Delmenhorst was named after her. A street name in Oldenburg reminds of them.

literature

• Barbara Simon : Member of Parliament in Lower Saxony 1946–1994. Biographical manual. Edited by the President of the Lower Saxony State Parliament. Lower Saxony State Parliament, Hanover 1996, p. 107.
• Albrecht Eckhardt: From the bourgeois revolution to the National Socialist takeover. The Oldenburg State Parliament and its deputies 1848-1933. Isensee: Oldenburg 1996, ISBN 3-89598-327-6 , page 94
• Frerichs, Johanne Henriette Elisabeth, b. Seifert, oppel. In: Hans Friedl u. a. (Ed.): Biographical manual for the history of the state of Oldenburg . Edited on behalf of the Oldenburg landscape. Isensee, Oldenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89442-135-5 , pp. 206-208 ( online ).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Albrecht Eckhardt: From the bourgeois revolution to the National Socialist takeover of power, page 21
2. ↑ Biography of Frerichs, Friedrich (Fritz) Boiken. In: Hans Friedl u. a. (Ed.): Biographical manual for the history of the state of Oldenburg. Edited on behalf of the Oldenburg landscape. Isensee, Oldenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89442-135-5 , pp. 208-209 ( online ).