Elly Maldaque

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Elisabeth Maldaque (born November 5, 1893 in Erlangen ; † July 20, 1930 in Regensburg ), mostly abbreviated to Elly, worked as a primary school teacher in Regensburg. Since she was interested in communist and free-thinking ideas, she was dismissed without notice after being denounced by "swastika activists". Shortly afterwards the city of Regensburg had her sent to a mental hospital, where she died after a few days. The case caused a stir throughout Germany. Numerous artists portrayed Elly Maldaque's fate in their works, as one of the first Ödön von Horváth ("The Teacher of Regensburg").

Life

childhood

Elly Maldaque was born on November 5th, 1893 in Erlangen. Her mother's name was Karoline, née Ofenhitzer (* 1870), her father Wilhelm (* 1859), an armorer by trade. Little is known about her childhood. There is a testimony from her father who describes her as having “melancholy inhibitions” and Elly Maldaque passed the following sentence down: “I would also like to be able to be funny and laugh, but there is constant pressure on me.” The pressure was probably gone Father himself, who is described as a child frightening and religious fanatic. He was a supporter of the Adventists and, according to a contemporary witness, was considered to be a “weird owl” with a “religious Fimmel” , completely “out of line” and politically “far to the right” . His wife and son must also have suffered badly under his father's rule. Elly Maldaque wrote in her diary on November 12, 1928 : “(...) I cried only 4 weeks ago when I thought about it. to avenge my brother for a bitter life. "

At the time of the diary entry, mother and brother were already dead. Elly Maldaque must have been very attached to her mother Karoline, a “quiet housewife” . Her death in 1927 was why Elly Maldaque started a diary at the age of 34. It was listed on 20 May 1927. "The fact that they can not know more about my life and ask - is incomprehensible that they may not live to see me wenns should again go well - is more bitter pain." Her brother Wilhelm fell on 18 July 1916 at the age of 21 as an infantry lieutenant in Flanders .

Training to become a teacher

In 1911 the family moved to Regensburg. In the same year Elly Maldaque began training as a primary school teacher in the Erlangen seminar. There she met Irene Neubauer (* 1894), who would later play an important role in her life. Elly Maldaque's graduation certificate in 1913 only contained grades from good to very good. She was certified as having a "good qualification" .

After her apprenticeship, she worked in various places in the school service. Finally, on September 1, 1920, she took up a position at the Evangelical Von-der-Tann School in Regensburg. She was the first Protestant teacher in Regensburg.

Until around 1922 she suffered from nervous exhaustion and persistent insomnia and had to take several leave of absence. The reason could have been a rethinking process that began during the Erlangen seminar: “In the first and second seminars at that time - with 18-19 years. - there was the first terrible writhing of the enslaved soul. ” (Diary May 20, 1927). But since 1922 it has been working without interruption. Contrary to the tendentious claims of her father, who wanted to save her pension claims and therefore tried to portray her as mentally not fully sane, newspapers and contemporary witnesses described her as a healthy, sporty and "cheerful" woman (Rector Hirschmann in the funeral speech).

Communism and free thinkers

At Pentecost 1926 , Elly Maldaque met her seminar colleague Irene Neubauer, who was working as a vocational school teacher in Weimar, in Strasbourg when she was traveling to an aunt in Paris . By exchanging ideas with Irene Neubauer, Elly Maldaque broke away from her father's world of thought : “I experienced a complete inner change in the summer months. Irene, with her subversive ideas, gave me tremendous things and I've broken old shapes I gave away my faith, my personal God , (...) U. I have done it consciously and with full conviction because I have seen and recognized all the damage that the acquired faith has done to me irretrievably and still does it in thousands. (...) And all the wrong moral and Social terms, everything old I overturned. " (Diary, September 13, 1927 )

Until then, according to her father, she had adhered to the German national direction: “ After she had first passionately campaigned for the German national party, she got caught in her pathological search for truth, through intense (much too difficult for her mental and spiritual powers) Study of political and fictional Russian literature in a world of ideas that was previously completely alien to her. ” More and more she turned to communism. However, she never became a party member. For her, communism meant above all to become a loving and selfless person: “Becoming good - that is u. remains the only u. Last (...) The wisdom's last conclusion is the mild u. inexhaustible love. " (Diary, September 13, 1927)

Her father gave information about the practical side of her communism: “That the prevailing misery was felt by her as depressing and that she felt responsible, it was so important to her to help, it is evident from the fact that she went into the homes of the poor and Tried to provide advice and action, whereby she went far beyond the limits of her capabilities. ”She often organized weekend trips for her school children.

After her seventy-year-old father had remarried - a 25 years younger and, according to reports, bigoted woman - Elly Maldaque moved out of her parents' house, Weissenburgstrasse. 27, in Orleansstr. 4. “(...) in the new apartment, also externally free of all chains,” she wrote in her diary. She attended workers', freethinkers and KPD meetings more often and became more involved in the social field.

monitoring

At that time Regensburg was a stronghold of the Bavarian People's Party (BVP). The state government also held the BVP. Communists and sympathizers were systematically monitored. In the fall of 1929, the spying on Elly Maldaque began. The Berlin Weltbühne wrote about it in its edition of August 12, 1930: "Across from the Elly Maldaques house in Regensburg, two swastika men were quartered for observation, according to a criminal police officer."

The first report of the Regensburg Police Department, dated November 11, 1929, was sent to the district government, the State Ministry of the Interior and the Munich Police Department. It read: “For a few weeks now, a teacher from here has been working for the local KPD group who, according to the reporter, has a French-sounding name, 36 years old a. at the here. Von-der-Tann-Schule operates. According to other indications, the single elementary school teacher Elisabeth Maldaque (...) comes into question here. She also participates in the Reichstagabg. Meyer organized party courses and, according to another confidential report, is said to have also taken part in the revolutionary celebration where she played the piano. "

But after repeated inquiries from the Bavarian State Ministry, the Regensburg police were unable to report more than the occasional piano playing. In addition, Elly Maldaque was appointed by senior school councilor Dr. A. Freudenberger, who happened to hear about her visits to communist events and her piano accompaniment there, gave a friendly warning. Elly Maldaque then restricted her visits. From an internal letter from the Upper Palatinate district government dated December 23, 1929: “As a result of a recent announcement by the board of the Regensburg Police Department, nothing further could be determined about the communist activities of the teacher E. Maldaque. She is obviously extremely careful. "

On March 21, 1930, there was a trial against the communist city councilor Konrad Fuß for blasphemy . At the funeral of a comrade he is said to have said “Pfaff” and “Schmarrn” and quoted the verses from the International : “No higher being will save us” . He was acquitted in the second instance. Before the start of the negotiations, Irene Neubauer, who was visiting Elly Maldaque at the time, had a conversation with the defendant "in a striking manner," as the police report reported. Irene Neubauer was arrested from the auditorium and questioned at the police station. The police then searched Elly Maldaque's apartment.

During the house search, however, “nothing was found” , whereby “a criminal act could not be proven” , but the police came across Elly Maldaque's diary: “In the complex there is an excerpt from a Maldaque diary that was made without their knowledge and which gives remarkable information about their political attitudes. "

The police, however, passed on a manipulated version that gave the impression that Elly Maldaque was agitating for the communist idea in class. Two statements in particular were taken out of context and put together anew: an enthusiastic commitment to communism: "Now I am committed to communism for life and death." And: "My school children were my guinea pigs." (Diary July 14, 1929). But the last passage read in context: “ With these words I returned and. then tried for the first time in my life - what others could always do - to do selfless detail work - to simply be patient with small things. My schoolchildren were the guinea pigs. ” Two pages of the diary further follows the confession of communism in the police report. Elly Maldaque submitted her diary to the government on July 5, 1930 to refute the manipulation.

The chief police secretary who carried out the arrest of Irene Neubauer and the search of Elly Maldaque's apartment later became head of the Regensburg Gestapo .

termination

On May 2nd, the government's school department received the following letter: “From the submission of the Rgbg Police Directorate. from 25. III. 30 shows with certainty that the elementary school teacher Elisabeth Maldaque in Regensburg is a member of the KPD and a supporter of the free-thinker movement. "

On June 21, 1930, the Minister of State for Education and Culture, Dr. Franz Goldenberger (BVP) the immediate termination of the employment relationship. From the letter of dismissal dated June 27, 1930: "The government has gained the conviction that you belong to your spiritual attitude according to the communism and free-thinking movement and that you are also an active member of the Communist Party of Germany."

Not only Elly Maldaque was completely surprised by the termination without notice. Up to now, neither her colleagues nor the parents of her school children had noticed anything of Elly Maldaque's communist tendencies. From a statement by Elly Maldaque, which she wrote on July 1, 1930 and which appeared on July 25, 1930, five days after her death, in the weekly Regensburger Echo : “It is true that I am interested in the communist movement. But I am not a member of the Communist Party, I have never performed a function, I have never agitated for the movement in public or in secret, in writing or orally, I never gave a presentation, I never took part in a discussion. There is no question of a violation of my school duties and there has never been any complaint from either party. That my political direction is only a very private, personal interest is evident from the fact that when my dismissal became known, the colleagues were utterly surprised. At my school house, most of my colleagues heard the first word of my political views on the day of my discharge. "

The resolution passed by the Parents' Assembly of July 7, 1930, speaks in favor of Elly Maldaque's account: “After a mutual discussion this evening, the undersigned parents have come to the unanimous conviction that Miss Maldaque has in no way used a type of teaching that contradicts a Christian school would. The parents hereby express their full confidence in Miss Maldaque and, in the interests of their children, regret that this capable, strictly fair teacher was taken away from the children. ” This is followed by 33 personal signatures, including from parents who are part of the German national camp.

The termination without notice was an extraordinary hardship for Elly Maldaque. By then she had been working in the school for 17 years and would have been permanently employed in two months. However, when she was released, she not only lost her income, but also all pension entitlements. In addition, it was forbidden to marry female teachers in Bavaria at that time ( female teacher celibacy ), so a family of one's own as a support was ruled out.

Hospitalization and death

On June 30, 1930, Elly Maldaque announced in a first reply to the government of the Upper Palatinate that it would of course make use of its right to complain. But already in the second letter of July 5, 1930, the psychological pressure that weighed on her became noticeable: “The undersigned provides the request for enclosed incriminating material [above it is written in pencil:“ Diary ”] regarding my immediate dismissal on June 27, 1930 to want to accept until I have submitted my complaint to the State Ministry for Education and Culture, which I have not yet been able to complete because I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown. "

But the complaint was no longer submitted. Elly Maldaque increasingly suffered from paranoia and suspected spies everywhere. These bouts of paranoia were not unfounded, as it was monitored to the last. On July 8, she went to see the lawyer Weiner to draft a notice of appeal with him. A police report summarized what happened there as follows: “After a brief discussion with attorney Weiner, the Maldaque fell into a fit of excitement and on that day felt that the police were following her. According to the accountant there (...) Maldaque drew the window curtains there, too, tearing a curtain so that the informers would not catch her. "

Using massive violence - a contemporary witness reported that Elly Maldaque clung convulsively to the bars surrounding the property - Elly Maldaque was admitted to the Karthaus-Prüll sanatorium on July 9, 1930 . On July 11th, the city council passed the official briefing order. The reason given was "because of dangerous insanity" , for which the damage to the curtain was mainly cited. However, in the city council resolution, the process was no longer described as tearing, but as tearing down. The actual cause of Elly Maldaque's excitement, the surveillance by the police, the house search and finally the termination without notice, however, was not mentioned.

Elly Maldaque was assigned to the department for the most serious cases, in which visits from acquaintances and friends were forbidden, even though the prison doctor, Dr. Korte according to witnesses declared that "it suffers only an immense fatigue, a state of exhaustion, which springs from their mental anguish and have been placed back in a few weeks would." Dr. Korte himself in his report of July 24, 1930, four days after the death of his patient: "We therefore expected the complete restoration of her normal state of mind in the foreseeable future."

Elly Maldaque was already dead eleven days after she was posted, on Sunday, July 20, 1930 at noon. At half past four in the afternoon, when City Councilor Konrad Fuß and Member of Parliament Schaper, both Communists, wanted to visit her, she was already dissected . The Weltbühne writes: “Elly Maldaque died between twelve and one o'clock. At five o'clock - on Sunday afternoon! - the body is said to have already been dissected. Clearly, those responsible for the Lübeck child tragedy did not try to cover up the traces of their actions. "

The official cause of death was: "Centrale pneumonia [pneumonia], cardiac insufficiency." On 25 July, this finding, by a report from the morgue changed the German Research Institute for Psychiatry. Now a psychologically caused general vasomotor damage (weakening of the circulatory and vascular system) was the cause of death.

The attending physician Dr. Also on July 25, Korte wrote an extensive letter of justification, for which the government provided him with all documents. In it he paints a clearly negative picture of his former patient: “Unsatisfied with everyday life and the various comforts that life offered her, without deeper interests, (...) she was driven by a hysterical greed for the great experience and a hysterical one Seeks to deny the egoism she laments in her diary and to sacrifice herself to something. ” Even her teaching activity is only carried out with “ moderate interest ” .

Then he put forward the thesis that it was not the dismissal from the civil service that caused the severe emotional shock, but the betrayal by his own Communist party comrades: “As far as I remember (...), she wrote after her friend's warning from the upper town school board that it was unreliable Elements in the party must have betrayed them. It could well be imagined that after the real occurrence of the event that was only threatened at the time, this suspicion reappeared and that out of nameless disappointment over betrayal in her own ranks she fell into the wild dream of confusion. "

But in the end he blamed the victim himself: “El. With her activity in the communist sense, Maldaque got involved in a company that she was mentally unable to cope with. "

Thus the defense strategy of the state and medicine was given. Minister of Culture Goldenberger said to the Bavarian State Parliament on July 31: “I regret that Miss Maldaque's death has occurred. I have already said that we cannot speak of any fault on the part of the government. (...) In contrast to the almost frivolous agitation with which political circles are trying to exploit the sad case for propaganda purposes, it must be emphatically emphasized that the unhappy teacher Maldaque is a victim of her own improper behavior and, in a broader sense, a victim of communism and its agitation has become."

Aftermath

The Elly Maldaques case attracted an unusually large amount of attention during the Weimar Republic . Over 90 newspaper articles appeared. In addition, numerous artistic works were created. In the case of the psychiatry case or the Ilona Haslbauer justice affair , which also took place in Regensburg from 2005 onwards , parallels to the Elly Maldaque case were drawn and remembered.

Since 2007 the student ensemble ueTheater at the University of Regensburg has been fighting in vain with the Studentenwerk to be allowed to rename the "Theater at the University" to "Elly Maldaque Theater at the University".

Dramatic works

  • 1930: Walter Mehring : "The ballad from the teacher Elly Maldaque"
  • 1930: Josef Wolfgang Steinbeißer : "Teacher Elly"
  • 1930: Ödön von Horváth: "The Teacher of Regensburg" (unfinished, first performance 1976 in Wiesbaden)
  • 1993: Franz Hummel : “On the beautiful blue Danube”, chamber opera based on a libretto by Elisabeth Gutjahr
  • 1993: Reinhart Meyer: "Elly Maldaque - The Death of a Teacher"
  • 1995: Evelin Rebentrost: "The Elly Maldaque Case - A Destruction"
  • 2006: Kurt Raster: "Elly Maldaque, because you are not Germany"
  • 2008: Kurt Raster: "Elly and Ingo"
  • 2009: Wolfgang Maas, Evelin Rebentrost: “Remember! Don't forget! ”, Dance performance in homage to Elly Maldaque

painting

  • 1985/86: Guido Zingerl: “Elly Maldaque. In the name of madness ”, from the cycle: Notes of a Danube Student
  • 2000: Horst Meister: "The Silent Majority" - ELLY MALDAQUE, excerpt from the triptych "Regensburg Passion"

music

  • Maldaque , a folk group, existed from 1982 to 1986.

Commemoration

Memorial plaque to Elly Maldaque's last place of residence

Elly Maldaque was forgotten by the war. It was only students from Tübingen who took part in a Horváth seminar in the 1978/79 winter semester who discovered their trail. They wanted to perform Horváth's drama fragment The Case E. and came across an article by Peter Nord on the Weltbühne with the title The Tragedy of the Teacher Maldaque . The Tübingen professor Jürgen Schröder investigated the matter and published the book Horváths Lehrerin von Regensburg in 1982 . At that time the subject of professional bans was virulent, which made Elly Maldaque's case particularly topical.

Since Elly Maldaque's rediscovery, there have been numerous attempts to create a worthy public commemoration for her. Be it naming her old place of work Von-der-Tann-Schule after her or creating an Elly-Maldaque-Straße. However, to this day, all such efforts have been rejected by the CSU majority in the local city council. Only a plaque at the Von-der-Tann-Schule and at her last place of residence on Orleansstrasse reminds of her.

Contemporary witnesses

“She was, I always say, ahead of her time. She gave you a lot for life ... And also at school they told us that she gave some marks of the little that she earned to the unemployed where she played the piano. Back then there were so many unemployed. So she was an idealist for me. If she was a communist, for me she was an idealist, a noble communist, as they say. ” Anna-Maria Schneider, former student of Elly Maldaques

“A unique woman. She helped everyone she could help. She also took us young people into our hearts. and this woman was always there for old people. She looked after them. She did the shopping for old people who could no longer walk properly. It even cleaned some families - which no one has done before. As a teacher, she didn't have to do that at all. But Mrs. Maldaque, she did it ... “ Ludwig Zaubzer

Quotes Elly Maldaques

  • "Give people their rights and they will all be good." (Diary, October 9, 1928)
  • "And yet all human endeavors should turn into love for the other." (Diary, February 12, 1928)
  • "Now everything is easy for me and everything goes without saying and all forces have come into play since I recognized the source of life and walked the path of human rights." (Diary, October 9, 1928)

literature

  • Bernhard M. Baron : The teacher Elly Maldaque - a woman's fate from Upper Palatinate . In: Heimat - Tirschenreuth district. Vol. 21/2009, Verlag Eckhard Bodner, Pressath, pp. 43-51, ISBN 3-937117-86-5 .
  • Waltraud Bierwirth, Luise Gutmann, Klaus Himmelstein, Erwin Petzi: The Maldaque case. An arbitrary act with fatal consequences . Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg, 2013, ISBN 978-3-7917-2478-2 . ( Tolerance resulting in death ; review of the book with background information on the historical case and its aftermath up to the present day, by Renate Hennecke in the magazine Ossietzky , issue 6/2013)
  • Christian Feldmann: Miss Parzival - victim of political witch hunt: Elly Maldaque, the "teacher of Regensburg" . In: Konrad M. Färber (Ed. :) Regensburger Almanach 1997 . MZ Buchverlag, ISBN 3-927529-25-7 .
  • Peter Heigl: Regensburg private. From Albertus Magnus to Oskar Schindler . Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1997, ISBN 3-7917-1544-5 .
  • Ute Kätzel, Karin Schrott (eds.): Regensburger Frauenspuren . Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 1995, ISBN 3-7917-1483-X .
  • Rudolf Kammermeier: Elly Maldaque 1930 . In: Eginhard König, Martina Forster (ed.): Regensburger Liederbuch. A city history in notes . Mittelbayerische Druckerei- und Verlags-Gesellschaft, Regensburg 1989, ISBN 3-921114-82-9 .
  • Wilhelm Kick: Tell our children. Resistance 1933–1945 using the example of Regensburg . Publishing house Dr. Tesdorpf, Berlin / Vilseck 1985, ISBN 3-924905-06-1 .
  • Jürgen Schröder: Horváth's teacher from Regensburg . Suhrkamp Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-518-38514-3 .
  • Jürgen Schröder: Elly Maldaque. Ödön von Horváth's "Teacher of Regensburg" . In: Walter Schmitz, Herbert Schneidler (Ed.): Expressionism in Regensburg. Texts and Studies . Mittelbayerische Druckerei- und Verlags-Gesellschaft, Regensburg 1991, ISBN 3-921114-19-5 .

radio

  • Karin Sommer: Ödön von Horvath's “Teacher from Regensburg”. A memory of Elly Maldaque. Radio broadcast on April 24, 1994, Bayerischer Rundfunk

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Letter from his father Wilhelm Maldaque dated July 14, 1930 to the Bavarian Ministry for Education and Culture, quoted from Jürgen Schröder, Horváth's teacher from Regensburg , p. 224
  2. ↑ a b Schröder, p. 86
  3. ↑ Schröder, p. 88
  4. ↑ Schröder, p. 79
  5. ^ "Burial Elly Maldaque" , Regensburger Latest News , July 24, 1930, quoted from Schröder, p. 311
  6. ↑ a b Letter from his father Wilhelm Maldaque of July 14, 1930 to the Bavarian Ministry for Education and Culture, quoted from Schröder, p. 226
  7. ↑ Schröder, p. 85
  8. ↑ "The tragedy of the teacher Maldaque" by Peter Nord, Die Weltbühne, 26th vol. (1930), No. 33, pp. 230–232, quoted from Schröder, p. 320
  9. ↑ a b Schröder, p. 200
  10. ↑ Schröder, p. 202
  11. ^ Letter from the Regensburg Police Directorate to the Presidium of the Government of the Upper Palatinate, March 25, 1930, quoted from Schröder, p. 2002/03
  12. ↑ Letter from Government Director H. from Section 2 to Section 10 of the district government, quoted from Schröder, p. 207
  13. ↑ Schröder, p. 208
  14. ↑ “What is actually available?” By Elly Maldaque, Regensburger Echo, July 25, 1930, quoted from Schröder, p. 210
  15. ↑ Schröder, p. 214
  16. ↑ Schröder, p. 213
  17. ↑ Schröder, p. 217
  18. ↑ Schröder, p. 107
  19. ↑ Schröder, p. 218
  20. ^ Neue Zeitung, August 4, 1930, quoted in Schröder, p. 111
  21. ↑ Schröder, p. 111.
  22. ^ "The tragedy of the teacher Maldaque" by Peter Nord, Die Weltbühne, 26th vol. (1930), No. 33, pp. 230–232, quoted from Schröder, p. 322
  23. ^ Sick protocol, July 20, 1930, quoted from Schröder, p. 223
  24. ↑ Schröder, p. 116
  25. ↑ Christian Feldmann: The courageous Miss Elly . In: Publik-Forum. ISSN  0343-1401 . Volume 2013, No. 16 of August 30, 201, pp. 58–60, quotation p. 60.
  26. ↑ 2nd report by Dr. Korte to the government of the Upper Palatinate of July 25, 1930, quoted from Schröder, pp. 238–242
  27. ^ Stenographic report on the negotiations of the Bavarian State Parliament, eighty-eighth public session, July 31, 1930, quoted from Schröder, p. 252
  28. ↑ What Elly Maldaque has to do with Mollath ; in: Mittelbayerische Zeitung of January 11, 2014
  29. ^ Scandal at the University of Regensburg: Student Union throws out critical theater group. Retrieved June 8, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Maldaque, Elly
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Maldaque, Elisabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bavarian elementary school teacher and victim of clerical fascism
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH gain
DATE OF DEATH July 20, 1930
Place of death regensburg