Else Reventlow

Charlotte Pauline Else zu Reventlow , née Reimann, (born February 3, 1897 in Elbing , † September 11, 1984 in Munich ) was a German teacher , women's rights activist , social democrat and editor .

Youth, studies and first jobs

After attending girls' secondary school, lyceum and high school, she passed her Abitur in 1916 and the teacher's examination in 1917. She got her first job at the boys' middle school in Hamelin .

Else Reimann had been a member of the SPD since October 1918 . She completed a traineeship at the Franconian daily post office and witnessed one of the first public National Socialist meetings on German soil.

In the same year, Else Reimann enrolled in Jena to study economics , but her interest was less in the content of the course than in building up the socialist student group. She also took part as the youngest delegate at the first socialist women's congress in Jena. The following year, Reimann began studying literary history , art history and theater studies in Munich, where he was again involved in the student movement. During the clashes between ethnic students and the Republican Student Union as a result of the murder of Walther Rathenau , she left the city after the storming of the Hotel Grünwald in January 1923 and followed her husband, the photographer and journalist Rolf Reventlow (1897-1981), son of Fanny zu Reventlow , whom she had married on March 1, 1921, to Berlin. She became the leader of the socialist student group, which resulted in the denial of a scholarship and made graduation impossible.

Journalistic and publishing activities

Else Reventlow financed her living with translation work and language courses. In 1925 the Reventlows moved to Heidelberg , where Rolf Reventlow worked as union secretary of the Free Employees' Associations. Daughter Beatrice († 1999) was born in Munich on December 20, 1926. In the same year she published the collected works of her mother-in-law , Countess Fanny zu Reventlow ; A selection of letters followed two years later, whereby she chose the historically incorrect first name Franziska as the author's name. However, since the Albert Langen Verlag went completely into the hands of the NSDAP in 1935 , it was no longer able to post any income from the published books, especially since the license was not issued by the publisher.

In the years 1927 to 1933 Else and Rolf Reventlow worked at the Volkswacht in Breslau . Else Reventlow first worked here as a cultural critic, then as an editor and correspondent. In addition, she took over the editing of the Silesian Provincial Correspondence and worked for various other publications. In September 1929, Else Reventlow moved to Ascona for a year .

in emigration

When the National Socialists took over the government, the Reventlows left the country. While Rolf Reventlow was traveling to Czechoslovakia , Else Reventlow fled to Switzerland with her daughter . In Ascona she worked as a teacher on behalf of the "Comité suisse d'aide aux enfants d'émigrés". From 1937 to 1940 she also studied French, English and Russian at the University of Geneva and the University of Basel . She passed the French state examination in Geneva. From February 1938 to May 1940 she lived in Basel. Reventlow had placed her daughter in the Paul Geheebs country educational home .

She filed for divorce from Rolf Reventlow, who now lived in Oran , and the divorce decree was issued in Basel on December 20, 1939.

In April 1940, Else, Rolf and Beatrice Reventlow were stripped of their German citizenship in absentia .

wartime

Despite this, Else Reventlow returned to Germany in early June 1940 and was arrested immediately. Released on June 19, 1940 after a fortnight in detention, Reventlow remained under Gestapo supervision . She had to present herself weekly at first, then monthly. Losing her citizenship meant she had no chance of getting a job. Since her two brothers were at the front, however, she was officially allowed to run the furniture store in Elbing as managing director after it had been classified as "essential to the war effort".

When Soviet troops invaded, Reventlow fled to Preetz with her daughter in January 1945 . In the spring she went to Marquartstein in Upper Bavaria, and in August to Munich.

Journalistic career and honorary posts after 1945

Here she worked from October 1945 to the end of 1948 as an editor at the Neue Zeitung , which had just been founded by the Americans . Since she had also contributed to Radio Munich since 1946, she was officially hired by Bavarian Radio on January 1, 1949 at the instigation of Walter von Cube . In the political editorial department, she wrote short comments and “Wednesday comments”. At the beginning of 1950 she left the political department and became deputy head of the news department of Bayerischer Rundfunk.

From September 1952 to January 1953 she went on a study trip to the United States. After reaching retirement age, Else Reventlow left Bayerischer Rundfunk on July 31, 1962 and devoted herself to her family and her voluntary activities.

Since the post-war period, Else Reventlow has been a member of the board of directors of the Bavarian Association of Journalists and from 1948 to 1968 she chaired the association's examination board and was a member of its court of honour.

In addition, she was initially active as chairwoman of the South German Women's Working Group, which she headed from 1945 until its dissolution in 1953. Between 1950 and 1962 she was a member of the Working Group of Female Voters , where she also took on organizational tasks. Else Reventlow was active at the regional level in the SPD in the local association in Bogenhausen and in the sub-district of Munich.

In July 1949, Reventlow entered the German Council of the European Movement, initially only with the intention of representing Ilse Weitsch at the Constituent Assembly. She was a member of various associations such as IG Druck und Papier , the Arbeiterwohlfahrt . She was a member of the German Society for the United Nations and was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Society for Foreign Studies, of which she was a member for almost 30 years.

Since the 1970s, the works of F. Countess of Reventlow have been published by Albert Langen Verlag . Else Reventlow, who had already campaigned for the previously published licensed editions of other publishers, again published the diaries, but also novellas and sketches, letters, including the 1975 letters from Fanny to Emanuel Fehling about Reventlow .

literature

• Reventlow, Rolf , in: Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (eds.): Biographical handbook of German-speaking emigrants after 1933. Volume 1: politics, economy, public life . Munich: Saur, 1980, p. 601

web links

• Literature by and about Else Reventlow in the German National Library catalogue