Else von Richthofen

Else von Richthofen around 1920

Elisabeth Frieda Amélie Sophie Freiin von Richthofen (born October 8, 1874 in Château-Salins ; † December 22, 1973 in Heidelberg ) was a German trade inspector and social scientist. She is known as one of the first female social scientists in Germany, wife of the economist Edgar Jaffé (1866–1921) and lover of the sociologists and economists Max and Alfred Weber , whose partner she became after her husband's death. Her sister Frieda von Richthofen was the wife of the British writer DH Lawrence . Both women were "rebels, beautiful and passionate, one committed to the intellect [Else], the other to eros [Frieda]."

Life

1902: Elisabeth von Richthofen

Else von Richthofen was the eldest of three daughters of the Heinsdorf line of the Richthofen family, Friedrich Ernst Emil Ludwig Freiherr Praetorius von Richthofen (1844–1915), an engineer and construction inspector in the imperial army of the German Empire, and his wife, Anna Elise Lydia Marquier (1851-1930). The aristocratic family was not particularly wealthy: “The father's antics also deprived the family of what was left. Friedrich von Richthofen plays and is constantly involved in women’s stories, in 1886 with foreseeable high follow-up costs: one of his lovers, Selma, became pregnant and child support was due for the illegitimate Richthofen son ”.

Freiin Else received the usual schooling for girls of her class. She was first taught by French nuns in Metz from around 1881 and from September 1889 attended the girls' boarding school run by the Blaß sisters in Littenweiler near Freiburg. She then passed the teacher examination in Trier. After a brief activity as a teacher in Metz and later in Freiburg, she took part in lectures at the University of Freiburg as a guest student from autumn 1895 . The reason was that shortly beforehand the provisions for teacher training had relaxed somewhat and the opportunity was given to qualify through an additional examination. When Max Weber , where she attended lectures, went to Heidelberg University in 1897 , Else von Richthofen followed him and from 1897 to 1898 attended lectures in Heidelberg as a “listener”. She continued her studies in Berlin from autumn 1898, still as a mere “listener”.

Else von Richthofen came into contact with many important women in the women's movement. These included Alice Salomon , Helene Simon and Helene Lange . In 1900 she received her doctorate in economics from Max Weber with a dissertation on the historical changes in the position of authoritarian parties on labor protection legislation and the motives for these changes and in 1900 began to work as a factory inspector in Karlsruhe .

Her friend Alice Salomon reported about the main tasks of the trade inspector: “In addition to the companies with the exclusive use of female workers, e.g. B. the since then not visited clothing stores in the broadest sense, the supervision of the cigar factories and the arranging of written work, in particular the examination of the work regulations regarding correspondence [...] She has recently been entrusted with the male officials through her sensible intervention is essential to ensure that it also draws the imperfect organized workers into circulation in the industries concerned ”.

In 1902, Baron married Edgar Jaffé, who later became known as a political economist and politician. Jaffé later acquired the archive for social sciences and social policy , whose editors, alongside him, were Werner Sombart and Max Weber. During their marriage, Else Jaffé gave birth to four children: Friedrich “Friedel” (1903–1995), who called himself Friedel Jeffrey after emigrating to the USA, Marianne (1905–1991), Peter (1907–1915) and Hans (1909–1977 ). The husband died on April 29, 1921 in a Munich sanatorium. He had never really recovered from the murder of Kurt Eisner and the resignation of the cabinet in which he was responsible as finance minister.

There were numerous intellectuals and writers among Else Jaffé's circle of friends, for example the sociologists and economists Max and Alfred Weber , Otto Gross , an early follower of Sigmund Freud , the writer Fanny Reventlow . She had an affair with the drug addict Otto Gross, from which her third child Peter (1907–1915) emerged. At the same time, the lover impregnated the Swiss poet Regina Ullmann . Her husband selflessly gave the family name to the illegitimate child. In her relationship with Otto Gross, Else Jaffé's greatest rival was not Otto Gross's wife, "but her own sister Frieda ... with her, there were dramatic scenes of jealousy". From the winter of 1909/1910 she had a relationship with Alfred Weber, separated from Edgar Jaffé in 1911 and moved to the vicinity of Munich. After Jaffé's death, she moved to Heidelberg in 1925 , where she lived with Alfred Weber in Bachstrasse 24 from 1931 until his death in 1958.

From 1924 she became involved in the educational reform home school on the sea on the North Sea island of Juist , where she formed the board of trustees of the School on the Sea Foundation together with school founders Martin Luserke , Paul Reiner , Rudolf Aeschlimann , Alfred Hess and Fritz Hafner .

She had a close friendship with Max Weber and his wife Marianne since 1895, which was only tarnished between 1910 and 1915 because of her relationship with Alfred. Max Weber was the godfather of his son Peter, whose godmother was the actress Claere Schmid. When Max Weber taught in Munich in the last years of his life, she had had an intimate love affair with him since autumn 1918. Else Jaffé had never uttered a single word about her love affair with Max Weber for five decades, so as not to betray his wife and at the same time her friend even after death. When Max Weber became seriously ill, he died on June 14, 1920, his wife and lover cared for him together. The friendship between Else and Marianne Weber lasted until Marianne Weber's death in 1954.

Works (selection)

• The right of women workers to vote in the trade courts , in: Die Frau , 1907, no. 10
• The woman in the trade inspection , in: Writings of the Standing Committee on Workers' Interests , 1910, no.3

literature

• Manfred Berger : Who was ... Else Jaffé-von Richthofen? In: social magazine. 2000, H. 4, ISSN  0340-8469 , pp. 6-8.
• Janet Byrne: A Genius for Living. A Biography of Frieda Lawrence. Bloomsbury, London 1995, ISBN 0-7475-1284-1 .
• Eberhard Demm: Else Jaffé-von Richthofen. A fulfilled life between Max and Alfred Weber . Droste Verlag Düsseldorf 2014, ISBN 978-3-7700-1632-7
• Katharina Festner, Christiane Raabe : walks through the Munich of famous women. 2nd Edition. Arche, Zurich u. a. 1997, ISBN 3-7160-2218-7 (updated new edition. Ibid 2008, ISBN 978-3-7160-3604-4 ).
• Martin Green: Else and Frieda, the Richthofen sisters. Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-423-01607-8 ( dtv 1607).
• Kirsten Jüngling , Brigitte Roßbeck : Frieda von Richthofen. Biography. Ullstein, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-548-30416-8 ( Ullstein 30416 The woman in literature ).
• Guenther Roth: Else von Richthofen, Edgar Jaffé and their children in the context of their time. In: Kay Waechter (Ed.): Transfrontier Discourses. Festival for Hubertreiber . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-447-06279-4 , pp. 301-317.
• Alice Salomon : The female trade inspector in Germany. In: The woman. H. 2, 10.1902, pp. 94-103.

See also

• Richthofen (noble family)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Festner, Raabe 1997, p. 126
2. ↑ Jüngling, Roßbeck 1998, p. 15.
3. ↑ Regulations on girls' schools, teacher training and teacher examinations "of the Prussian Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs of May 31, 1894; admission to the examination was subject to the condition that they had to attend a university as a guest student for at least two years
4. ↑ Her status was still that of a guest student who had to ask each individual professor for permission to take part in his courses in: Eberhard Demm, Else Jaffé von Richthofen, Droste Verlag Düsseldorf, 2014 p. 10
5. ↑ See a newspaper report from December 1, 1901 about a lecture by Else von Richthofen about her work as a factory inspector in: Sources collection for the history of German social policy 1867 to 1914 , III. Department: Development and differentiation of social policy since the beginning of the New Course (1890–1904) , Volume 3, Workers' Protection , edited by Wolfgang Ayaß , Darmstadt 2005, No. 160.
6. ↑ Salomon 1902, p. 102.
7. ↑ Festner / Raabe 1997, p. 126.
8. ↑ The afternoon was devoted to physical education and art. In: Ostfriesischer Kurier, No. 101, May 3, 1990, p. 31

Web links

• Literature by and about Else von Richthofen in the catalog of the German National Library