Emma Sachse

Emma Sachse , née Claus (born May 8, 1887 in Göttingen , † January 24, 1965 in Leipzig ) was a German woman politician , state politician ( SPD / SED ) and state chairwoman of the AWO in Thuringia .

Life

Sachse came from a large family. Her father was an unskilled roadkeeper , the mother and children helped maintain the family by working from home . She attended six classes in elementary school and after school, like the rest of the family, helped weigh and pack soap powder for a soap factory. After finishing school, she worked as a child minder in other families. As a 15-year-old she became a maid in Leipzig and experienced the diametrical contrast in life opportunities between the oppressed and the ruling classes .

In 1905 she met her future husband there - a printer from Altenburg - whom she married in 1909. She educated herself through the socialist daily press “ Leipziger Volkszeitung ” and the women's magazine “ Die Gleichheit ” and became a committed fighter for socialism , a society free of oppression and women-friendly. In 1913 she moved with her husband to Altenburg, where he worked for the “ Altenburger Volkszeitung ”. In 1914 she joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and since then has campaigned for the recognition of women's rights - starting with her own party - throughout society. After the First World War , Emma Sachse - now with Thuringian citizenship - represented the socialist women of East Thuringia at a Reichsfrauentagung of the SPD in Kassel , which was followed by others. She was involved in various party bodies, at party congresses and was a member of the party committee from 1927 to 1933.

Since 1920 she has been a member of the Thuringian state parliament without interruption . Of the total of seven female MPs in the state parliament, Emma Sachse and Marie Schulz were the only ones to be represented continuously over a longer period of time. From 1932 onwards, Emma Sachse was the only female MP who was active in the budget committee , the legislative and administrative committee , the legislative and social policy committee and as a deputy in the application committee. In 1928 and 1932, Saxony was a candidate for the elections to the German Reichstag .

Since the beginning of the Weimar Republic , she campaigned for the founding of women's groups in her party as well as for the founding of local groups of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO). From 1929/30 she took over the chairmanship of the AWO state committee of the Greater Thuringia district and helped to alleviate the misery of many working-class families.

time of the nationalsocialism

After the transfer of power to the NSDAP in 1933, Emma Sachse was taken into “ protective custody ” and taken to Altenburg prison . After she was released, she worked as a " textile goods traveler " while her husband and son found no work for six years. During this time she got to know many anti-fascists who supported her until she later took part in the resistance movement herself . In August 1944 she was arrested again as part of the " Operation Grid " and deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp . Here she met Johanna Himmler , a former KPD member of the Reichstag , whose friendship made it easier for her to survive.

After the end of the war

When the Nazi rule was eliminated, Sachse took part in the founding events of the SPD and FDGB in Berlin on June 15, 1945 , before she returned to Altenburg on June 29, 1945 and resumed her political work there. One of their political goals was the establishment of workers' unity, which they saw as a prerequisite for socialist development. She was involved in the board of the Thuringian Social Insurance Institution , in the district executive committee of the SPD, in the city administration, in the committee “ Victims of Fascism ” as well as in the resettlement committee and the nutrition advisory committee. She was one of the top functionaries of the SED in the Thuringian state executive committee and in the party executive committee in Berlin, where she campaigned for the deletion of paragraph 218 of the BGB. She headed the Antifa women's committee in Altenburg and in the district. Until September 1948 she was a district women's officer of the Democratic Women's Association of Germany (DFD). Emma Sachse was a member of the Advisory State Assembly in the post-war period . She continued her parliamentary work in the 1st and 2nd Thuringian state parliaments and worked primarily in the areas of social policy and women's work. In the middle of 1948 she was sent on a six-month vacation, but after her return she was no longer given any important political function as a former leading member of the SPD. In local areas: as chairwoman of the People's Solidarity Altenburg and in local party committees, she was still active. In old age she moved to Leipzig and worked there in the National Front .

publication

• Klara Zetkin , a daughter of the German people , Altenburg [Ernst-Thälmann-Str. 8]: Socialist Unity Party of Germany, district leader. Altenburg, women's department, [1947]

aftermath

The " Emma-Sachse-Ehrung " as the highest award of the AWO Thuringia has been awarded once a year since 1999 for special merits as part of the annual AWO ball.

Previous winners include a .:

• 1999 Erika Schneider
• 2000 Werner Voigt
• 2001 Hildegard Fischer
• 2002 Herta Rudloff
• 2003 Johanna Tietsch
• 2004 Teresa Kettner;
• 2005 Ursula Gräbedünkel
• 2006 Konrad Eberitzsch
• 2007 Ilse Börner
• 2008 Gudrun Dietrich
• 2009 Ilona Holz
• 2010 Rosemarie Selle

Source: AWO Landesverband Thüringen eV

literature

• Thuringian State Parliament, Writings on the History of Parliamentarism in Thuringia , Volume 20 “Now finally women can become members of parliament!”, Hain-Verlag Weimar, 1st edition 2003, ISBN 3-89807-039-5
• Heike Stange : "... sharp, but factual" Emma Sachse (1887–1965) , in: Lived Ideas. Socialists in Thuringia. Biographical sketches, edited by Mario Hesselbarth, Eberhart Schultz, Manfred Weißbecker, Jena 2006, ISBN 3-935850-37-9
• Steffen Kachel : A red-red special path? Social Democrats and Communists in Thuringia 1919 to 1949 , = publications of the Historical Commission for Thuringia, Small Series Volume 29, p. 563, ISBN 978-3-412-20544-7

Web links

• The biography of Emma Sachse ( Memento from February 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive )