Women's suffrage movement in Germany

Brochure Equal Rights, Women's Suffrage. Wake up you German women of all classes, all parties! of the German Association for Women's Suffrage (1907)

The women's suffrage movement in Germany developed from the 1890s, when, on the one hand, universal suffrage for men came onto the political agenda and, on the other hand, the women's movement, through the adoption of the Civil Code (BGB), found that women's concerns were not heard . The term voting rights movement is generally related to part of the bourgeois women's movement. But the socialist women's movement also campaigned for women's suffrage , with both sides placing value on mutual delimitation. The national activists Anita Augspurg , Minna Cauer , Lida Gustava Heymann , Helene Stöcker , Marie Stritt , Clara Zetkin and Martha Zietz , who formed a social and political network, were part of the core movement. They worked as lecture travelers and speakers and were considered role models and pioneers.

The organizational phase of the movement began with the establishment of the German Association for Women's Suffrage in Hamburg in 1902 (transformed into the German Association for Women's Suffrage in 1904). After the liberalization of the association laws in 1908, the number of voting associations and the women involved in them increased sharply. Which women's suffrage was demanded was controversial, which ultimately led to the regional and local voting rights associations being split up into several umbrella organizations. The German Association for Women's Suffrage, founded in 1909, demanded the right to vote for women, but not universal and equal suffrage for women, as was the demand of the German Women's Suffrage Association, which was created in 1913 . The German Association for Women's Suffrage took a middle, moderate position. Despite the quarrels, the civil voting rights movement grew. At the end of 1918 the voting rights associations had about 10,000 members. The lecture and press system of the voting rights movement contributed significantly to the opinion of the German public with regard to women's suffrage.

With the outbreak of World War I , the women's movement joined the so-called truce of political parties and groups. The voting rights activities came to a standstill. The women's movement groups were largely involved in the national women's service on the so-called home front for the war. Only in 1917, when it became clear that after the war, in recognition of the war efforts in Prussia, universal suffrage should only be introduced for men, did the wings of the bourgeois women's movement and the socialist women's movement join forces to fight for women's suffrage. At the beginning of November 1918, large rallies were held to introduce women's suffrage. At the request of the Federation of German Women's Associations , the Reichstag began drafting a law for women's suffrage, which was no longer put to the vote because of the revolution. On November 12, 1918, the Council of People's Representatives proclaimed the same, secret, direct, universal suffrage for all men and women over the age of 20. This made Germany one of the first European countries to introduce women's suffrage. The German Reich Association for Women's Suffrage , to which the Women's Suffrage Association and the Women's Suffrage Association had merged in 1916, dissolved in 1919.

prehistory

"The leaders of the women's movement in Germany" in the gazebo in 1894. Louise Otto is shown in the top row on the far left, Auguste Schmidt in the middle row in the middle. After the change of guard in the course of the 1890s, only Helene Lange (in the middle row, 2nd from the right) belonged to the management team.

With the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, the political system, which had hitherto been based on estates, was contrasted with the ideal of equality as a principle of order for political participation. Immanuel Kant saw society as a special purpose association of individuals, but he linked the status of “active citizen” to certain qualifications: economic and social independence and the male gender. In the 19th century, the democratic forces criticized the restriction of the status of the citizen entitled to vote to the property owners, ie the so-called census suffrage , and demanded universal suffrage , but at the same time defended the restriction to men. The general and equal male suffrage existed from the beginning in the newly founded German Reich in 1871 . In contrast, in the most important individual state, Prussia, the three-tier voting rights , which were restricted to men, applied , with the votes having different weights depending on the tax revenue of the individual.

A letter from a reader, Louise Otto , to the Sächsische Vaterlands-Blätter in 1843 , in which she responded to a question from the publisher about the political position of women, is considered to be the first interference by a woman in the political public in Germany . Otto wrote: "The participation of women in the interests of the state is not a right, but a duty." Without women or the resolution of the gender issue , there would be no democratization of society. This statement triggered a flood of further letters - from men and women. The press became a crucial medium for mobilizing and making explicit women's concerns visible. After the failure of the revolution of 1848/49 Otto published the women’s newspaper under the motto “I recruit women citizens for the empire of freedom!”, In which they the politicization of women, a more independent position for women in society and an improvement of educational opportunities and job opportunities for women. But she could only publish freely and act politically for a short time. In 1850 their newspaper was banned due to a new Saxon press law (called Lex Otto ). The workers 'and servants' associations that she had co-founded were dissolved on the basis of the Prussian association laws of 1850.

The Prussian Association Act of 1850, which was later adopted by most of the German states and was in force until 1908, forbade “women, pupils and apprentices” from membership in political associations and participation in political meetings. The presence of women allowed the police officers on duty to close the gathering, impose a fine and even order the club to be closed. What was considered political was tried several times over the next few decades. In 1887 the Imperial Court made it clear that it included "all matters" which include "the constitution, administration, legislation of the state, the civil rights of subjects and the international relations of states with one another."

In the 1860s, the first civic women’s associations emerged, which, given the framework conditions, were keen to appear politically neutral. Under these circumstances, women's suffrage was too delicate a topic for a women's association to campaign for. The new associations, first and foremost the first national women's association founded in 1865, the General German Women's Association (ADF), were primarily devoted to the question of women's education or social issues. In the period from 1878 to 1890, the socialist laws forbade socialist , social democratic and communist associations to hold meetings and writings whose purpose was to overthrow the existing state and social order. This intensified the existing class antagonism among women and, beyond 1890, led to a decisive separation of bourgeois women from social democrats.

The legal situation meant that women's suffrage in Germany was openly and directly only demanded by individual personalities, but not by organizations, until the 1890s. In 1869, the British philosopher John Stuart Mill and his stepdaughter Helen Taylor, in their book The Subjection of Women, sharply criticized the legal subjection of the female to the male gender and called for complete equality. The translation of Jenny Hirsch's slavery , published in the same year, made the demand for women's suffrage in Germany known to the general public for the first time. In 1876 the writer Hedwig Dohm published the plea Der Frauen Natur und Recht , in which she called for women's suffrage as a “natural right” for women. She admitted no objective reasons for restricting the right to vote to men. She admitted that society could restrict a natural political right if “this right proved to be incompatible with the welfare of state life”. But she demanded evidence of such an “antagonism between state life and women's rights”. Without such evidence, the legitimacy and necessity of universal women's suffrage are given.

Early phase of the voting rights movement until 1902

In the middle of the 1890s - triggered by the so-called "coup bill" - resistance to association law arose. With the bill, the handling of the association laws in Prussia and Bavaria was tightened, which was used by the police authorities to harass the workers' associations. Even trade union meetings and cultural events were seen as political actions and the activists were prosecuted. Clara Zetkin started a campaign against police arbitrariness in 1895 in the social democratic equality . In the same year, the SPD parliamentary group submitted a motion to the Reichstag on women's suffrage, which August Bebel represented in a widely acclaimed speech. As early as 1891, the German Social Democrats included the demand for women's suffrage in their party program.

The bourgeois women's rights activists also campaigned against the rigid association laws. Between 1895 and 1907, the women's associations submitted a total of ten petitions aimed at mobilizing women. But success was a long time coming. In 1894 the women's rights activists Helene Lange and Lily von Gyzicki (later known as Lily Braun) called for women's suffrage for the first time in public speeches and then published their thoughts. The debate on women's suffrage was held in numerous publications in the magazines of the women's movement and in many lectures. This was true for all wings of the bourgeois as well as the proletarian women's movement. The question of women's suffrage was thus on the political agenda in the German Reich.

The international contacts, which have been strengthening because of the international women's congresses that have been taking place since 1878 , also contributed to the fact that women’s right to vote was demanded in Germany. The introduction of women's suffrage in the last third of the 19th century in individual countries and states (e.g. 1869 in Wyoming , 1881 on the British Isle of Man , 1893 in New Zealand , 1894 in South Australia ) inspired the women's movements in other countries, including the German. All forms of political participation by women abroad were reported extensively in the bourgeois women's movement press and in Equality .

Clara Zetkin 1897

Marie Stritt 1890

In 1893, four delegates from German women's associations attended the first International Congress of Women of the International Council of Women (ICW) founded in 1888 , which took place parallel to the world exhibition in Chicago . In the process, they got to know the umbrella organization of the American women's associations (National Council of Women) and, on their return, campaigned for the German women's associations to be merged in the same way in order to gain more attention for common demands. Under the leadership of the Lette-Verein and Anna Schepeler-Lettes , the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine (BDF) was founded in 1894 as the umbrella organization for civic women’s associations. In addition to the Lette association, the ADF, the General German Teachers Association (ADLV), the Frauenwohl association , the commercial and industrial aid association for female employees in Berlin and the youth protection association were the most important founding associations. Auguste Schmidt from the ADLV became the first chairwoman of the BDF. In 1897 the BDF became the third national umbrella organization to become a member of the ICW.

The BDF defined itself as “non-profit” as opposed to “political” and rejected the admission of social democratic workers' associations in the founding meeting on this basis. A minority, including Minna Cauer and other women from the Frauenwohl association, had spoken out against this demarcation. The leaders of the proletarian women's movement, first and foremost Clara Zetkin, refused to cooperate and pursued a course of “clean separation” between the proletarian and bourgeois women's movement. The interests of proletarian and bourgeois women are incompatible. When in 1895 the bourgeois women's movement in the SPD press organ Vorwärts solicited signatures from women of all parties and classes for a petition for a reform of association law, this prompted Zetkin to countercall "This petition is not a proletarian signature!" Zetkin wanted to maintain her influence and fend off competition from the bourgeois women's camp.

In the years from 1895 onwards, Minna Cauer, Anita Augspurg and Marie Stritt worked closely together to win the BDF for their new ideas. In 1896 they convinced the BDF to conduct a campaign ( ridiculed by the press as " Frauen-Landsturm ") against the draft of the new civil code (BGB). Both the draft and the version finally adopted severely disadvantaged women. In June 1896, Cauer and Augspurg held a public meeting against the plan in Berlin, in which 3,000 people took part and in which a resolution against the unilateral “men's right” was passed, which ultimately received 25,000 signatures. At the second reading in the Reichstag, Marie Stritt handed out a leaflet that was formulated sharply and emotionally and for which the derisive name “Frauen-Landsturm” had proudly been adopted. The BGB was ratified anyway, but the mass meeting and the previously unknown radical tone of voice represented a new level of agitation for the German women's movement.

In 1897 Augspurg made the first case for women's suffrage. This led to the first "open and unreserved" discussion about political voting rights within the Frauenwohl Association.

Radical and moderate wing of the women's movement

Anita Augspurg in her study, recording for Die Woche 1899

Helene Lange in her library, recording for Die Woche 1899

Around 1898/99 there was a rift within the bourgeois women's movement, which was sparked superficially in dealing with the issue of prostitution , but more fundamentally in questions of the approach and the organizational form of the BDF. Anita Augspurg, Minna Cauer, Lida Gustava Heymann and others advocated a more critical, more programmatic approach than the more pragmatic majority around Helene Lange and later Gertrud Bäumer . Hanna Bieber-Böhm , the leading figure of the German moral movement , had campaigned against prostitution from the end of the 1880s and had the issue, which was perceived as embarrassing, dealt with in the BDF. Her moral approach was based on the punishment of prostitution. Ten years later, new activists such as Anna Pappritz and Katharina Scheven , inspired by the British abolitionists, called for the abolition of all special provisions that only affect women. Their focus was on the fight against sexually transmitted diseases , they advocated education and easily accessible and free medical treatment.

At the BDF general assembly in 1898, Augspurg and Cauer called for a change to an abolitionist approach in the fight against prostitution and for the women's movement to become politically active. Only a minority in the women's movement followed these positions, and from then on they described themselves as “radical”. The newly elected new chairman of the BDF, Marie Stritt, with whom Augspurg had worked for years in the Women's Education Reform Association in Munich , took the side of the majority, henceforth referred to as the moderates, which Augspurg never forgave her.

Girlfriends who were moved by women in 1896: Anita Augspurg, Marie Stritt, Lily von Gizycki (later Braun), Minna Cauer, Sophia Goudstikker (from left)

Since they could not assert themselves in the BDF, Augspurg and Cauer initiated the establishment of the Association of Progressive Women's Associations at the next public meeting of delegates of the Frauenwohl Association , which rejected the separation between workers and bourgeois women and supported the demand for women's suffrage. The new association set up workers' committees in every association, but their success was hampered by the "sense of mission" and the "automatic" claim to leadership of the bourgeois women towards the workers.

Older historical research has unthinkingly adopted and updated the ascription radical / moderate and self-portrayal as the avant-garde, as postulated again and again in publications by the radicals around Cauer and Augspurg. For example, the “crown metaphor” was rumored again and again, although none of the moderates made this statement after 1890:

“The fundamental difference can be expressed in this: The radicals see women's suffrage as the root of the women's movement, the moderates see it as a distant goal, as the crown on the tree of the women's movement, which women gain through their community work, through community work , through better education and training would first have to earn [...] "

- Else Lüders : The "left wing". Berlin 1904.

More recent analyzes by the historians Gisela Bock , Angelika Schaser and Kerstin Wolff have shown, however, that the wings did not differ significantly in terms of argumentation or tactics. The demand for the right to vote came up simultaneously in both wings of the German women's movement. In the years 1894 to 1898 and until 1902, the main concern of the representatives of both wings was to get broad support from women for this demand. Both radical and moderate women's rights activists used formulations that described women's suffrage as the “ultimate goal” (e.g. 1897 Augspurg, 1899 Helene Lange). The factual differences were therefore marginal, but - as Susanne Kinnebrock emphasized - the assignment of people and positions to the different wings had an effect, as it was firmly anchored in the consciousness of the leading actors.

The polarization within the women's movement led to an informal division of labor between the two wings. The radical women's rights activists limited themselves to propaganda ("agitation specialists"), whereas the moderate women's rights activists and associations did the practical work. So it came about that a number of radicals, who were also interested in practical work, became more and more involved in moderate associations and so were finally counted among the other wing (e.g. Anna Pappritz).

Early Stage Magazines

In 1895, Minna Cauer, with the support of Lily von Gizycki (later Lily Braun), published a new magazine, The Women's Movement , which developed into a mouthpiece for the emerging “radical” part of the women's movement. As early as 1895, a controversy over women's suffrage between Georg von Gizycki and Henriette Goldschmidt was published in the women's movement . After Lily von Gizycki withdrew from the editorial office and became involved in the SPD, Anita Augspurg took over her position. From 1899 onwards, The Women's Movement was expanded to include Parliamentary Affairs and Legislation , edited by Augspurg .

Early organizational phase until 1907

Establishment of the German Association for Women's Suffrage in 1902

Anita Augspurg

Lida Gustava Heymann

The direct reason for the establishment of the first German voting rights organization was the First International Conference on Women's Suffrage, which took place in Washington, DC , in February 1902 . The International Council of Women did not advocate women's suffrage, which is why leading international women's rights activists, including Anita Augspurg and Lida Gustava Heymann , have sought an additional international association since the ICW's third International Congress of Women in 1899 in London . Since the existing German women's organizations, including the umbrella organization BDF, were still reluctant to demand women's right to vote, no German delegates could be sent to Washington.

Augspurg suggested moving the seat of a German women's suffrage association to one of the German states whose association law - unlike the Prussian law - did not explicitly prohibit the participation of women in an association with a political orientation. The women of the other German federal states could become members, this was not prohibited by association law. Accordingly, leading members of the association of progressive women's associations spontaneously founded the German Association for Women's Suffrage, the aim of which was to ensure that German women can exercise their political rights. In addition to Augspurg and Heymann, who became chairmen and vice-chairmen, the founding members included Minna Cauer , Charlotte Engel-Reimers , Agnes Hacker , Käthe Schirmacher , Helene Stöcker and Adelheid von Welczeck (there were a total of 13 founding members). Other well-known women's rights activists joined in the next few months, including Marie Raschke , Anna Pappritz and Marie Stritt . The Hamburg Women's Welfare Association also joined. Augspurg was able to telegraph a greeting address to the international women's suffrage conference on behalf of the association.

The founding of the association was widely reported in the press, and not just negatively. Sections of the liberal press ( Neue Hamburger Zeitung and Frankfurter Zeitung ) in particular welcomed the new organization. While the conservative and anti-Semitic papers and the provincial newspapers accused the suffrage movement of promoting socialism, the liberal national papers soon supported the suffrage activists. They also commissioned leading women's rights activists to regularly write articles on the women's movement.

The free delivery of the magazine The Women's Movement was associated with membership of the association, the mandatory annual fee of which was deliberately kept low at three marks . A first success was already celebrated in the founding year, 35 women of the new voting rights association received an audience with Reich Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow and were able to present their demands there. The main focus was on changing the association laws.

At the end of 1902, the BDF finally passed a resolution on women's suffrage and thus backed the demand for voting rights:

"It is urgently to be hoped that the federal associations promote the understanding of the idea of ​​women's suffrage to the best of their ability, because all efforts of the federal government are only certain of lasting success through women's suffrage."

- BDF General Assembly 1902

Since, in his opinion, the resolution had created a common basis, the voting rights association joined the BDF in 1903. The largest and most influential association of the BDF, the General German Women's Association (ADF), included the demand for women's suffrage in its program in 1905.

Second International Conference on Women's Suffrage, 1904 in Berlin

The ICW Congress was widely reported in Germany. The Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung featured BDF President Marie Stritt prominently on its title page.

Lunch meeting of the participants of the ICW Congress 1904

In 1904, the Second International Women's Suffrage Conference took place in Berlin with the aim of founding the international women's suffrage association. The place and time of the second voting rights conference was determined because the International Congress of Women of the ICW met in Berlin in 1904 at the invitation of the BDF, thus reducing the organizational effort for an international women's suffrage conference . The preparatory committee consisted of the pioneer of the American women's rights movement Susan B. Anthony (chair), Anita Augspurg (second chair), the English Florence Fenwick Miller (treasurer) and the American Carrie Chapman Catt (secretariat). The organization on site was in the hands of representatives of the Union of progressive women's associations, Minna Cauer, Anita Augspurg, Lida Gustava Heymann and Else Lüders .

The voting rights conference took place a week before the ICW congress and drew much of the coverage. At the conference the founding act for the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) was carried out and Catt and Augspurg were elected as President and Vice President of the new international alliance .

Conversion to umbrella organization in 1904

The IWSA only accepted national umbrella organizations. Accordingly, after the conference, the German voting rights association was transformed into an association called the German Association for Women's Suffrage (with branch associations and local groups). Until this conversion, only individual memberships in the voting rights association were possible. After that, corporate members could also be accepted. In 1904 three local associations were founded and joined the association - in Hamburg under the leadership of Martha Zietz and Lida Gustava Heymann, in Bremen under the leadership of Luise Koch and in Frankfurt am Main under the leadership of Helene Lewison . Where the association laws prevented the formal establishment of local groups, the association built up a network of confidants who established the connection between the board and the individual members in the cities.

From 1906, the umbrella organization increasingly initiated the establishment of regional associations. Corresponding voting rights associations were set up in Baden , Central Germany , Saxony and Württemberg . A regional committee was founded for Prussia , which was renamed a regional association after the liberalization of the association laws in 1908. Regional associations in Hesse , Bavaria , Mecklenburg , Silesia and Oldenburg were added. In 1907/08 the association had almost 2500 members in 7 regional and 19 local associations, more than 200 men were also members.

Activities of the voting rights associations 1902–1907

As early as 1902, the board members were promoting women's suffrage with lecture tours. Frequent and popular speakers were Martha Zietz, Maria Lischnewska , Anita Augspurg, Adelheid von Welczeck and Lida Gustava Heymann. The first meetings were held in Hamburg and Berlin in February 1902, sometimes in front of more than 1,000 visitors. The lectures placed the topic in many German cities, which led to the accession of individual members and the founding of local associations throughout the Reich.

Earthenware plate with symbol and motto of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA)

The activities of the individual member associations included diverse forms of mobilization and action: in addition to public meetings, regular discussion evenings by working committees, the establishment of a parliamentary committee, the creation of a work plan for election agitation, the publication and distribution of appeals and leaflets, the preparation of memoranda and petitions, u. a. Prominent spokesmen for the voting rights movements spoke at the public meetings, but also English suffragettes , whose speeches were particularly popular. In terms of content, the numerous articles in the movement press deal less with the legitimacy of women's suffrage demands than in the period before 1902. Instead, they focused on the discussion about the direct participation of women and the women's movement in politics.

The voting rights association printed voting stamps and postcards and distributed them as advertising and financing means. The members were requested to wear the voting symbol of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance , which had been adopted by all national associations as a symbol of recognition and confession.

The association submitted petitions on association law, the reorganization of constituencies and rights of co-determination in the professional field. From 1905 the members tried hard to revitalize the municipal voting rights of women. In order to show that “women are worthy of political rights”, the members got involved in preparing for elections, for example in the Reichstag elections in 1904 and 1908 and in the state elections in Hamburg. There was always the problem of finding candidates or parties that supported the demand for women's suffrage. Often the women invested a lot of energy in the election campaign of a candidate from a left-wing liberal party, but the consideration, the inclusion of the demand for women's suffrage in the party program, was still missing after a successful election. One example was the successful election campaign for the candidate Rudolf Oeser of the German People's Party in Frankfurt am Main in 1907, which was largely in the hands of representatives of the Frankfurt voting rights association.

Anchoring the demand for democratic suffrage in the statutes of 1907

In response to the Social Democrats' accusation that they were the only ones who campaigned for universal and equal suffrage, the voting rights association specified at its second general assembly in 1907 what it meant by political equality:

“The association does not represent any political party, nor any party or direction within the women's movement. The association strives for the general, equal, direct and secret right to vote for both sexes in the legislative bodies and the organs of self-government. "

- Paragraph 3 of the statutes of the German Association for Women's Suffrage , adopted in 1907

Journal of women's suffrage from 1 January 1908 article for Reich Associations Act

The clarification in § 3 of the association statutes led to a dispute lasting several years. The paragraph contained a contradiction for contemporaries at the time, since universal and equal suffrage for men was only demanded by part of the party spectrum, namely the social democracy and the radical liberal democratic association .

In the Prussian state committee for women's suffrage of the association (from 1908 a state association) resistance formed around Maria Lischnewska against the association's now clearly formulated position. The general and equal right to vote should only be demanded when the liberals had become so strong that social democracy and the center would not together form the majority in the Prussian state parliament . Lischnewska accused Augspurg that her views correspond too closely to those of the "older social democracy".

After it was founded, the voting rights association initially used the magazine Die Frauenbewegung as an association organ. With reference to party-political neutrality, it was decided at the second general assembly in 1907 that the women's movement could no longer have this function, since it represented the radical direction of the women's movement. Instead, the association launched the magazine for women's suffrage, which appeared both as an independent magazine and as a monthly supplement to the women's movement and was edited by Augspurg. The magazine's motto was “Justice exalts a people”. The title page showed an allegorical representation of the struggle for the right to vote, in which a woman triumphantly held up a broken chain in front of the rising sun. Although Augspurg described the establishment of the magazine as the "first milestone" in the creation of the voting rights movement in Germany, she hardly appeared as an author in the magazine.

First international conference of socialist women

Rosa Luxemburg speaks at the international socialist women's conference in Stuttgart

In 1903 the social democratic women began propaganda for women's suffrage. At the SPD party congress in Dresden they successfully submitted the motion that in all cases in which the party demanded general, secret, equal and direct suffrage, women's suffrage should be explicitly included and demanded “with all due force”. However, because of the prohibition of political engagement for women by the association laws, proletarian women could not join the SPD. The organization was therefore based on so-called women of trust who were elected by the local women's groups and accepted by the SPD local boards as representatives for the women. By 1908, 407 such shop stewards had been elected. As part of socialist educational associations, attempts were made to win over women workers for union and political work. In 1907 there were 94 such associations with more than 10,000 members.

In 1907, initiated by the German socialists, the first international conference of socialist women took place in Stuttgart, with which a relatively independent socialist women's movement emerged. At the opening, Ottilie Baader made it clear that women's suffrage was a central demand of the socialists: “I greet all of the women who have come to help us conquer the most indispensable weapon for us, women's suffrage.” Clara Zetkin also called for of her speech, published in advance, about women's suffrage. After a controversial discussion, the socialist parties of all countries committed themselves to vigorously advocating the introduction of unrestricted universal women's suffrage and to developing joint actions. To this end, the demand for women's suffrage should be anchored in all party programs.

Organized high phase 1908–1914

Liberalization of association laws

Already in the constitution of 1871 the claim to a uniform regulation of the association laws was formulated. But it was only when the contradiction between the active participation of women in many areas of social life and their exclusion and the arbitrary handling of association laws became too obvious that the serious political will for reform emerged. In 1901, for example, the Society for Social Reform was founded, which, with regard to Prussian association law, only permitted male members, although the commitment of the women's associations to poor relief , job records , welfare education , trade supervision and the administration of justice could no longer be imagined without it. In another case, in 1902 the conservative farmers ' union , which was able to rely on the tolerance of the police, carried out an unmolested mass event in Berlin with the participation of women. The blatant discrepancy in the treatment of workers' associations led the Prussian interior minister to issue a so-called "segment regulation" which allowed women to participate in political meetings if they were separated from the men by a rope in the event venue and not at the Discussion involved. The regulation was ridiculed in the press. In 1908, a new government coalition, the so-called Bülowblock , finally passed a unified public association law which no longer contained any special regulations with regard to women, which was justified by the increased participation of women in public affairs. In the civil service, too, women have taken on “partly independent and responsible” tasks, which is why women are to be allowed to pursue their professional interests in an organized manner. Women could now also join parties.

The liberalization of the association laws led to the establishment of a large number of new women's suffrage associations. In addition, the number of members in the existing voting rights associations - and thus also in the umbrella organization - grew strongly. Membership thus became more heterogeneous and the left, radical wing of the bourgeois women's movement around Anita Augspurg and Lida Gustava Heymann , which dominated the early years, lost more and more influence, to which tactical errors and sensitivities contributed.

Dispute over direction and organizational fragmentation of the voting rights movement

After the second general assembly, a dispute arose in the voting rights association as to how one could advocate democratic suffrage without party-political determination. For the association members, there was a conflict between the feminist demand for women's suffrage and other political convictions. Other lines of conflict were different views on imperialist foreign policy and cooperation with the male-supported parties.

Along the three lines of conflict there were four groups within the voting rights movement: firstly, a nationalist grouping around Maria Lischnewska and Käthe Schirmacher , which on the one hand emphasized the autonomy of the women's movement and on the other hand rejected democratic suffrage, and secondly a national liberal grouping that also rejected democratic suffrage, was less imperialist-nationalist than the group around Lischnewska and Schirmacher, thirdly a radical-democratic group around Minna Cauer , which resolutely represented the democratic right to vote for both sexes, was involved in the political parties and criticized an imperialist foreign policy, and fourthly that of Lida Gustava Heymann determined group that advocated democratic suffrage and the autonomy of the women's movement.

From 1908, the Prussian regional association under the leadership of Minna Cauer and Tony Breitscheid sought to work with the parties that advocated equal, direct and secret suffrage. Accordingly, the regional association supported the Democratic Association . The regional association was no longer politically neutral. He also propagated the "test-question" policy adopted by the English suffragettes, in which electoral support for candidates for the Reichstag election should be made dependent on their support for democratic suffrage without distinguishing between men and women.

Paragraph 3 of the association's statutes and the activities of the Prussian state association triggered the withdrawal of the Cologne member association from the voting rights association in 1908/09 and the establishment of further women's voting rights associations (Silesian association around Else Hielscher and Marie Wegner , Rhenish-Westphalian association around Li Fischer-Eckert and Elsbeth Krukenberg ). These associations demanded the same citizenship rights for men and women, but no specific right to vote, in particular not the abolition of the three-class suffrage in Prussia . They finally merged to form the German Association for Women's Suffrage. The organ of the association was the magazine Frau und Staat , which appeared as a supplement to the Centralblatt des Bundes Deutscher Frauenvereine . Despite the resignations and new foundations, there was still a strong and growing group of opponents of universal suffrage in the voting rights association. It was called the “reform party”.

At the third general assembly in 1909, the association tried to defuse the conflict by reaffirming Section 3, but allowing provincial associations to be directly linked to the association, i.e. not as a sub-group of the respective state association. The aim was to build a bridge for the Prussian provincial associations that did not want to subordinate themselves to the radical Prussian regional association. At the fourth general assembly two years later, an application by Emma Nägeli and Maria Lischnewska was finally successful and § 3 of the statutes was reformulated. Instead of both genders, the “general, equal, direct and secret, active and passive right to vote” was now only required for women. The fights over direction led to the resignation of Augspurg and Heymann from the board, as they were not ready to work with the also elected Marie Stritt . The board now consisted of Marie Stritt as chairwoman as well as Martha Zietz , Anna Lindemann , Maria Lischneska and Käthe Schirmacher and was thus strongly nationally-liberal .

First issue of the magazine Frauenstimmrecht April / May 1912 with the song “Weckruf zum Frauenstimmrecht”.

At the same general assembly, the association decided to found a new magazine called Frauenstimmrecht , the editing of which it entrusted to Augspurg. This brought Cauer's magazine Frauenbewegung into economic difficulties, since the magazine for women's suffrage was at least partly published as a supplement to it and thus secured the group of subscribers. The friendship between Cauer and Augspurg broke due to this development, even if they worked together later. Cauer decided to continue the magazine for women's suffrage, but only as a supplement to the women's movement . Cauer took over the editing himself.

At the Eisenach general assembly of the voting rights association in 1913, it was decided that the content and form of the journal Frauenstimmrecht should be edited in agreement with the association's executive committee. Augspurg then gave up the editorial team, which Adele Schreiber took over. In 1914 the magazine was renamed Die Staatsbürgerin .

For national liberals, the new formulation of § 3 was still tinged with party politics, since similarities with the demands of the Democratic Union and the Social Democrats were still recognizable. The majority of the provincial associations rejected the new version of § 3 in an advisory board vote in 1912. Nevertheless, it remained in force the following year as none of the amendments received the necessary three-quarters majority at the General Assembly. Augspurg and Heymann, several hundred other members and two provincial associations (Hamburg and Bavaria) then left the association. Augspurg and Heymann founded the German Women's Suffrage Association in 1913, which brought together the clubs that had resigned. There were now three civic umbrella organizations for women's suffrage, which Minna Cauer described a year later:

“There is now enough choice so that everyone can choose their field; the conservative, the moderate and the democratic. So now women have to reckon with these three directions of the bourgeois women's suffrage movement in Germany. "

- Minna Cauer 1914 : Zeitschrift für Frauenstimmrecht Vol. 8, H. 4, 1914, p. 11.

The historian Kerstin Wolff has emphasized that the conflicting opinions in the voting rights movement cannot simply be interpreted as for and against women's suffrage. Rather, they could be explained with tactical considerations and the problem that within the women's movement, which otherwise saw itself as politically neutral, a partisan issue was dealt with for the first time.

Membership growth and establishment of further local voting rights associations

Regardless of the dispute over the direction, the voting rights movement continued to grow during this phase, and more local voting associations were founded. The founding of the local associations followed a constant pattern: a nationally known women's rights activist came to a lecture in which she spoke about the question of voting rights and the political tasks of women. At the end of the lecture, a voting group was usually set up, which was often already prepared by a local contact person or a friendly association.

There were two waves of mobilization for start-ups: in 1907/08 with the liberalization of the association laws and in 1911/12 with the split and differentiation of the movement. A total of at least 157 constituencies in Germany have been recorded for the years 1902 to 1914. The network of local groups covered the whole country. The "overorganization" was already viewed critically by contemporaries. But even then it was emphasized: "The women's movement lives in its associations." While the historian Richard J. Evans viewed the fragmentation more as a weakening, the sociologist Ulla Wischermann interpreted the "diffusion" of the associations in the course of the movement's history as an expansion and referred to it, that the wing formation was accompanied by an expansion of topics, demands and protest repertoires.

From 1911, the voting rights association gained around 1,000 members every year. In 1913 it had almost 9,000 members in 90 local groups and 11 regional associations. The German Association for Women's Suffrage had almost 2,000 members in 1912 and 3,500 in 1914 in 37 local groups and four regional associations. The German Women's Suffrage Association had about 2,000 members in 1914. Compared to the other associations in the BDF, which had around 200,000 members in 1908 (328,000 in 1918), the voting rights movement was only a small part of the women's movement.

Activities of the voting rights associations 1908–1914

Photo report on the demonstration drive for women's suffrage in Munich in 1912, in the picture above left in Landauer Anita Augspurg (left) and Lida Gustava Heymann (right), both in white

In this phase, too, the spectrum of activities of the voting rights associations included political propaganda, civic education for women, social gatherings and events. Beyond the issue of women's suffrage, the associations were also involved in issues relating to morality , university studies or the education of girls, and cooperated with other local associations in this regard. The clubs worked both internally and externally. They tried to educate and convince their own members as well as to mobilize new groups of women. There were functional differences and a division of labor between the supraregional and local associations: supra-regionally, the focus was more on program definition and protest planning, while the practical work took place locally.

Badge of the British Women's Social and Political Union in the typical colors of the suffragettes: green, white and purple.

In order to promote group identity and awareness, the German voting rights movement tried to adopt the practices of the English suffragettes, which Augspurg and Heymann in particular propagated. The Bavarian State Association adopted the colors of the suffragettes (purple, white and green) for banners and flags for decoration at meetings or for posters, invitations and cards. The suffragettes mainly wore white clothes and hats at meetings and parades, a symbolism that did not catch on in Germany. Here light-colored dresses were considered too impractical and too youthful.

The singing together at the English voting events also impressed Augspurg and Heymann. Augspurg wrote texts for two militant suffrage songs, which she published in the first issue of the new organ of the women's suffrage in 1912 and which were sung at meetings. The wake-up call for women's suffrage was based on the melody of the Marseillaise , the “ national anthem of women ”, “ The song of the Germans ”.

In 1909, the German delegates, including Anna Pappritz, Frieda Radel and Regine Deutsch , witnessed the forms of action of the British women's movement, including demonstrations, parades and car parades , at the 5th International Conference of the IWSA in London. They were impressed, but found the methods hardly transferable. A street demonstration by (bourgeois) women contradicted the common constructions of femininity and was also difficult to realize under the prevailing political conditions. Nevertheless, the Berlin and Bavarian voting rights associations tried to hold demonstrations in the same year, but in vain. It was not until 1912 that a demonstration trip for women's suffrage with 18 landauers took place in Munich . Adele Schreiber's report of the trip in the magazine Frauenstimmrecht shows what a step this demonstration represented for bourgeois women: "The unheard-of became reality - we dared - the first propaganda trip through a major German city!" Until after the First World War This remained the only women's suffrage demonstration of the bourgeois women's movement.

Second International Conference of Socialist Women and International Women's Day

Call for the second international women’s conference

Poster for International Women's Day 1914 calling for women to vote

At the second international conference of socialist women in Copenhagen in 1910, at the request of Clara Zetkin , Käte Duncker and others, it was decided to hold an International Women's Day. They were inspired by the report by the American May Wood-Simons about the successful women's days in the USA in 1909 and 1910. The event was organized and administered by Luise Zietz , who organized a series of Germany-wide demonstrations for women's suffrage as part of the day of action. The first International Women's Day in 1911 turned out to be extremely successful under the slogan “Out with women's suffrage!”. More than a million women took to the streets demanding social and political equality. The radical women's rights activists Minna Cauer, Else Lüders and Marie Lischnewska also took part in women's day meetings. The equality appeared with a 16-page special issue entitled "Women's Suffrage".

Despite the success, the organs of the moderate women's movement (from Centralblatt des Bundes Deutscher Frauenvereine to Neue Bahnen and Die Frau ) refrained from mentioning the mass demonstrations. Augspurg, too, was reluctant to comment on her in the magazine for women's suffrage. Only Cauer expressed sympathy and enthusiasm for the action in her women's movement magazine . The bourgeois women's movement press reacted coolly to the polemics of the socialists against the bourgeois women's rights activists during Women's Day. A leaflet on Women's Day said:

"The exploited textile worker, the metal worker and the bookbinder, the tobacco worker and the seamstress [...] need the right to vote far more urgently than the bourgeois lady, who would primarily use it to obtain the same educational opportunities, the opening of the liberal professions and in to achieve for women complete equality with men. […] But the right to vote remains more important for the worker who, with its help, can only achieve and defend bare existence, the elementary protection for life and health. [...] Only in the ranks of the Social Democrats [...] must fight those who mean it honestly with the demand for democratic women's suffrage. "

- Flyer for International Women's Day 1911

Despite internal party opposition, the social democratic women managed to hold an international women's day every year until 1914.

Attempt to form a cartel of voting umbrella organizations

At a suggestion by Augspurg and Heymann, the German Association for Women's Suffrage, the German Association for Women's Suffrage, and the German Association for Women's Suffrage agreed a cartel in 1914 with the aim of showing a "closed front" to the outside world. The cartel should facilitate cooperation in demonstrations, petitions and representation in the International Women Suffrage Alliance , which only allowed national representation. The common denominator was the demand for women's suffrage, details of how this right to vote were not given. The outbreak of World War I prevented the cartel from having any practical effect.

First World War

National women's service

Municipal housewives advice center of the war welfare department, Department of National Women's Service , 1915 in Frankfurt am Main

The outbreak of the First World War abruptly put an end to the activities of the bourgeois suffrage activists and the socialists for women's suffrage. The bourgeois and proletarian women's movements joined the so-called national truce and supported the war effort on the so-called home front . The BDF designed the National Women's Service (NFD). In this context, volunteers worked in public welfare and were involved in the administrative apparatus. The women of the NFD took over the examination of the applications for war support, organized cooking courses, gave out the food instructions, took care of collection and advice centers and provided care for families, maternal women and babies.

Pacifist activities by sections of the bourgeois and proletarian women's movement

In both the bourgeois and social democratic women's movements, not all women were ready to support the war. The socialist war opponents used the journal Die Equality , published by Clara Zetkin , as a mouthpiece against militarism and war , which, however, was under the strict control of censorship. In March 1915, Zetkin invited to an international conference of socialist women against the war in Bern , attended by 70 delegates from eight countries. The resolution adopted at the conference “War on this war!” Was illegally distributed throughout Europe. Zetkin was arrested for treason and the conference report in equality was completely censored. In 1917 the SPD withdrew Zetkin from publishing the newspaper Die Equality because it did not represent the official party line.

Also Anita Augspurg and Lida Gustava Heymann sat determinedly for an early peace. Their goal was an international women's initiative to end the world war. In the local groups of the voting rights federation, the couple organized meetings on pacifist topics, which led to several withdrawals. Since the IWSA congress originally planned for June 1915 in Berlin was canceled by the German association shortly after the start of the war, the couple organized an international women's conference against the war in 1915 together with the Dutch woman Aletta Jacobs , the Hungarian woman Rosika Schwimmer and the American and later Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jane Addams in The Hague . At the conference, which was attended by more than 1000 women from twelve countries, the International Women's Committee for Lasting Peace was founded, which later became the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). After the conference, the German participants were considered traitors to the fatherland.

Merger to form the German Reich Association for Women's Suffrage

In 1916 the cartel of voting umbrella organizations was finally abandoned. Unlike the radical groups, the moderate and conservative voting factions had a common basis in national and patriotic thinking. The German Association for Women's Suffrage and the German Association for Women's Suffrage, led by Marie Stritt, merged to form the German Reich Association for Women's Suffrage . The executive committee consisted of Ida Dehmel , Li Fischer-Eckert and Illa Uth, who came from the association, and Rosa Kempf, Luise Koch, Alma Dzialoszynski and Emma Nägeli from the previous association. Section 3 in the 1911 formulation was abandoned. The Reich Association represented limited women's suffrage. Several member associations of the previous association then resigned. Three of them joined the Women's Suffrage Association. In the new association, the members of the previous association had the majority, but the demands of the new association corresponded more to those of the women's suffrage association, i.e. the Reichsverband represented the conservative direction of the women's movement.

In 1918 the Reichsverband consisted of ten regional associations, eleven provincial associations and 86 local groups with a total of around 10,000 members.

Intensification of efforts for women's suffrage from 1917

On April 7, 1917, in his Easter message, the Kaiser announced the abolition of class suffrage in Prussia as a reward for the war effort, but did not mention women's suffrage. The women's organizations, which had been heavily involved in the war effort as part of the National Women's Service, were dismayed. The disappointing Easter message finally resulted in cross-organizational cooperation, which was made easier by Clara Zetkin's transition to the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany , who had always refused such cooperation . On September 22nd, the BDF, the voting rights associations and the social democratic women agreed to carry out joint campaigns for women's suffrage in the future, but to continue to address the government separately. On April 22, 1918, the first joint meeting of the BDF, voting rights associations and SPD women on women's suffrage took place in Berlin. Subsequently, a deputation of the assembly went to the Prussian House of Representatives to present the demands again.

After the Prussian mansion had decided on October 2 that men would have the same right to vote, with women still being excluded, women from all important women's political organizations signed a letter on October 25 to Reich Chancellor Max von Baden urgently requiring an audience to introduce the Women's suffrage was called for. Among the signatories were Anita Augspurg for the German Women's Suffrage Association, Gertrud Bäumer for the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine, Gertrud Hanna for the Workers' Secretariat of the General Commission of the Free Trade Unions of Germany, Lida Gustava Heymann for the German Women's Committee for Lasting Peace, Marie Juchacz for the majority Social Democratic Party of Germany , Helene Lange for the women of the Progressive People's Party , Clara Mende for the national liberal women and Marie Stritt for the German Reich Association for Women's Suffrage. The conversation didn't come off. At the beginning of November, large rallies took place in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich to introduce women's suffrage, to which the bourgeois and social democratic women's organizations had jointly called.

On November 4, the BDF presented the parliamentary group leaders of the parties in the Reichstag with the memorandum on the position of women in the political-social reorganization with the request to immediately bring about equal rights for women by means of initiative motions. In order to counter the pressure from the street, representatives of the so-called majority parties ( SPD , Progressive People's Party , Center Party ) decided on November 7th to initiate a reform of the electoral law taking into account proportional representation and women's suffrage. The corresponding initiative motion was signed shortly before noon on November 9th, after lengthy votes, and sent to the Reichstag. The proclamation of the republic in the afternoon meant that it was no longer dealt with and the parliamentary dispute over women's suffrage - according to political scientist Ulrike Ley - ended as a farce.

On November 12th, the Council of People's Deputies proclaimed the same, secret, direct, universal suffrage for all men and women who were at least 20 years old. Germany thus belonged to a group of European countries ( Austria , Hungary , Latvia , Lithuania , Poland ) that introduced women's suffrage in 1918. The European pioneers were Finland in 1906, Norway in 1913, Denmark and Iceland in 1915 and Russia in 1917. The chairwoman of the German Reich Association for Women's Suffrage , Marie Stritt, commented on the citizen :

"The German women have the right to vote [...] It is a seamless elevation from complete political lawlessness to full civic freedom, which women have never been granted in any electoral country, something completely new, incomprehensible, something like a miracle."

- Marie Stritt : The citizen of December 1918, quoted from Schaser

The "most important victory ever won for our cause" was also celebrated internationally. "Germany," said the editor Mary Sheepshanks in the organ of the IWSA, Jus Suffragii , "will have the honor of being the first republic based on true principles of democracy, universal and equal suffrage for all men and women."

The Weimar Constitution of July 31, 1919 gave the right to vote for women in Article 22, Paragraph 1 at the national level.

End of the organized voting rights movement

Commemorative badge for the introduction of women's suffrage in 1919. The text that runs around it reads: “At last you got the same rights without a difference in sex in 1918”.

The German Reich Association for Women's Suffrage dissolved in 1919. The BDF, which now saw it as its primary task to prepare women for the elections “non-partisan”, committed the women's associations to “strict political neutrality”. Leading women's rights activists joined the political parties and were in some cases also elected to the Reichstag, including Adele Schreiber , Tony Breitscheid , Meta Hammerschlag for the MSPD and Gertrud Bäumer , Marie Baum , Marie-Elisabeth Lüders for the German Democratic Party .

In the first speech by a woman in a German parliament, the politician Marianne Weber pointed out that the female MPs - precisely because of the achievements of women during the war - were well prepared for the tasks involved in rebuilding the state:

“[…] I think I can say that we are better prepared for [the tasks of shaping the state] than perhaps most of you think. Millions of us have had to live and stand on our own two feet outside of the home for many decades, letting the harsh air of the outdoors blow around our heads. Thousands of us did men’s work during the war, with less physical strength than men. Thousands of us women have formed a home army, without which the front-line army would have had no ammunition and no clothing. And thousands of us, who were not forced to wage the hard struggle for existence, have for many decades, imbued with a deep sense of social responsibility, been involved in solving difficult social tasks. You have also trained yourself to take a position on all matters of public life and on legislation as far as the female gender is concerned, and so I believe I can say of us that we will not move into this house unprepared. "

- Marianne Weber : Speech to the Baden Constituent National Assembly, Karlsruhe, on January 15, 1919

As the first member of the National Assembly, Marie Juchacz spoke more than four weeks later and emphasized the fact that women have the right to vote as a matter of course:

“Today women have the right of citizenship to which they are entitled. […] I would like to state here […] that we German women do not owe this government any thanks in the traditional sense. What this government did was a matter of course: it gave women what had been wrongly withheld from them until then. "

- Marie Juchacz : Speech to the Weimar National Assembly on February 19, 1919

As early as 1919/1920, leading representatives of the BDF warned that women's suffrage had not yet achieved equality. In the years that followed, the General German Women's Association endeavored to promote the interests of women, particularly at the local political level. Nevertheless, the women's rights organizations lacked young talent and the socio-political institutions of the women's movement lost their importance. The reorientation of the women's movement groups in terms of content did not meet with great response. The number of members of the clubs fell drastically.

In June 1920 the International Woman Suffrage Alliance hosted the first post-war conference in Geneva, in which Marie Stritt took part as the representative of the German government. This was a start to rebuild the old international relations with women. But with the dissolution of the Reich Association, there was no German representation in the IWSA. After several years of discussions and negotiations between representatives of the ADF and the disbanded Reich Association, the ADF decided in 1923 to join the IWSA as a German branch. The ADF adopted the subtitle German Citizens Association and finally renamed itself completely. State-political and international aspects moved to the fore of the association's work. Marie Stritt worked as an ADF delegate at the IWSA conferences in the following years.

At the IWSA conference in Paris in 1926, Gertrud Bäumer gave a passionate, well-received speech. Adele Schreiber was elected vice president of the association. A hug from Gertrud Bäumer and the French Madame Malaterre-Sellier was seen as a symbol of peace. However, the so-called flag incident occurred during the conference, in which the German flag in the assembly hall was exchanged several times (from the black-white-red flag of the Empire to the flag of the Weimar Republic and back). From June 17 to 23, 1929, the International Council of Women and the IWSA met in Berlin for the congress and their anniversary celebrations.

At the end of the Weimar Republic, the German women's movement had found its way back into the international movement. But when the National Socialists came to power in 1933, it finally came to an end. The German Association of Women Citizens dissolved in 1933 to prevent conformity in the German women's front.

Historiography and impact history

Manuscript of the memoirs by Anita Augspurg and Lida Gustava Heymann from 1941

Even before women's suffrage was achieved, Anna Lindemann in 1913, Auguste Kirchhoff in 1916 and Frieda Ledermann in 1918 presented the first historical reviews of the women 's suffrage movement . A leading article by Clara Zetkin from November 1918 in the Rote Fahne , with which she claimed the right to vote for women “as a gift from a revolution supported by the proletarian masses”, proved to be particularly effective . Historiography in the Federal Republic and the GDR followed this assessment for a long time, until more recent research began to emphasize the importance of the decades-long agitation of the women's movement.

In the time of National Socialism, persecution and displacement caused many documents on the voting rights movement to be lost, such as those of Lida Gustava Heymann and Anita Augspurg . During Hitler's " seizure of power " in 1933, they were on a trip abroad from which they never returned to Germany. The library and all documents from the decades of work by Heymann and Augspurg in the national and international women's movement were lost. In exile in Switzerland, Heymann wrote down the shared memories until 1941 under the title Experienced-Seen . These were only published in 1972 and have greatly influenced historical accounts of the voting rights movement from then on.

In the course of the new women's movement, the first German women's movement, including the women's suffrage movement, was historically reviewed. Richard J. Evans and Barbara Greven-Aschoff published comprehensive accounts of the German women's movement from 1894–1933 in 1976 and 1981, respectively. The sociologist and legal historian Ute Gerhard worked on the legal history and legal struggles of the radicals in 1984 before she - prompted by the television documentary Unheard - also presented a history of the women's movement in 1990. Further studies focused on aspects such as the social history of the women's movement in the time of the establishment of the Reich, the political understanding of the bourgeois women's movement or on the development of the lines of argument of the advocates and opponents of women's suffrage. In 1998, the lawyer Ute Rosenbusch presented for the first time a comprehensive and source-based work on the path of German women to the right to vote that took regional aspects into account.

In their pioneering works, Gisela Bock (1999) and Angelika Schaser (2006) criticized the stereotypes recounted in historical research and the often implicitly or explicitly postulated German “Sonderweg” towards women's suffrage. They said that previous research failed to compare developments in Germany with actual developments in other countries and that the sources were misinterpreted.

Bock cited four interlinked argumentation models with which the “Sonderweg thesis” had been justified. The “difference approach” of the German women's movement was lamented. At the center of the argument of the German women's rights activists were terms such as “gender difference”, “femininity”, “feminine character”, “achievement”, “duty”, “motherhood” and “motherliness”. In the Anglo-Saxon movements, however, the terms “gender equality”, “freedom”, “individualism” and “rights” dominated. Bock, on the other hand, showed that, for example, the English suffragettes argued with the gender difference just as much as the middle-class, moderate women's rights activists in Germany.

Statements by important women's rights activists led through the exhibition Women's Choice 2018/19 in the Historical Museum in Frankfurt ; here: Gertrud Bäumer , Marie Juchacz and Tony Sender

Another criticism of the older studies was the assumed “sharp dividing line” between the liberal-moderate majority and the liberal-radical minority of the women's movement, which recent research has now relativized and partially refuted . The older research literature also criticized the nature of the women's movement as "hesitant," "cautious," "reluctant" and "fearful," which was compared negatively to the "daredevil" suffragettes of the British women's suffrage movement. In fact, the suffragettes were only a minority in the British movement.

The moderate majority of the women's movement - unlike the radical minority - would have started late to demand women's suffrage and would have lagged behind the international standard. However, when compared with the situation in England and the United States, Bock's analysis showed that there was a common factor in all countries that sparked the beginning of the women's struggle for the right to vote. “A women's suffrage movement emerged when the right to vote for men was up for debate,” Bock concluded. This was the case in Germany from the end of the 19th century. Kerstin Wolff added that in the older research the contemporary statements of women's rights activists (for example by Helene Lange in 1896 "that finally Germany [...] is the furthest behind on this question") were taken over without reflection. These strategic statements, which were aimed at legitimizing the demand for voting rights through identical struggles abroad, would have been misunderstood in the later reception.

After the turn of the millennium - apart from the anniversaries in 2008 and 2018 - there were hardly any historiographical individual studies on the German women's suffrage movement. To mark the 100th anniversary of the introduction of women's suffrage in Germany, there was a nationwide campaign for which the central special exhibition Women's Choice! belonged to the Historisches Museum Frankfurt . At the end of 2018, the docu-drama Half the World Is Our Own - When Women Fought for the Right to Vote was broadcast on public television.

literature

• Gisela Bock : Women's suffrage - Germany around 1900 in a comparative perspective . In: Michael Grüttner , Rüdiger Hachtmann , Heinz-Gerhard Haupt (eds.): History and emancipation. Festschrift for Reinhard Rürup . Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-593-36202-3 , p. 95-136 .
  • Slightly revised and republished: Gisela Bock: The political thinking of suffragism: Germany around 1900 in an international comparison . In: Gisela Bock (ed.): Gender stories of the modern age. Ideas, policy, practice (=  Critical Studies on History . No. 213 ). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-525-37033-9 , pp. 168-203 .
• Bärbel Clemens: The struggle for women's suffrage in Germany . In: Christl Wickert (Ed.): Out with women's suffrage. The struggles of women in Germany and England for political equality (=  women in history and society . No. 17 ). Centaurus, Pfaffenweiler 1990, ISBN 3-89085-389-7 , p. 51-131 .
• Richard J. Evans : The feminist movement in Germany 1894-1933 (=  Sage studies in 20th century history . Volume 6 ). Sage Publications, London 1976, ISBN 0-8039-9951-8 .
• Barbara Greven-Aschoff: The bourgeois women's movement in Germany 1894-1933 (=  critical studies on historical science . Volume 46 ). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1981, ISBN 3-525-35704-4 , urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb00052495-9 .
• Susanne Kinnebrock : Anita Augspurg (1857-1943). Feminist and pacifist between journalism and politics. A communication- historical biography (=  women in history and society . Volume 39 ). Centaurus, Herbolzheim 2005, ISBN 3-8255-0393-3 .
• Christina Klausmann: Politics and culture of the women's movement in the empire. The example of Frankfurt am Main (=  history and gender . Volume 19 ). Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-593-35758-5 .
• Dorothee Linnemann (Ed.): Ladies choice! 100 years of women's suffrage . Frankfurt am Main 2018, ISBN 978-3-95542-306-3 .
• Hedwig Richter , Kerstin Wolff (ed.): Women's suffrage. Democratization of Democracy in Germany and Europe . Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-86854-323-0 .
• Ute Rosenbusch: The way to women's suffrage in Germany (=  publications on equality of women . No. 20 ). Nomos, Baden-Baden 1998, ISBN 3-7890-5473-9 , JSTOR : j.ctv941qhx (published posthumously).
• Angelika Schaser : On the introduction of women's suffrage 90 years ago on November 12, 1918 . In: Feminist Studies . tape 27 , no. 1 , January 1, 2009, ISSN  2365-9920 , p. 97-110 , doi : 10.1515 / fs-2009-0109 ( degruyter.com ).
• Ulla Wischermann : Women's movements and publics around 1900. Networks - counter-publics - protest stagings (=  Frankfurt Feminist Texts / Social Sciences . Volume 4 ). Helmer, Königstein 2003, ISBN 3-89741-121-0 .
• Kerstin Wolff: Our voice counts! The history of German women's suffrage . Bast Medien, Überlingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-946581-52-9 .

Web links

Commons : Women's suffrage in Germany  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Women Power Politics , information page on 100 years of women's suffrage of the European Academy for Women in Politics and Business Berlin eV
• Dossier on the history of women's suffrage in Germany provided by the archive of the German women's movement
• Documents on women's suffrage in the German Historical Museum

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wischermann, Frauenzüge, 2003, p. 125.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Ute Frevert: “Our state is male”. On the political topography of the sexes from the 18th to the early 20th century . In: Ute Frevert (Ed.): "Man and woman, and woman and man". Gender differences in modern times . Beck, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-406-39200-8 , pp. 61-132, 227-236 .
3. ↑ Hedwig Richter: Modern elections. A history of democracy in Prussia and the USA in the 19th century . Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-86854-313-1 , pp. 242-246 .
4. ↑ Hartwig Brandt: The long way to democratic modernity. German constitutional history from 1800 to 1945 . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1998, ISBN 3-534-06093-8 , pp. 134 .
5. ^ ^{A b} Angelika Schaser : Women's movement in Germany 1848-1933 . WBG, Darmstadt 2006, ISBN 978-3-534-15210-0 , p. 19 .
6. ↑ Ute Gerhard: Boundaries and transgressions. Women's rights on their way to the political public . In: Ute Gerhard (ed.): Women in the history of law. From early modern times to the present . Beck, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-406-42866-5 , p. 509-546, here 521-526 .
7. ↑ Schaser, Frauenbewegung, 2006, pp. 18-21.
8. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Gerhard ,rechte, 1997, pp. 526-534.
9. ↑ ^{a b c} Wischermann, Women's Movements, 2003, pp. 75–79.
10. ↑ ^{a b} Schaser, Women's Suffrage, 2006.
11. ^ ^{A b} Richard J. Evans: Social Democracy and Women's Emancipation in the German Empire . Dietz, Berlin 1979, ISBN 3-8012-1119-3 , pp. 220 .
12. ↑ Bock, Suffragism, 2014, p. 179.
13. ↑ Lily Braun: The civil duty of women . Dümmler, Berlin 1895.
14. ↑ Helene Lange: Women's suffrage . In: Cosmopolis. International revue . tape 3 . London 1896, p. 539–554 ( digitized version and full text in the German Text Archive - Gisela Bock emphasized that this manifesto quickly became famous and widely received in its time, but was either not mentioned or misrepresented in historical works on the women's movement from the 1970s to 1990s. Bock, Suffragism, 2014, pp. 178-179.).
15. ↑ ^{a b c} Bock, Suffragism, 2014, p. 201.
16. ↑ ^{a b} Greven-Aschoff, Frauenbewegung, 1986, pp. 85, 88, 96.
17. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Anja Schüler, Kerstin Wolff: "It is the same convictions that women of all countries fulfill ...". On the creation of international networks in the women's movements . In: Eva Schöck-Quinteros , Anja Schüler, Annika Wilmers, Kerstin Wolff (eds.): Political networkers. International cooperation between women 1830-1960 . Trafo, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-89626-641-5 , p. 13-26 .
18. ↑ Anne-Laure Briatte-Peters: She stood in her own way. The radical women's movement in relation to others and to oneself . In: Ariadne . No. 67-68 , 2015, pp. 80–88, here 84 .
19. ↑ Tanja-Carina Riedel: Equal rights for women and men. The bourgeois women's movement and the emergence of the BGB (=  legal history and gender research . Volume 9 ). Böhlau, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-412-20080-0 , pp. 465-526 .
20. ↑ ^{a b} Evans, Movement, 1976, pp. 40-41.
21. ↑ Bock, Suffragism, 2014, p. 199.
22. ↑ ^{a b c} Evans, Movement, 1976, pp. 44-53.
23. ↑ Schaser, Frauenbewegung, 2006, pp. 69–76.
24. ↑ ^{a b} Christiane Henke: Anita Augspurg . Rowohlt, Reinbek 2000, ISBN 3-499-50423-5 , pp. 64-66 .
25. ↑ Briatte-Peters, Weg, 2015, p. 85.
26. ↑ The "crown metaphor" goes back to a formulation by Jenny Hirsch from 1876, but was not used in the 1890s. Bock, Suffragismus, 2014, pp. 196–197.
27. ↑ Ute Gerhard: "To the roots of evil." Legal history and legal struggles of the radicals . In: Feminist Studies . tape 3 , no. 1 , 1984, p. 77–98, here 80 .
28. ↑ Bock, Suffragismus, 2014, pp. 195–198.
29. ↑ ^{a b} Kerstin Wolff: Once again from the beginning and told anew. The history of the struggle for women's suffrage in Germany . In: Hedwig Richter, Kerstin Wolff (Hrsg.): Women's suffrage Democratization of democracy in Germany and Europe . Hamburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-86854-323-0 , pp. 35–56, here pp. 54–55 .
30. ↑ Kinnebrock, Augspurg, 2005, pp. 144–147.
31. ↑ Briatte-Peters, Weg, 2015, pp. 82–83.
32. ↑ Ulla Wischermann: The press of the radical women's movement . In: Feminist Studies . tape 3 , no. 1 , 1984, p. 39-62 .
33. ↑ Evans, Movement, 1976, pp. 71-72.
34. ↑ Greven-Aschoff, Frauenbewegung, 1986, p. 133.
35. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Wischermann, Women's Movements, 2003, pp. 107-109.
36. ↑ Bärbel Clemens: The struggle for women's suffrage in Germany . In: Christl Wickert (Ed.): Out with women's suffrage. The struggles of women in Germany and England for political equality (=  women in history and society . No. 17 ). Centaurus, Pfaffenweiler 1990, ISBN 3-89085-389-7 , p. 51–131, here p. 76 .
37. ↑ Evans, Movement, 1976, pp. 73-75.
38. ↑ Clemens, Kampf, 1990, p. 78.
39. ↑ quoted from Schaser, Frauenbewegung, 2006, p. 51.
40. ^ Evans, Movement, 1976, p. 72.
41. ↑ Schaser, Frauenbewegung, 2006, p. 49
42. ^ ^{A b} International Alliance of Women for Suffrage: Report of the fourth conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance . Amsterdam 1908, p. 53–56 ( alexanderstreet.com [accessed June 10, 2019]).
43. ↑ Kinnebrock, Augspurg, 2005, p. 260.
44. ↑ ^{a b} Greven-Aschoff, Frauenbewegung, 1986, p. 134.
45. ↑ ^{a b} Klausmann, Politik, 1997, pp. 242–246.
46. ↑ ^{a b c d} Wischermann, Women's Movements, 2003, pp. 115–119.
47. ↑ Klausmann, Politik, 1997, pp. 263–271.
48. ^ Wischermann, Frauenzüge, 2003, p. 82.
49. ↑ Klausmann, Politik, 1997, p. 267.
50. ↑ Klausmann, Politik, 1997, pp. 248–253.
51. ↑ Wischermann, Frauenzüge, 2003, pp. 232–236.
52. ↑ Kerstin Wolff: Again from the beginning and told anew. The history of the struggle for women's suffrage in Germany . In: Hedwig Richter, Kerstin Wolff (Hrsg.): Women's suffrage Democratization of democracy in Germany and Europe . Hamburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-86854-323-0 , pp. 35–56 , here p. 49 .
53. ↑ Klausmann, Politik, 1997, p. 259.
54. ↑ ^{a b c} Greven-Aschoff, Women's Movement, 1986, pp. 134-136
55. ↑ Greven-Aschoff, Frauenbewegung, 1986, pp. 134-135.
56. ↑ Clemens, Kampf, 1990, p. 77.
57. ↑ Klausmann, Politik, 1997, pp. 266–267.
58. ^ Anita Augspurg: Program . In: Journal for Women's Suffrage . tape 1 , no. 1 , 1907, p. 1 .
59. ↑ Henke, Augspurg, 2000, p. 86.
60. ^ Siegfried Scholze: The International Women's Day then and now. Historical outline and worldwide tradition from its origins to the present . Trafo, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89626-129-0 , p. 13 .
61. ↑ Clara Zetkin: On the question of women's suffrage. Edited after the presentation at the Conference of Socialist Women in Mannheim. Buchhandlung Vorwärts, Berlin 1907 ( fes.de [PDF; accessed on January 19, 2019]).
62. ↑ Gisela Notz : "Bring on the general, equal suffrage for men and women!" The international socialist women's movement in the early 20th century and the struggle for women's suffrage (=  number Gesprächskreis history . No. 80 ). Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung , Historical Research Center, Bonn 2008, ISBN 978-3-89892-981-3 , p. 24–32 ( fes.de [PDF]).
63. ↑ Rosenbusch, Weg, 1998, pp. 320–321.
64. ↑ Henke, Augspurg, 2000, pp. 87-91.
65. ↑ ^{a b} Wischermann, Women's Movements, 2003, pp. 111–112.
66. ↑ Briatte-Peters, Weg, 2015, pp. 85–87.
67. ↑ ^{a b} Kinnebrock, Augspurg, 2005, pp. 341–343.
68. ↑ Wischermann, Frauenzüge, 2003, p. 114.
69. ^ Evans, Movement, 1976, p. 101.
70. ↑ Greven-Aschoff, Frauenbewegung, 1986, pp. 137-139.
71. ^ Evans, Movement, 1976, p. 103.
72. ↑ Wischermann, Frauenzüge, 2003, p. 114.
73. ↑ Clemens, Kampf, 1990, pp. 98-99.
74. ↑ Wischermann, Frauenzüge, 2003, p. 145.
75. ↑ Henke, Augspurg, 2000, pp. 92-94.
76. ↑ Wischermann, Frauenzüge, 2003, p. 114.
77. ^ ^{A b c} Greven-Aschoff, Frauenbewegung, 1986, pp. 137–140.
78. ↑ Evans, Movement, 1976, pp. 104-105.
79. ↑ quoted from Wolff, Noch once, 2018, p. 51.
80. ↑ Wolff, Noch once, 2018, p. 53.
81. ↑ Evans, Movement, 1976, pp. 99-108.
82. ↑ ^{a b} Wischermann, Frauenzüge, 2003, pp. 120–121.
83. ^ Evans, Movement, 1976, p. 107.
84. ↑ Schaser, Frauenbewegung, 2006, p. 42.
85. ↑ ^{a b} Wischermann, Frauenzüge, 2003, pp. 172–174.
86. ↑ Anja Schüler: Forms, Images, Language: Cultures of women's movement in the 20th and 21st centuries . In: Dorothee Linnemann (Ed.): Ladies choice! 100 years of women's suffrage . Frankfurt am Main 2018, ISBN 978-3-95542-306-3 , pp. 82–85, here 85 .
87. ↑ Klausmann, Politik, 1997, pp. 269–270.
88. ^ Evans, Movement, 1976, p. 88.
89. ↑ Wischermann, Frauenzüge, 2003, p. 245.
90. ^ Adele Schreiber: The Women's Suffrage Congress Munich 1912 . In: Women's Suffrage . tape 1 , no. October 7 , 1912, p. 138-143, here 140-141 .
91. ↑ Wischermann, Frauenzüge, 2003, pp. 245–249.
92. ↑ ^{a b} Evans, Social Democracy, 1979, pp. 228-234.
93. ↑ ^{a b} Scholze, Frauentag, 2001, pp. 16–22.
94. ↑ Notz, Wahlrecht, 2008, pp. 32–36.
95. ↑ Wischermann, Frauenzüge, 2003, pp. 246–248.
96. ↑ quoted from Wolff, Voice, 2018, pp. 87-88.
97. ↑ ^{a b} Evans, Movement, 1976, pp. 106-107.
98. ↑ ^{a b} Jenny Jung: The women's movement and the First World War . In: Dorothee Linnemann (Ed.): Ladies choice! 100 years of women's suffrage . Frankfurt am Main 2018, ISBN 978-3-95542-306-3 , pp. 116-119 .
99. ↑ Evans, Social Democracy, 1979, pp. 274–284.
100. ↑ Henke, Augspurg, 2000, pp. 97-104.
101. ↑ Wischermann, Frauenzüge, 2003, p. 115.
102. ↑ ^{a b c d} Ulrike Ley: On the one hand and on the other hand - the dilemma of liberal women's rights activists in politics. Regarding the conditions of political participation of women in the German Empire (=  Forum Politics & Gender Relations . No. 1 ). Centaurus, Pfaffenweiler 1999, ISBN 3-8255-0229-5 , p. 126-133 .
103. ↑ Klausmann, Politik, 1997, p. 300.
104. ↑ Erich Matthias (Ed.): The Intergroup Committee 1917/18. First part (=  sources on the history of parliamentarism and political parties . Volume 1 / I ). Droste, Düsseldorf 1959, p. XI .
105. ↑ Rosenbusch 1998, pp. 448-452.
106. ^ Jad Adams: Women and the vote. A world history . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-870684-7 , pp. 437 (The chronology of the introduction of women's suffrage differs in the literature, depending on the criteria used. See list of states by year of introduction of women's suffrage ).
107. ↑ Angelika Schaser: Women as voters . In: Dorothee Linnemann (Ed.): Ladies choice! 100 years of women's suffrage . Frankfurt am Main 2018, ISBN 978-3-95542-306-3 , pp. 154-157 .
108. ^ Mary Sheepshanks: 1919 . In: Jus Suffragii. The International Woman Suffrage News . tape 13 , no. 4 , January 2019, p. 41–42, here 41 (“the most sweeping victory ever won by our cause”, “Germany will have the honor of being the first Republic founded on the true principles of democracy, universal equal suffrage for all men and women.”).
109. ↑ Schaser, Frauenbewegung, 2006, p. 53.
110. ↑ Angelika Schaser: Women as voters . In: Dorothee Linnemann (Ed.): Ladies choice! 100 years of women's suffrage . Frankfurt am Main 2018, ISBN 978-3-95542-306-3 , pp. 154-157 .
111. ^ Evans, Social Democracy, 1979, p. 122.
112. ^ Negotiations of the Baden state parliament. I. State Parliament period (January 15, 1919 to October 15, 1919) I. Session period (January 15, 1919 to October 15, 1919): Minutes . No. 523 . Karlsruhe 1920, p. 9 ( blb-karlsruhe.de [accessed on April 13, 2019]).
113. ↑ Minutes of the 11th session of the Weimar National Assembly on February 19, 1919, p. 177f. in negotiations of the German Reichstag and its predecessors
114. ↑ ^{a b c} Irene Stoehr: Emancipation to the state? The General German Women's Association-German Citizens' Association 1893-1933 . Centaurus, Pfaffenweiler 1990, ISBN 3-89085-416-8 , chap. 6 , p. 91-137 .
115. ↑ ^{a b c} Sylvia Schraut: Achievements and the further development of the women's movement . In: Dorothee Linnemann (Ed.): Ladies choice! 100 years of women's suffrage . Frankfurt am Main 2018, ISBN 978-3-95542-306-3 , pp. 208-211 .
116. ↑ Ledermann, Frieda: The anniversary conference of the World Federation for Women's Suffrage and Civic Women's Work in Berlin . In: The technical assistant . No. 13 . Pilger, Berlin 1929, p. 211-216 .
117. ^ Anna Lindemann: The women's suffrage movement in Germany . In: Elisabeth Altmann-Gottheiner (Ed.): Yearbook of the women's movement . Berlin 1913, p. 159–172 ( digitized and full text in the German text archive ).
118. ↑ Auguste Kirchhoff: On the development of the women's suffrage movement . Deutscher Frauenstimmrechtsbund, Bremen 1916 ( digitized and full text in the German text archive ).
119. ^ Frieda Ledermann: On the history of the women's suffrage movement . Berlin, 1918 ( digitized version and full text in the German text archive ).
120. ↑ Clara Zetkin: Selected speeches and writings. Volume 2: Selection from the years 1918-1923 . Dietz, Berlin 1960, p. 56 (from the leading article “The Revolution - Thanks to Women” in Rote Fahne from November 22, 1918).
121. ↑ Schaser, Frauenwahlrecht, 2009, p. 56.
122. ^ Margrit Twellmann: Foreword . In: Margrit Twellmann (Ed.): Lida Gustava Heymann in collaboration with Anita Augspurg: Erlebtes-bewautes. German women fight for freedom, justice and peace 1850-1940 . Helmer, Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-927164-43-7 , p. 5–6, here 5 .
123. ↑ Henke, Augspurg, 2000, pp. 133-135.
124. ↑ Lida Gustava Heymann: Experienced-Seen. German women fight for freedom, justice and peace 1850-1940 . In collaboration with Anita Augspurg. Ed .: Margrit Twellmann. Helmer, Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-927164-43-7 .
125. ↑ Ute Gerhard: "To the roots of evil." Legal history and legal struggles of the radicals . In: Feminist Studies . tape 3 , no. 1 , 1984, p. 77-98 .
126. ^ Ute Gerhard: Unheard of. The history of the German women's movement . Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-499-18377-3 ( arsfemina.de [accessed December 23, 2018] The full text of the book (without images) is available online at ars femina.).
127. ↑ Herrad-Ulrike Bussemer: Women's emancipation and educated middle class . Social history of the women's movement in the time of the establishment of the Reich . Beltz, Weinheim 1985, ISBN 3-407-58276-5 .
128. ↑ Bärbel Clemens: The struggle for women's suffrage in Germany . In: Christl Wickert (Ed.): Out with women's suffrage. The struggles of women in Germany and England for political equality (=  women in history and society . No. 17 ). Centaurus, Pfaffenweiler 1990, ISBN 3-89085-389-7 , p. 51-131 .
129. ↑ Ute Frevert : “Our state is male”. On the political topography of the sexes from the 18th to the early 20th century . In: Ute Frevert (Ed.): "Man and woman, and woman and man". Gender differences in modern times . Beck, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-406-39200-8 , pp. 61-132, 227-236 .
130. ↑ Ute Rosenbusch: The way to women's suffrage in Germany (=  writings on equality of women . No. 20 ). Nomos, Baden-Baden 1998, ISBN 3-7890-5473-9 , JSTOR : j.ctv941qhx (published posthumously).
131. ^ Gisela Bock: The political thinking of suffragism: Germany around 1900 in an international comparison . In: Gisela Bock (ed.): Gender stories of the modern age. Ideas, policy, practice (=  Critical Studies on History . No. 213 ). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-525-37033-9 , pp. 168-203 (first edition: 1999).
132. ↑ Angelika Schaser: On the introduction of women's suffrage 90 years ago on November 12, 1918 . In: Feminist Studies . tape 27 , no. 1 , January 1, 2009, ISSN  2365-9920 , p. 97-110 , doi : 10.1515 / fs-2009-0109 ( degruyter.com ).
133. ↑ ^{a b} Bock, Suffragismus, 2014, pp. 170–176.
134. ↑ Wolff, Noch once, 2018, p. 35.
135. ↑ 100 years of women's suffrage. In: Women Power Politics. Retrieved January 15, 2019 . 
136. ↑ On the history of women's suffrage in Germany. In: Archive of the German women's movement. Retrieved January 15, 2019 . 
137. ↑ Half the world is ours - When women fought for the right to vote. In: Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion. Retrieved January 20, 2019 . 

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