Frieda Duensing

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Frieda Johanna Duensing (born June 26, 1864 in Diepholz ; † January 5, 1921 in Munich ) was a German lawyer and head of the social women's school in Munich. She was a pioneer in social work and one of the first women to receive a doctorate in Germany.

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Your birthplace in Diepholz

Frieda Duensing was born as the daughter of the State Economics Council Friedrich Duensing and Sophie Friederike Dorothee Duensing. Lehmann born. She initially received private tuition, then attended the upper middle school from 1875 to 1878 and in 1879 switched to the higher school for girls in Hanover. She actually wanted to become a writer, but from 1880 to 1884 she trained at the teacher training college in Hanover. Frieda Duensing then worked for several years as an educator and elementary school teacher.

In 1894/95 she traveled to Paris , London and Edinburgh to find out more about educational and social developments there. After her return, she spent some time with her mother, who had meanwhile moved to Hanover and ran a pension there mainly for young English women. In 1896 Frieda Duensing went to Munich. There she prepared privately for the Abitur. In October 1897 she left the Bavarian royal seat because she wanted to study law in Zurich :

Knowledge of the law, she assumed, would benefit her social reform work and make her more assertive, and it would provide a basis for a theoretical synthesis of the rational spirit of male law with female ethics .

In 1902 she received her doctorate. jur. The topic of her doctoral thesis was: The violation of the duty of care towards minors. An attempt at their criminal meaning . In her academic work, she dealt with the neglect of children and adolescents and their mistreatment and considered the cases in which criminal proceedings should be taken against the parents.

Since Frieda Duensing couldn't find a job after completing her doctorate, she moved to Leipzig to get to know the exemplary system of city child care ... in practice :

In Leipzig she had studied Max Taube's system of general guardianship over all illegitimate children. She recognized the advantages of this type of guardianship, but noted that the 'unrestricted introduction of this system (was) made impossible for the Prussian municipalities by the provision of the Prussian Implementing Act of the Civil Code, which states that such a municipal-official general guardianship is only for those minors can be set up who are supported by public welfare for the poor '(Duensing 1905, p. 261). Since only some of the illegitimate were recorded, Frieda Duensing looked for another way to meet the plight of these children. She saw this path in individual guardianship, the advantages of which, in her opinion, could be dispensed with .

Duensing advocated the upbringing of illegitimate children as state children at the Association Day of progressive women's associations in Hamburg in 1904.

In 1904, the lawyer received an offer from Hermann von Soden , the chairman of the Association for the Protection of Children from Abuse and Abuse in Berlin, for a job as managing director within the Central Office for Child Welfare, which had been in existence since 1901, and paid 3000 marks. In 1907, under her leadership, the German Central Association and the Berlin Central Office for Youth Welfare were merged to form the German Central Office for Youth Welfare . As part of her work, Frieda Duensing was primarily involved in the field of female guardianship and care. In this context she founded the association for female guardianship together with Anna Pappritz . In addition, she was committed to mentally ill children and adolescents who, in her opinion, should not be admitted to asylums , but rather should be placed in therapeutic facilities. In addition, she had taken on two of her own guardianships, advocated the adoption of foster children in rural families and finally initiated the establishment of the association for children in the country .

Frieda Duensing's most important contribution to child and youth welfare was her commitment to juvenile justice, which she regarded as an almost ideal form of cooperation between men and women in the 'large social household' . After seven years, in view of her poor health, she resigned from the management, but remained an honorary member of the presidency and head of department for three years. She then taught law at the Social Women's School in Berlin and made numerous lecture tours in Germany and abroad. With effect from June 15, 1919, she was appointed director of the newly founded Social Women's School in Munich , which opened four months later.

In her words, Duensing's social work primarily served to defend against " socialism " or " social democracy ":

“These circumstances, which act from the outside, are doubly and threefold dangerous ... Both major currents have pervasively created socialism as a sign of our time and, as its sharpest expression, social democracy. She, the political interpreter of these two great development processes for the lower classes, has the effect ... that those great questions of time and controversy ... have been converted into the smallest of coins, passed into everyone's consciousness and there had their ... fatal effect to have. What glows and gnaws and bores in the souls of the men and women of the lower social classes - how, when it will emerge as a mighty storm wave, we do not know. ... But we ... claim that the dire effects ... fall hardest ... on the youth. "

- Duensing after Baum, 1928, p. 180

Honors

  • Dr.-Frieda-Duensing-Straße in Diepholz
  • Frieda-Duensing-Weg in Hanover

Works (selection)

  • The violation of the duty of care towards minors. An attempt at their criminal treatment . Zurich 1903
  • Guardianship and female guardianship. In: Die Frau , 1905, no. 5, pp. 257–265
  • Two negotiations about the Prussian welfare education system. In: Die Frau H. 4, pp. 212–224
  • In the service of social aid work . Munich 1912
  • Handbook for youth care . Hermann Beyer, Langensalza 1912–1913

Literature (selection)

  • Ricarda Huch , Marie Baum, Ludwig Curtius , Anton Erkelenz (eds.): Frieda Duensing: A book of memory . FA Herbig, 3rd probably edition Berlin 1926 (1st edition 1922)
  • Lina Koepp: Frieda Duensing as a guide and teacher: 12 years of Berlin youth welfare . FA Herbig, Berlin 1927
  • Marie Baum : Caritative women's work and welfare, in Emmy Wolff, ed .: Generations of women in pictures. Herbig, Berlin 1928, pp. 173-181
  • Herbert Major : A Genius of Charity: Dr. jur. Frieda Duensing, pioneer and founder of child welfare in Germany . Stadtarchiv , Diepholz 1985
  • Florentine Rickmers:  Duensing, Frieda. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 162 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Regine Heining: Frieda Duensing - your importance for social work . Mühlau 1999 (unpublished diploma thesis; archived in the Ida-Seele archive )
  • Gabriele Ullrich : “The shackles broke.” Frieda Duensing - pioneer of child welfare. In: Aufbruch. Images of women from four centuries between the Weser and Dümmer. Fischerhude 2000 ISBN 3-88132-608-1
  • Ann Taylor Allen: Feminism and motherhood in Germany 1800–1914. Weinheim 2000
  • Susanne Zeller: Frieda Duensing (1864-1921). Head of the “German Center for Youth Welfare” in Berlin. In: Frauenwelten. Biographical-historical sketches from Lower Saxony. Ed .: Angela Dinghaus. Olms, Hildesheim 1993, pp. 221-228
    • also as: Frieda Duensing and the "German Center for Youth Welfare Berlin", in Ilse Brehmer , Ed .: Motherhood as a Profession? CVs of German pedagogues in the first half of this century. Vol. 1, Pfaffenweiler 1990, pp. 236-240
  • Manfred Berger : Women in social responsibility: Frieda Duensing, in: Our Youth 2009, 9, pp. 389–392
  • Manfred Berger: Who was ... Frieda Duensing ?, in: Sozialmagazin 2003 / H. 11, pp. 6-8

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Allen 2000, p. 308
  2. ↑ Duensing 1922, p. 179
  3. ↑ Max Taube: The protection of illegitimate children in Leipzig. An institution without foundling homes . Leipzig 1893. Table of contents
  4. ↑ Heinig 1999, p. 69; Duensing was co-founder and chairwoman of the "German Association for Individual Guardianship"
  5. ↑ also: "... Centrale ...", see page 434 , in Christoph Sachße, Florian Tennstedt : Armenfürsorge, social welfare, social work , in the manual of the German history of education . Vol. 4, 1870 - 1918. CH Beck, Munich 1991
  6. ↑ Allen 2000, p. 313
  7. ↑ Contains texts by the editors about Duensing, including a longer portrait of Marie Baum, as well as texts by Duensing himself, including letters and diary entries.
  8. ↑ on Duensing, p. 180f., In it a long quotation from Duensing on the "disastrous effect of socialism " from 1907, without reference to the source
  9. ↑ with 40 p.
  10. ↑ P. 56 - 77, with 8 photos; and pp. 179 - 187, with numerous Remarks
personal data
SURNAME Duensing, Frieda
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Duensing, Frieda Johanna
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German social welfare worker and pioneer of modern child welfare
DATE OF BIRTH June 26, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH Diepholz
DATE OF DEATH January 5, 1921
Place of death Munich