Gertrud Hanna

Gertrud Hanna (born June 22, 1876 in Berlin ; † January 26, 1944 there ) was a German trade unionist and social democratic politician. She was an expert in women's work .

Life

Hanna was a printing assistant. As such, she came into contact with the free trade union movement in the mid-1890s . From 1897 she was a member of the board of the printing trade union . From 1907 she was a full-time union employee. Between 1915 and 1933 she was the editor-in-chief of the magazine “Trade Union Women's Work”. From 1909 until the end of the Weimar Republic she was a member of the general commission of the trade unions and the federal executive committee of the ADGB . There she remained the only woman. She was the head of the women's secretariat. In particular, she campaigned for the recognition of women by the male members. She saw special events for women only as a first step towards organizational integration; women should have the opportunity to fully participate in union work.

In 1908 Hanna had also joined the SPD. She was also committed to women's politics there. During the First World War she also worked for the National Women's Service in Berlin under the leadership of Marie-Elisabeth Lüders . Her work as chief editor of the union women's newspaper , which was founded during the war, was recognized , among other things, by Friedrich Ebert , who gave her the department of women's work and protection of women at the first women's conference after the end of the war . Between 1919 and 1921 Hanna was a member of the constituent Prussian state assembly and then until 1933 of the Prussian state parliament . She was also a member of the main committee of workers' welfare.

In the Prussian parliament, she campaigned in particular for maternity protection and the protection of women at work. Before the Reichstag election of July 31, 1932 , she published an anti-Nazi appeal calling on women to join the Iron Front . After the beginning of the National Socialist rule , one of her sisters committed suicide out of desperation . With the other sister, Hanna lived in a secluded life under constant surveillance by the Gestapo . Both women got away with mending. Worn down by the strain, the sisters finally chose to commit suicide together.

Works

• The importance of women's suffrage for women workers . In: Women's suffrage! Edited on the First Social Democratic Women's Day by Clara Zetkin . March 19, 1911, pp. 5-6. ( Digitized and full text in the German text archive )

literature

• Eckhard Hansen, Florian Tennstedt (Eds.) U. a .: Biographical lexicon on the history of German social policy from 1871 to 1945 . Volume 2: Social politicians in the Weimar Republic and during National Socialism 1919 to 1945. Kassel University Press, Kassel 2018, ISBN 978-3-7376-0474-1 , p. 70 ( online , PDF; 3.9 MB).
• Social Democratic Party of Germany (ed.): Committed to freedom. Memorial book of the German social democracy in the 20th century. Marburg 2000, p. 127.
• Siegfried Mielke : Gertrud Hanna 1876–1944. In: From the printing association to the unified union. 150 years ver.di . Berlin 2016, pp. 70–71.

Web links

• Biography of Gertrud Hanna . In: Wilhelm H. Schröder : Social Democratic Parliamentarians in the German Reich and Landtag 1876–1933 (BIOSOP)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Heinrich August Winkler : The appearance of normality. Workers and the labor movement in the Weimar Republic. Berlin and Bonn 1985, ISBN 3-8012-0094-9 , p. 495
2. ^ Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures . Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 208