Gertrud Staewen
Gertrud Staewen , b. Ordemann (born July 18, 1894 in Bremen , † June 10, 1987 in Berlin ) was a German Protestant welfare worker . She was the sister of Hilda Heinemann and sister-in-law of Gustav Heinemann .
biography
After completing secondary school and spending a year in Switzerland with her mother's relatives, Staewen spent a year in a pension for senior daughters in Neuchâtel . As a child and adolescent, she volunteered in the kindergarten and kindergarten. An activity in a Protestant day care center finally led to her being able to begin vocational training as a carer / educator in Berlin, especially against the resistance of her father. During the training that she completed at the institute of Anna von Gierke's youth home association and completed in 1920, she came into contact with religious socialism. In Bremen she set up a socio-educational seminar before returning to Berlin. The meeting and lifelong friendship with Karl Barth and Charlotte von Kirschbaum that grew out of it in 1922 shaped her later life . In 1923 she married Werner Staewen. The marriage produced two children, Renate (1924) and Christoph (1926–2002), before they divorced after a few years.
In 1926 Staewen joined the SPD and after the divorce tried to earn a living by writing. From 1928 she attended the German Academy for Social and Educational Women's Work for further training . The training center was founded by Alice Salomon and directed by Hilde Lion . She had a lifelong friendship with the latter. Her two books were banned immediately after their publication. In those years Staewen had a rather distant relationship with the church as an institution, but had close contact with individual personalities. In 1936 she began working for the Burckhardthaus publishing house in Berlin-Dahlem. A year later she belonged to the Dahlem parish. There she entered the Confessing Church and experienced Helmut Gollwitzer as parish priest . From 1941 she was partially released from her job in the publishing house to help the baptized “non-Aryan” members of the community who were threatened with deportation. Her help consisted mainly of practical support and accompaniment up to the point of deportation, and she did not limit herself to community members. She also worked with the head of the Ecumenical Refugee Service Adolf Freudenberg at the World Council of Churches. When people from her immediate circle were arrested, her involvement remained undetected and she temporarily left Berlin.
In 1946 she returned and worked on a church newspaper. From 1948 until her retirement in 1962 she was a welfare worker in the men's prison in Berlin-Tegel, then as a voluntary prison helper . She was known as the "Angel of the Prisoners". Staewen was one of the first members of the board of trustees of the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation in Berlin. In 1958 the Berlin Senate added her to the list of "Unsung Heroes", an honor that until 1966 had given 760 people who had supported those persecuted during the Nazi era .
Gertrud Staewen found her final resting place in the St. Annen cemetery in Berlin-Dahlem , on the grave of Martin Niemöller , next to the grave of Rudi Dutschke .
Honors
- 1958: Berlin, List of Unsung Heroes
- 1983: Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany .
Works
- People in disorder. The proletarian reality in the work fate of the unskilled city youth. Berlin 1933
- Comrade. Young Women in German Destiny 1910–1930 . Berlin-Tempelhof 1936
- Why we still talk about it, in Heinrich Fink , Ed .: Stronger than fear. The six million who couldn't find a savior. Union, Berlin 1968, pp. 80-88
literature
- Michael Popke (Ed.): Shouting for Justice. Gertrud Staewen on her 90th birthday. Berlin 1984.
- Marlies Flesch-Thebesius : Placed among the outsiders. The story of Gertrud Staewen 1894–1987. Wichern-Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-88981-159-0 .
- Edith Laudowicz : Staewen-Ordemann, Gertrud . In: Women's history (s) , Bremer Frauenmuseum (ed.). Edition Falkenberg, Bremen 2016, ISBN 978-3-95494-095-0 .
- Uta Ranke-Heinemann: The BDM cellar in my father's house. In: Alfred Neven DuMont (ed.): Born 1926/27, memories of the years under the swastika. Cologne 2007.
- Monika Tworuschka : Gertrud Staewen - "Angel of the Prisoners" . In: Michael Klöcker / Udo Tworuschka (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Religionen [LOTR]. Churches and other religious communities in Germany. Loseblattwerk, Olzog Verlag München 1997ff., ISBN 978-3-7892-9900-1 , 17th supplementary delivery 2008 (I-14.8.2), pp. 1–5.
Web links
notes
- ↑ Interview with Gertrud Staewen in the documentary: Christmas in Tegel by Monika Schlecht and Dieter Storp. First broadcast on December 25, 1971 on ARD.
- ^ About the illegal hiding of people of Jewish origin by secret Christian support groups in Berlin 1942 - 1945
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Staewen, Gertrud |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German Protestant welfare worker |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 18, 1894 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bremen |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 10, 1987 |
| Place of death | Berlin |