Hedwig Dransfeld

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Hedwig Dransfeld
Tomb of Hedwig Dransfeld

Hedwig Dransfeld (born February 24, 1871 in Hacheney (today Dortmund ), † March 13, 1925 in Werl ) was a German women's rights activist , politician and author .

Live and act

Hedwig Dransfeld is the daughter of Romberg's chief forester Clemens Dransfeld and his wife, the doctor's daughter Elise Fleischhauer. She was baptized a Roman Catholic . The father died when Hedwig Dransfeld was three years old. Her mother died five years later. Dransfeld then grew up with her maternal grandmother in the Rhineland, after whose death she was placed in an orphanage. Her talent was discovered there, and she began training at the Royal Catholic Teachers' Seminar in Paderborn at the age of 16 . During this training, she developed bone tuberculosis and lost her left arm and heel. Nevertheless, she passed her teacher’s exam with distinction in 1890 and then found employment as a secular assistant teacher at the Werler Ursuline School . She rose to become a teacher and, despite her illness, earned her diploma for school principals through distance learning in 1897. She then became the headmistress of the Ursuline School, and this could be expanded into a girls' college .

When women were admitted to university in 1908, Dransfeld began to study cultural studies in Münster and later in Bonn. She was active as a writer from an early age and published volumes of poetry. This was later followed by contributions to the magazine Die Christian Frau des Caritasverband . In 1905 she took over the editing of this magazine and converted it into an organ of the Catholic German Women's Association (KDFB). Dransfeld increasingly became an activist of the Catholic women's movement. Her speech “Women in Church and Religious Life” at the first German women's congress in January 1912 in the Berlin Reichstag attracted great attention. The social democratic Berliner Vorwärts called her “the most important woman of the present”. In October 1912 she was elected full-time chairman of the KDFB, and Dransfeld resigned from her work as a teacher. Under the leadership of Dransfeld, the women's association developed a strong political activity, the question of women's suffrage was discussed. In 1916 she developed the concept of a women's peace church , which was built in Frankfurt am Main .

After the November Revolution, Dransfeld was nominated by the Center for the Weimar National Assembly and the Prussian State Assembly . In 1920 she also moved into the Reichstag as a member of the center for the Düsseldorf 2 constituency . Her focus was on morality and housing issues, family and marriage law, school and youth protection. She played a key role in the new social legislation. In 1919/20 Hedwig Dransfeld was a board member of the Rhenish Center Party, and then of the Westphalian Center until her death. From 1920 until her death, Dransfeld was an assessor on the board of the Zentrum Reichstag parliamentary group and, from 1922, chairwoman of the Reich women's advisory board of her party. For health reasons she resigned the chairmanship of the KDF in 1922, but remained a member of the Reichstag. In the last years of her life, she also campaigned strongly for the women's peace movement.

Hedwig Dransfeld died on March 13, 1925 in a room at the Ursuline Convention in Werl. Her grave of honor is in the park cemetery in Werl. The tomb was designed by the sculptor Franz Guntermann . In 1938 the Werl city administration commissioned the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts to provide a report to clarify whether the crucifix was degenerate art . The Reich Chamber did not commit itself and recommended consulting the Dransfeld family to voluntarily remove the corpus, but leave the cross. After that the city no longer pursued the matter, the tomb remained unchanged.

Honors

  • On the occasion of her 50th birthday in 1921, the city of Werl granted her honorary citizenship in recognition and gratitude for her services to the city.
  • Shortly after her death in 1925 , a conference center in Bendorf that existed until the 2000s was named after her.
  • On November 10, 1988, the Deutsche Bundespost honored her with a 350 Pfennig postage stamp in the permanent series of stamps on women in German history .
  • A place in Essen-Altendorf is named after her.
  • An avenue in Munich bears her name.
  • Streets in Frankfurt am Main and Werl are named after her.
  • In the new development area Am Hölder in Bonn , district Röttgen, a street also got its name.
  • The Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe named the LWL - special needs school in Werl , specializing in physical and motor development, after Hedwig Dransfeld.
  • A street in Lorsch is named after her.
  • In Salzkotten, a street in the Papenbrede development area was named after her. Every year a memorial ceremony is held there on Hedwig-Dransfeld-Weg.

Selection of publications by Hedwig Dransfeld

  • How the Grafendorli becomes happy. Story for young girls (=  Bachems illustrated stories for girls . Volume 7 ). Bachem, Cologne 1920.
  • The good tone for the growing youth . Thiemann, Hamm 1930.
  • Il Santo. Stories and poems for all those who worship St. Anthony of Padua . Junfermann, Paderborn 1902.
  • Poems . tape 7 . Publishing house of A. Stein'schen Buchhandlung, Werl 1893.
  • Theo Westerholt. Story from the time of Albrecht Dürer (=  From all times and countries . Volume 18 ). Bachem, Cologne 1913.
  • The siblings di Mona Rosta. Story from the 17th century (=  Bachems illustrated stories for girls . Volume 13 ). Bachem, Cologne 1920.

literature

Web links

Commons : Hedwig Dransfeld  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helmuth Euler : Werl under the swastika. Brown everyday life in pictures, texts, documents. Contemporary history 1933–1945 . 2nd Edition. Foto-Studio Euler, Werl 1984, p. 188 .
  2. ↑ Entry on bendorf-geschichte.de
personal data
SURNAME Dransfeld, Hedwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German women's rights activist and politician (center), MdR
DATE OF BIRTH February 24, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Hacheney (today Dortmund )
DATE OF DEATH March 13, 1925
Place of death Werl