Helene Schmitz

Berlin city councilors 1919: Martha Hoppe , Helene Schmitz, Martha Wygodzinski , Martha Shiroa , Liesbeth Riedger , Anna Kulicke

Helene Schmitz (née Hüser ; born March 18, 1874 in Elberfeld , † May 4, 1945 in Berlin ) was a German politician ( SPD ).

Life

Helene Schmitz was born the daughter of a shoemaker. After attending primary school in Elberfeld, she completed an apprenticeship and then worked as a trimmers . Until her marriage in 1894 to the locksmith and union employee August Schmitz, she worked as a master craftsman and department manager in a factory in Elberfeld for the production of decorative braids, after which she became a housewife. She joined the SPD and worked as a party functionary in Elberfeld until 1910, where in 1898 she was one of the founders of the consumer association “Forward Liberation”. In 1910 she moved to Berlin with her husband. In 1916 she was elected to the Berlin SPD district executive, to which she belonged until 1926. In addition, she was a member of the board of the Berliner Arbeiterwohlfahrt from 1919 to 1933 .

Schmitz was a member of the Berlin city council from 1919 to 1926 . She ran unsuccessfully for the Prussian state parliament in the state elections in December 1924 , but moved up to parliament in 1925 and remained a member of parliament until 1932.

During the National Socialist era , the Schmitzes were monitored by the Gestapo . After a bomb attack on their house in 1943, they lived in a basement apartment.

literature

• Christiane Hoss: Put in front of the door. Berlin city councilors and members of the magistrate persecuted during National Socialism from 1933 to 1945. Active Museum Association, 2006. p. 337.

Web links

• Biography of Helene Schmitz . In: Wilhelm H. Schröder : Social Democratic Parliamentarians in the German Reich and Landtag 1876–1933 (BIOSOP)
• SPD Helmholtzplatz - biography