Helma Steinbach

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Helma Steinbach
Memorial plaque for Helma Steinbach in the workers' housing estate in Wedel
Helma Steinbach House in Hamburg, Legienstr. 45
Commemorative plaque attached to the Helma Steinbach House - December 14, 2017
Road sign Helma-Steinbach-Weg in Hamburg-Horn

Franziska Wilhelmine “Helma” Steinbach (born December 1, 1847 in Hamburg ; † July 7, 1918 in Glüsing near Lauenburg / Elbe ) was a German co-founder of the “Pro” ( consumer, construction and savings association “Production” ) eGmbH, Hamburg and unionist.

Live and act

Helma Steinbach was a co-founder of the “Pro” (consumer, building and savings association “Production”) eGmbH, Hamburg, of which she was the only woman on the supervisory board until her death. For over 30 years she was politically connected and friends with the social democrat and cooperative member Adolph von Elm , with whom she lived in a civil partnership. Steinbach was 10 years older than von Elm and a daughter of an impoverished merchant family. She soon dissolved a marriage, presumably for financial reasons. Helma Steinbach earned her living as a housekeeper, seamstress, tailor, flat maker and reader. In many factories the factory workers had books and newspapers read to them in order to educate themselves politically and generally. While doing this, Helma Steinbach met Adolf von Elm, who later became a union official and member of the Reichstag. Helma Steinbach was an important speaker in women's agitation and was considered one of the most important and successful speakers. She was active in various trade unions and herself founded a "Reichsverband der Plätterinnen". In Hamburg she tried to organize a strike by the flat workers. B. in the Holstein suburb of Stellingen. In Wedel-Schulau, Helma Steinbach organized the employees of the Schulau sugar factory at the turn of the 20th century, who led an inhumane working life under the worst working conditions and the lowest wages and fought for better working conditions and wages with them. As part of the Reichstag elections on June 16, 1903, the Social Democrat Helma Steinbach spoke to about 50 people at the May rally in the Hotel zum Roland. It is thanks to Helma Steinbach that the trade unions gave up resistance to the acceptance of women. She was elected to the press commission of the Hamburg party newspaper of the SPD Hamburger Echo , a kind of supervisory board of the printing and publishing house, with von Elm. She was very interested in culture and founded the Free Volksbühne in 1893 together with Adolf von Elm and Heinrich Kaufmann .

In 1890 she was a delegate at the SPD party conference in Halle. Of the five female delegates, only Emma Ihr and Helma Steinbach took the floor.

A lively characterization of the Steinbach - von Elm couple can be found in the biography of Paul Frölich , the later communist who also came from the Hamburg Social Democrats. "Adolph von Elm instilled great respect. (...) He was a reformist, but he had a combative spirit and was completely integrated with the working class , a strong, cohesive personality. Every word he said was thoughtful, free of every phrase, and yet let the passion behind it be felt. He was a great organizer. The Hamburg consumer cooperative 'Produktion' is above all his work. A strange contrast to him was his wife, Helma Steinbach. She made a cranky impression, was exalted and as aggressive as a suffragette . She advocated the cooperative system not with the sober utilitarianism of the ordinary propagandist, but passionately as the ideal of a renewal of humanity. Gustav Stengele pursued her with poisonous hatred and poured out in his weekly chats (in the SPD newspaper ' Hamburger Echo ') often all his gall on her, which initially meant that she was 'finished' for me On these occasions I then noticed that the eccentric old woman, who so often challenged laughter, was a real fighter, deeply devoted to the cause and her own utopias , that she had a high intellectual culture and artistic sensitivity. I deeply regretted that age and political beliefs prevented close personal relationships with this magnificent couple. "

Honors

Memorial stone for Helma Steinbach in the women's garden
Mural in Hamburg-Ottensen - Founders of the consumer, construction and savings association Production 1899: Helma Steinbach, Adolph von Elm and Raphael Ernst May . Financed by the Heinrich Stegemann Art Foundation.

In 1951 the "PRO-Block" in Barmbek on Schleidenstrasse was named "Helma-Steinbach-Hof". However, the renaming never really caught on with the residents and in the district. She is the namesake of the Helma-Steinbach-Weg in Hamburg-Horn . In the immediate vicinity of Helma-Steinbach-Weg, the Helma-Steinbach-Haus was opened in 2014 at Legienstrasse 45. The Helma-Steinbach-Haus is part of the LeNa-Lebendige Nachbarschaft district project, a living and support concept that aims to achieve lifelong living in familiar surroundings.

On December 14, 2017, a plaque was erected in honor of the name giver of the "Helma Steinbach House" in Legienstrasse in Horn by Senator Dr. Dorothee Stapelfeldt , SAGA board member Wilfried Wendel and Stefan Henze, head of the Hamm branch inaugurated. It is located next to the main entrance to the building and is visible from the street. Tenants, visitors and passers-by can find out more about the importance of Helma Steinbach's life's work.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of her death, the ver.di- Hamburg union is commemorating the great unionist and fighter for the cooperative idea with an event. "Helma Steinbach also worked tirelessly for working women. For example, at the first trade union congress under the Socialist Law, she introduced a resolution that obliged the unions to also accept women in their occupation."

In the workers' settlement "Helma Steinbach" on Galgenberg / Milchstrasse. of the Schulau power plant in Wedel , the then Mayor of Altona, Max Brauer , unveiled a commemorative plaque in June 1930 (Altona did not yet belong to Hamburg), designed by Prof. Henneberger , in honor of Helma Steinbach, the champion for the civil rights of women in Germany.

In her memory, was in the women's garden of the cemetery Ohlsdorf set a memorial stone in memory spiral.

Fonts

  • Helma Steinbach: Dangerous currents in the cooperative movement. In: Socialist monthly books. No. 4 1902, pp. 288-293; Accessed June 14, 2008 [1]
  • Helma Steinbach: Further publications in Socialist monthly books [2] Search under Helma Steinbach

See also

literature

  • Kirsten Haake: Helma Steinbach 1847–1918 - A pioneer for trade unions, cooperatives and parties, biography, publisher: Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2018, ISBN 978-3-7528-2318-9
  • Gisela Notz : Women's calendar and postcard set 2019: Helma Steinbach (1847-1918) pioneer of the cooperative movement, ISBN 978-3-945959-30-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinrich Bürger: The Hamburg trade unions and their struggles from 1865 to 1890, Hamburg 1899, p. 521ff.
  2. ↑ http://spd-net-sh.de/pi/wedel/index.php?mod=content&menu=180500&page_id=9246 SPD Schleswig-Holstein
  3. ↑ Burchard Bösche : Adolph von Elm - The uncrowned king of Hamburg. Heinrich Kaufmann Foundation, Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-7347-6357-1 , pp. 60–67.
  4. ↑ Ferdinand Vieth 1869-1946, Life and Work of a Cooperative in Testimony and Contributions, Editor: Heinrich-Kaufmann-Stiftung, Norderstedt 2018, p. 25, ISBN 978-3-7460-5925-9
  5. ↑ http://library.fes.de/parteitage/index-pt-1890.html Friedrich Ebert Stiftung: Protocol of the party conference from October 12 to 18, 1890, p. 233, accessed on October 20, 2016
  6. ^ Paul Frölich: In the radical camp, Political Autobiography 1890–1921, Berlin 2013, p. 88, ISBN 978-3-86163-147-7
  7. ↑ From the PRO block to the Schleidenhof - history (s) of an extraordinary apartment block, documentation of an exhibition at the Barmbek history workshop, October 2018
  8. ^ Helma-Steinbach-Weg. In: Rita Bake: Who is behind it? Streets, squares and bridges in Hamburg named after women. Ed .: State Center for Political Education, Hamburg, 4th updated and expanded edition. Hamburg 2005, accessed April 12, 2008, available online as a PDF file ( memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hamburg.de
  9. ↑ Hamburg Stadtwiki (no longer available since 2013) ( Memento from October 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ SAGA-GWG press release of December 14, 2017
  11. ^ Ver.di Hamburg: Remembering Helma Steinbach. In: Hamburg.verdi.de. July 12, 2018, accessed July 12, 2018 .
  12. ↑ http://spd-net-sh.de/pi/wedel/index.php?mod=content&menu=180500&page_id=9246 SPD Schleswig-Holstein
  13. ↑ Women's Garden , accessed April 12, 2011.
personal data
SURNAME Steinbach, Helma
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Steinbach, Franziska Wilhelmine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German co-founder of the consumer, construction and savings association Produktion eGmbH, Hamburg, and trade unionist
DATE OF BIRTH December 1, 1847
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH July 7, 1918
Place of death Glüsing near Lauenburg / Elbe