Henriette Obermüller

Henriette Obermüller , from 1854 Obermüller-Venedey (born April 5, 1817 in Karlsruhe , Baden , † May 20, 1893 in Oberweiler near Badenweiler ) was a small German entrepreneur, democrat, women's rights activist and participant in the Baden Revolution of 1848/49 .

Life

Henriette Obermüller was born in 1817 as the daughter of the Karlsruhe civil servant Carl Theodor Obermüller and his wife. She received a comprehensive education; Her free-thinking father, who was critical of the nobility and the church, was the reason why Henriette Obermüller soon adhered to democratic ideas despite her mother's conservative upbringing style. Her brothers and cousins ​​also became active in the democratic movement.

In 1837 the twenty-year-old was recorded by the police because she had probably helped three of her cousins, who had participated in the failed Frankfurt Wachensturm , to escape. In the same year she married Gustav Obermüller (1812-1853), another cousin, and moved with him to Le Havre in France , which protected them from further investigations by the Baden police. Their crisis-ridden marriage was a marriage of convenience and remained childless; Henriette and her husband were only united by their shared democratic commitment.

In 1845 the couple returned to Baden and built up a wine trade in Durlach in the following period . Henriette Obermüller and her husband soon came into contact with liberal, democratic-republican groups and made their house available to them as a meeting point. The couple also became personally active, taking part in the reorganization of the local vigilante group, for example, and drafting political demands such as “a parliament for all of Germany”. They participated in the emerging association movement and discussed with liberal personalities such as Lorenz Brentano and Johann Adam von Itzstein , but also held disputes with politically dissenting people. A close confidante of Henriette Obermüller was Karl von Langsdorff , with whom she possibly had a relationship.

During the revolution of 1848/1849 the Obermüller couple took part in numerous public meetings. Henriette Obermüller founded the revolutionary society of the Democrats in Durlach’s and produced a red flag with the words “Siegen oder Tod” for a volunteer battalion. During the fighting in June 1849, she was the only woman to get up to the barricade front and, after the suppression of the revolution, fled briefly to Alsace and Switzerland. After she returned, she was arrested. In addition to making the flag, she was accused of various revolutionary activities and calls for violence; This was followed by charges of high treason and a jail sentence, which she served in Durlach Prison. She was released on bail in early 1850, but was under police supervision and house arrest. Her husband was also convicted and died in 1853, suffering from tuberculosis , of the sequelae of his imprisonment.

In the following year, Obermüller married the democrat and former Paulskirche parliamentarian Jacob Venedey . The couple had a happy relationship and had several children, including Martin Venedey , who later became a member of the Baden state parliament . The family lived first in Zurich , then in Heidelberg and finally in Oberweiler near Badenweiler in the Black Forest, where the couple ran an economically successful pension from 1860 .

From 1866 onwards, Henriette Obermüller-Venedey again became increasingly active in politics and the women's movement . She became a member of the Association Internationale des femmes in Geneva and worked for various newspapers such as the Journal des femmes . In October 1869 the family went to Berlin for half a year, where the couple met with various Berlin intellectuals. The two rejected the unification of Germany under Prussian monarchist hegemony.

After the death of her husband in 1871, she withdrew and concentrated on her family and the pension.

Later reception

In 1999, Henriette Obermüller's diaries were published as a book by Birgit Bublies-Godau . The interest in the publication led the city of Karlsruhe to name a street in the eastern southern part of the city after it.

literature

• Birgit Bublies-Godau (Ed.): "That women are better Democrats, born Democrats ..." Henriette Obermüller-Venedey. Diaries and memoirs 1817–1871 (research and sources on the city's history. Series of publications by the Karlsruhe City Archives, Vol. 7), Karlsruhe: Badenia Verlag 1999 ( ISBN 3-7617-0370-8 ), full text for download in the Karlsruhe City Lexicon (PDF; 83, 6 MB)
• Birgit Bublies-Godau: Henriette Obermüller-Venedey (1817-1893). The path of a "fanatical democrat" and early women's rights activist between the French July Revolution and the founding of the German Empire. In: Actors of a Change. Men and women of the revolution of 1848/49 ed. by Helmut Bleiber, Walter Schmidt u. Susanne Schötz , Vol. 2, Berlin: Fides Verlag 2007, pp. 473-518 ( ISBN 978-3-931363-14-7 )
• Heinrich Raab: The revolutionary activities of the Obermüller family from Karlsruhe during the period from 1832 to 1849. In: Badische Heimat 73 (1993), pp. 481-489
• Susanne Asche : For Unity and Freedom - Revolutionary Times 1846–1852. In: Durlach. Staufer foundation, princely residence, citizen town ed. by Susanne Asche u. Olivia Hochstrasser (publ. Of the Karlsruhe City Archives, vol. 17), Karlsruhe: Badenia Verlag 1996, pp. 263–294 ( ISBN 3-7617-0322-8 )

Web links

• Ilona Scheidle, MA historian, University of Heidelberg: Review of the diaries of Henriette Obermüller-Venedey published by Birgit Bublies-Godau
• Henriette Obermüller in the Stadtwiki Karlsruhe
• Obermüller, Henriette in the data collection of the University of Düsseldorf on the revolution 1848/49 ( Memento from June 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• Equal Opportunities Officer of the City of Karlsruhe: Henriette Obermüller-Venedey (1817 - 1893) - pension manager and democrat (with picture)