Hertha Kraus

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Right: Statue of Hertha Kraus on the Cologne town hall tower

Hertha Kraus (born September 11, 1897 in Prague , Austria-Hungary ; died May 16, 1968 in Haverford , Pennsylvania ) was a German-American social scientist.

Live and act

She was the oldest of two children of the couple Alois and Hedwig Kraus (née Rosenfeld). At the beginning of the 20th century the family moved to Frankfurt am Main , where the father worked as a university lecturer until 1933. After graduating from Schiller School , she first studied economics and later social sciences at Frankfurt University under Christian Jasper Klumker , who at the time was the only professor of welfare sciences and statistics . Kraus received his doctorate in 1919 for Dr. rer. pole. with the topic about tasks and ways of a child welfare statistics . While still a student, she joined the Quaker community and religious community and left the Israelite community .

After completing her studies, Hertha Kraus worked as a secretary for the Quakers in Berlin-Brandenburg . In this position she was in contact with Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze , the founder of one of the first German neighborhood homes of the Social Working Group Berlin (East) . In 1923, the then mayor of Cologne , Konrad Adenauer , who was just 26 years old, brought the city on the Rhine to the city. There, the young city director and head of the welfare office, a staunch social democrat, was supposed to put the idea of settlements and neighborhood homes into practice. In addition, she taught at the welfare school of the city of Cologne, supported a Quaker charity for unemployed young girls and was, among other things, a member of the main committee of the German Association for Public and Private Welfare and Workers' Welfare . From 1927 onwards, she initiated the construction of a facility with a residential building, nursing homes and a supply area for people with physical and mental disabilities on the site of the former pioneer barracks on Boltensternstrasse in Cologne-Riehl . After its completion in 1934, the Riehler Heimstätten was the largest such facility in the German Empire .

Her professional career came to an abrupt end in 1933 because of her Jewish origins. In addition, she was still a member of the SPD and was considered politically unreliable. To avoid imminent arrest, Hertha Kraus fled to Lindenfels and finally emigrated in the summer of 1933 to the USA , which she already knew well from extensive study trips. Due to her good relationship with the Quakers, she immediately got a position as a lecturer at the Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania. In 1936 she, meanwhile a member of the National Association of Social Work , was appointed professor for social work and social research at the renowned Quaker- Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia. She also volunteered at several universities and was involved in refugee and later foreign aid as part of the American Society of Friends . In 1939 Hertha Kraus became an American citizen.

Shortly before the collapse of National Socialism, Konrad Adenauer wrote to the former city director:

I have one big request for you. Come over at least for a while, as soon as possible! I could imagine that would mean a great sacrifice for you. But I know your willingness to help and your willingness to work ... I think you could be of great value to both the city of Cologne and Germany and our common ideals .

In September 1946, Hertha Kraus came to the devastated Germany for the first time as a Special Representative of the American Friends Service Committee (umbrella organization for North American Quakers). Many more visits followed. Among other things, she held advanced and training courses on the American method of social case work , supported the establishment of neighborhood homes (a total of 13 such institutions were established by 1952) and the reorganization of workers' welfare . It is thanks to your initiative that the German National Committee of the International Conference for Social Work was reconstituted in the spring of 1950 and a few months later a German delegation took part in the International Conference for Social Work in Paris .

Hertha Kraus traveled to Germany in 1963 as a delegate of the American Friends Service Committee to mediate between the two German states. She also negotiated with Willy Brandt and Walter Ulbricht :

The Germany mission of 1963 kept Hertha Kraus busy until the end of her life. She was repeatedly invited to give lectures and interviews. She may have lived in the very last phase of her life knowing that she was still in demand. In any case, she had irreversibly secured her reputation as one of 'the' social workers in the United States and Germany in earlier years .

The last years of her life were marked by serious illnesses. She died of high blood pressure shock. Hertha Kraus found her final resting place in the Quaker cemetery in Haverford in a shared grave with Gertrud Schulz, her life partner who died in 1952.

In Cologne-Riehl a road reminiscent of them.

The Technical University of Cologne awards the Hertha Kraus Prize for outstanding dissertation in the area of management and organization in social work.

Fonts (selection)

  • From human to human. Casework as a social task. Frankfurt / Main 1949.
  • Casework in USA. Theory and practice of individual help. Frankfurt / Main 1950.
  • Social statistical materials on contemporary studies. Frankfurt / Main 1951.

literature

  • Manfred Berger : On the 100th birthday of Hertha Kraus. A biographical and educational sketch. In: Our youth . 1997, pp. 364-367.
  • Manfred Berger:  Kraus, Hertha. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 23, Bautz, Nordhausen 2004, ISBN 3-88309-155-3 , Sp. 860-872.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Manfred Berger: Who was ... Hertha Kraus? In: Sozialmagazin 2002 / H. 3, pp. 6-8.
  • Jutta Dirk, Marina Sassenberg (ed.): Jewish women in the 19th and 20th centuries. Lexicon on life and work. Reinbek near Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-499-16344-6 , pp. 224-256.
  • Hildegard Feidel-Mertz : Kraus, Hertha. In: Harald Hagemann , Claus-Dieter Krohn (Hrsg.): Biographical manual of the German-speaking economic emigration after 1933. Volume 1: Adler – Lehmann. Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11284-X , pp. 335f.
  • Sabine Hering , Berteke Waaldijk (ed.): The history of social work in Europe (1900–1960). Important pioneers and their influence on the development of international organizations. Leske and Budrich, Opladen 2002, ISBN 3-8100-3633-1 , pp. 51-60.
  • Gerd Schirrmacher: Hertha Kraus - Between the Worlds. Biography of a social scientist and Quaker (1897–1968). Lang, Frankfurt a. M. et al. 2002, ISBN 3-631-38775-X .
  • Sophie von Schafferhans: Emigration and Social Work - Hertha Kraus, for example. Munich 2003 (unpublished diploma thesis)
  • Claus Bernet : Elisabeth Rotten, Hertha Kraus and Magda Kelber: Anglo-American approaches in intervening education 1933–1949. In: Adriane Feustel, Inge Hansen-Schaberg , Gabriele Knapp (eds.): The expulsion of the social. Ed. Text + Criticism, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-86916-031-3 , pp. 93–114 (Frauen und Exil, 2).
  • Ursula Langkau-Alex: Hertha Kraus, the Quaker refugee aid and the perception of the persecuted / rescued. In: Adriane Feustel, Inge Hansen-Schaberg, Gabriele Knapp (eds.): The expulsion of the social. Ed. Text + Criticism, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-86916-031-3 , pp. 115–129 (Frauen und Exil, 2).
  • Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (Hrsg.): Biographical manual of the German-speaking emigration after 1933. Volume 1: Politics, economy, public life . Munich: Saur, 1980, p. 391
  • Peter Reinicke : Kraus, Hertha , in: Hugo Maier (Ed.): Who is who of social work . Freiburg: Lambertus, 1998 ISBN 3-7841-1036-3 , p. 323f.

Web links

Commons : Hertha Kraus  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ SBK Sozial-Betriebe-Köln non-profit GmbH (Ed.): 85 Years of Sozial-Betriebe-Köln 1927–2012 . Cologne 2012, p. 1 - 62 .
  2. ↑ Joachim Brokmeier: Cologne-Riehl: a district with a long tradition . Erfurt 2008, ISBN 978-3-86680-283-4 , p. 46-51 .
  3. ↑ cit. n. Schafferhans 2003, p. 195.
  4. ↑ Schirrmacher 2002, p. 617.
  5. ↑ https://www.th-koeln.de/angewandte-sozialwissenschaften/hertha-kraus-preis_15208.php
personal data
SURNAME Kraus, Hertha
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American social scientist of Jewish descent
DATE OF BIRTH September 11, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH May 16, 1968
Place of death Haverford , Pennsylvania