Ingeborg Tönnesen

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ingeborg Ruth Tönnesen (born December 8, 1912 in Hamburg , † March 19, 2009 in Fellbach ) was a German trade union official .

Live and act

Ingeborg Tönnesen's Danish father worked as a commercial clerk . The family was considered to be social democratic and unionized . Due to financial bottlenecks, Ingeborg Tönnesen had to leave the Lyceum after a short time after graduating from elementary school. She received vocational training as a tailor , became a member of the German clothing workers' association in 1928 and became a youth leader there. She took courses at the union and at the adult education center. She also completed first aid courses from the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund . She completed her vocational training with the journeyman's examination and began further training as a nurse in AK Barmbek in October 1930 . In the same year she joined the SPD .

During the period of National Socialism is Tönnessen joined the resistance movement to Bruno Verdieck at, detained 1936th Tönnesen also had to spend the time from June to November 1936 in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp . The reason for detention was "preparation for high treason ", but no trial took place. She then worked as a private nurse until the outbreak of World War II and then at the Barmbek hospital at the behest of the health authorities. In 1945 she volunteered for nursing in the liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp . Here she worked together with other Hamburg women and gained a reputation for her work. During this time she married Wilhelm Laubach. The marriage only lasted until the divorce in 1946.

At the beginning of July 1945 Tönnesen became a member of the newly founded Association of Transport and Community Workers, in which she was involved under her maiden name. She attended the first meeting of former members of the Reich Health Service Section and hoped to be able to reactivate their Hamburg sub-organization. In December 1945, trusted sisters of all Hamburg hospitals met and founded the “Association of Free Sisters” as an independent section, chaired by Ingeborg Tönnesen in a five-person committee. She was now working again in AK Barmbek, but in October 1946 she was given a full-time position as head of the Free Sisterhood in the general association.

A union association of nurses was considered unique in Germany. In early 1947 the organization had around 1,700 sisters. This corresponded to a rate of 85 percent of all employed nurses. The first zone conference of the health care department elected Tönnesen to its board on May 11, 1947. In this role she organized regular meetings of the shop stewards. In addition, she gave a lecture on possibilities to develop the organization of the sisters in other federal states. In October / November 1947 she successfully negotiated new training regulations with the Hamburg health authorities and was able to achieve that sisters were allowed to work as medical-technical assistants, which represented an advancement.

In 1947, Tönnesen attended the ÖTV Association Day in Krefeld as a delegate . A year later she took over the chairmanship of the Association of Free Sisters in the ÖTV in the British zone of occupation. Since November 18, 1948, she headed the women's department of the ÖTV in the Trizone . In March 1949, she was given a full-time position in the women's secretariat as a member of the main board of the ÖTV. At the office in Stuttgart , she designed regulations for the union's work with women until the 1960s. In particular in North Rhine-Westphalia and Hamburg she organized many conferences and gatherings for women. As a member of the executive board elected by the main women's committee in 1950, she represented the ÖTV a little later in the federal women's committee of the DGB . Until 1965 she took part in all federal women's conferences, where she repeatedly tried to improve the situation of women employed in the health sector.

Tönnesen was initially of the opinion that women should only be given preferential treatment and that they needed their own organizations until they were treated equally. In particular, she spoke out against housewives' day and advocated equal pay for both sexes. She also got involved with female tram conductors, who at the time were considered to be “double earners” and should therefore cede their jobs to men.

Ingeborg Tönnesen succeeded in getting 20 percent of the delegates at the ÖTV trade union days in 1952 instead of the previous 10 percent. She was also able to ensure that at least one woman was represented on each union body. The delegates at the first ÖTV trade union day in Hamburg elected them to the executive board with a clear majority. She later took on other positions in the union, including in the International Public Services (PSI), in the Federal Labor Office , in the Federal Health Council and at the nursing school at Heidelberg University .

From the board elections in 1958, Tönnesen received increasingly contrasting votes. In the 1964 elections, it was only just able to achieve the majority prescribed in the statutes. She herself attributed it to increasing misogyny in the ÖTV. The proportion of women among union members has steadily decreased for various reasons. Tönnesen now considered an independent representation of female members to be dispensable. From autumn 1964 she took part in the commission for social policy and took part in the 6th regular trade union day of the ÖTV, where she left the organization. She did not take the proposed leadership of the health care department.

Ingeborg Tönnesen, who had lived in Fellbach since 1962, married a second time in 1968 and took her husband's surname. She died as Ingeborg Kraus at the age of 92.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Tönnesen, Ingeborg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tönnesen, Ruth Ingeborg; Laubach, Ingeborg; Kraus, Ingeborg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German trade union official
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 2009
Place of death Fellbach