International Women's Peace Congress

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International Congress of Women 1915 in The Hague. From left to right: 1st Lucy Thoumaian - Armenia, 2nd Leopoldine Kulka - Austria, 3rd Laura Hughes - Canada, 4th Rosika Schwimmer - Hungary, 5th Anita Augspurg - Germany, 6th Jane Addams - USA, 7th Eugenie Hanner - USA, 8th Aletta Jacobs - Netherlands, 9th Chrystal Macmillan - England, 10th Rosa Genoni - Italy, 11th Anna Kleman - Sweden, 12th Thora Daugaard - Denmark, 13th Louise Keilhau - Norway
In the congress hall, from left to right: Mia Boissevain - Netherlands, Thora Daugaard, Fanny Fern Andrews - USA, Jane Addams, Rosa Manus - Netherlands, Aletta Jacobs, Chrystal Macmillan, Kathleen Courtney - England, Emily Arnesen - Norway and Anna Kleman - Sweden .

The international women's peace congress took place from April 28th to 30th, 1915 in The Hague ( Netherlands ) with 1136 participants from twelve nations.

The congress was initiated by the German women's Anita Augspurg (1857-1943), Germany's first lawyer, and Lida Gustava Heymann (1868-1943), important representatives of the German women's movement , and at the invitation of the Dutch doctor, pacifist and feminist Aletta Jacobs right in First World War has been organized.

As part of the congress, a catalog of resolutions was formulated for the nations of the world, which was far ahead of its time and has lost none of its relevance to this day. Among other things, demands were made for the establishment of a permanent international court of justice and an international organization for peacekeeping, global control of the arms trade and the establishment of a new world economic order . An appeal was made to the neutral states to mediate an immediate peace agreement without territorial claims between the warring states. In addition, mass rape was denounced as a means of warfare.

The action was controversial among the organized women's clubs. Some saw it as their patriotic duty to stay away from Congress. Many nation states tried to prevent their female citizens from participating in the Congress, or at least to make it more difficult. In Germany, for example, women's associations were forbidden from interfering in political events. Of the 180 registered participants from Great Britain , only three were able to appear at the congress because they were not issued any passports to allow them to leave the country. Participants from the USA , which was still neutral at the time, took the risk of crossing the Atlantic despite the submarine war.

The highlight of the congress was the establishment of the “International Committee for Lasting Peace” , which in 1919 was renamed the “International Women's League for Peace and Freedom” (IFFF) . This body still exists today and has advisory status at the United Nations . In addition, national committees have been set up in numerous countries. After the congress, two delegations traveled through Europe and held talks with the representatives of 13 governments. On top of that they got an audience with Pope Benedict XV. granted, who also campaigned for peace and took up several demands of the peace movement.

Congress chairman Jane Addams and later president of the “Women's International League for Peace and Freedom”, who was called the “most dangerous woman in the nation” after the USA entered the war , was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 for her commitment . Emily Greene Balch received the same award for her presidency in 1946, who had lost her position as a university lecturer after the end of Congress because of her participation. Rosika Schwimmer , who also sat on the podium in 1915, was expelled from Hungary in 1920 , and was among the candidates for the Nobel Prize in 1948; but she died, so that the prize was not awarded at all.

  • American delegates to the conference in The Hague on board the MS Noordam in April 1915, including Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence , Jane Addams and Annie E. Malloy

  • Congressional chairman Jane Addams 1914

  • Title page of the program booklet of the International Congress of Women in The Hague in April 1915

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jane Addams, Emily G. Balch, Alice Hamilton: Women at The Hague: the International Congress of Women and its result. Urbana, Ill. Among others: Univ. of Illinois Press, 2003.
  2. ↑ The [Resolutions online archive link ( Memento of the original from May 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) are available on the IFFF website. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ] @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wilpfinternational.org
  3. ↑ See the information in the memoirs of Helene Stöcker , Helene Stöcker (2015): Memories. ed. by Reinhold Lütgemeier-Davin u. Kerstin Wolff, Böhlau, Cologne, p. 186 f.