Johanna Elberskirchen

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Johanna Elberskirchen around 1905

Johanna Elberskirchen (born April 11, 1864 in Bonn ; † May 17, 1943 in Rüdersdorf near Berlin ) was a feminist writer who campaigned for the rights of women, homosexuals and workers and was active in the sexual reform movement. She did pioneering work as a lesbian activist.

Life

Johanna Elberskirchen: Birthplace on Sternstrasse in Bonn

Johanna Elberskirchen worked as an accountant in Rinteln from 1884 to 1891 and then studied medicine in Bern and later law in Zurich . After her return from Switzerland around 1900, together with Anna Aebi-Eysoldt (1868–1913), she lived first in Bonn, then in Alfter (1905–1909), in Mehlem (1909/1910) and again in Bonn. From 1915 to 1919 she worked in the Berlin infant care department. With her partner Hildegard Moniac (1891–1967) she moved to Rüdersdorf near Berlin in 1920 and opened a practice for homeopathic healing treatments in their common house at Luisenstrasse 32 (today: Rudolf-Breitscheid-Strasse 57) .

Already in Bonn and later in Rüdersdorf near Berlin, she was active in the social democratic movement - despite her exclusion from the party in the Rhineland in 1912/1913. Initially under the pseudonym Hans Carolan, she published numerous newspaper articles and several books on the feminist topics of suffrage, gender-specific upbringing and education, women's studies, violence against girls and women, motherhood and paediatrics until her publication was forced to end in 1933. She also published the magazine Kinderheil and a calendar of the same name. Johanna Elberskirchen was in the u. a. Scientific-humanitarian committee (WhK ) founded by Magnus Hirschfeld (1868–1935), active in the world league for sexual reform, most recently as a consultant in Vienna in 1930.

Her urn was secretly buried in 1975 by two women in the grave of their partner Hildegard Moniac. On December 5, 2002, the municipal council in Rüdersdorf near Berlin decided unanimously to put the Elberskirchen / Moniac grave site under protection. In 2003, a memorial event took place at the Rüdersdorfer Friedhof, attended by one hundred people. Memorial plaques were set up for Johanna Elberskirchen and her last partner, Hildegard Moniac. Since the end of 2005, a memorial plaque commemorates the militant feminist on Johanna Elberskirchen's birthplace in downtown Bonn at Sternstrasse 37 (previous number: 195).

Original quotes on feminism and sexuality

Johanna Elberskirchen: The sexual sensation in women and men , 1903
“I could also have written 'feminism and nonsense', because the criticism that is violated of feminism in the name of science often has little to do with science. However, my innate courtesy towards the male sex forbade me to walk in the ways of Mr. Möbius. In my opinion, the scholars, especially the natural scientists and the medical professionals, are the most unsuitable people to deal critically with feminism. You are too personal and too materialistic about women and judge them from a very crooked and very limited perspective, at least from a completely unscientific point of view. "
Feminism and science. 1903, p. 3.
Elberskirchen refers to the essay by the psychiatrist Paul Julius Möbius , published three years earlier with great public attention : " On the physiological nonsense of women ".
"No, Mr. Möbius, woman is not weak, not inferior, not 'physiologically feeble-minded', but woman is sick - she suffers too much from the dominance of male sex."
Feminism and science. 1903, p. 18.
“If it were longing for the child, then there would be no abortion, no infanticide, no suicide. Then there would be no such terrible criminal law. Then, above all, there would not be that monstrous, that immoral contempt for the illegitimate mother and her child - there would be no 'fallen', no 'bastards'. "
The sexual sensation in woman and man. 1903, p. 26.
Elberskirchen deals here with the assumption that the female sex drive is in reality only designed to produce offspring and is therefore very different from that of men. By the criminal paragraphs she means, among other things, § 218: Abortion , and by “fallen” women socially stigmatized because of premarital intercourse.
“At least 75 percent of men are sexually ill. The children suffer from the sins of their fathers - the woman from the sins of the husband. The venereal diseases dominate the sex life. An army of women, their entire strength (Berlin alone approx. 25,000, so a medium-sized city) only serves the sexual desire of the man. "
The sexual sensation in woman and man. 1903, p. 40.
Venereal diseases are sexually transmitted diseases , at that time mainly gonorrhea and syphilis .
“The task of education is to intervene with the utmost severity. The growing man must be trained in sexual self-control. [...] Self-control in the sexual field must be transferred to the man through education in flesh and blood. "
The sexual sensation in woman and man. 1903, p. 48f.

Works

  • Man's prostitution. Also a Sermon on the Mount - Also a reading for women. In: Publishing magazine. J. Schabelitz, Zurich 1896 ( online ).
  • Social Democracy and Sexual Anarchy. In: Publishing magazine. J. Schabelitz, Zurich 1897. (online)
  • The woman, the clerical and the Christian social. Schabelitz, Zurich 1898.
  • Feminism and science. 2nd Edition. Magazin-Verlag, Leipzig / Rednitz 1903.
  • Third sex love. Homosexuality, a bisexual variety, no degeneration - no fault. Published by Max Spohr, Leipzig 1904.
  • Those who suffer in men ... IV. Piece. Παντα ρει. 3. Edition. Magazin-Verlag, Berlin around 1905.
  • What has the man made of woman, child and himself? Revolution and redemption of women. A settlement with the man - a guide to the future! 3. Edition. Magazine publisher, around 1904.
  • Sex life and abstinence from sex in women. Seitz et al. Schauer, Munich 1905. (online)
  • Motherhood in its meaning for national-social welfare. Seitz et al. Schauer, Munich 1905.
  • Mother, Seitz & Schauer, Munich 1905.
  • with Max Below: Kinderheil. Magazine for mothers on the physical and mental recovery and health of children. Seitz & Schauer, Munich 1905–1907.
  • with Anna Eysoldt: The mother as a pediatrician. Seitz et al. Schauer, Munich 1907.

literature

  • Dagmar Herzog : Paradoxes of Sexual Liberalization. (Hirschfeld Lecture. Vol. 1). Wallstein, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-8353-1262-3 .
  • Norbert Oellers : The Bonn writer Johanna Elberskirchen - swallowed up by time? In: Manfred van Rey , Norbert Schloßmacher (Hrsg.): Bonn and the Rhineland. Contributions to the history and culture of a region. Festschrift for Dietrich Höroldt's 65th birthday. (Bonner Geschichtsblätter; Yearbook of the Bonner Heimat- und Geschichtsverein , Vol. 42). Bouvier Bonn 1992, pp. 527-544.
  • Ulrike Krettmann: Johanna Elberskirchen. In: Rüdiger Lautmann (Ed.): Homosexuality. Manual for the history of theory and research. Frankfurt am Main / New York 1993, pp. 111-116.
  • Christiane Leidinger : An urn in the stable or: the story of a protected grave site and two grave tablets for Johanna Elberskirchen (1864–1943) and Hildegard Moniac (1891–1967). In: Communications from the Magnus Hirschfeld Society. 35/36/2003 (December), pp. 51-57.
  • Christiane Leidinger: No daughter from a good family - Johanna Elberskirchen (1864–1943). UVK, Konstanz 2008, ISBN 978-3-86764-064-0 . (Review sehepunkte) (review literary criticism)
  • Christiane Leidinger: Bibliography of Johanna Elberskirchen (1864-1943) . Extended version from the biography "No daughter from a good family" (2008) 2014. [1]
  • Kirsten Leng: Sex, Science, and Fin-De-Siècle Feminism: Johanna Elberskirchen Interprets The Laws of Life. In: Journal of Women's History. 25.3 (2013), pp. 38-61.

Web links

Commons : Johanna Elberskirchen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Johanna Elberskirchen  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Matriculation edition of the University of Zurich
personal data
SURNAME Elberskirchen, Johanna
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 11, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH Bonn
DATE OF DEATH May 17, 1943
Place of death Rüdersdorf near Berlin