Käthe Königstetter

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Katharina "Käthe" Königstetter (born April 17, 1874 in Vienna ; † April 3, 1940 there ) was an Austrian politician ( SDAP ), trade unionist and seamstress .

life and career

The listed Käthe-Königstetter-Hof in Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus, named after the Viennese local politician .

Käthe Königstetter was born on April 17, 1874, the eldest of four children of a railway employee in Vienna. Although she was physically disabled, she had to help support the family at a young age. Soon after completing her apprenticeship as a seamstress, she came into contact with the Austrian labor movement , subsequently belonged to the workers' education association and made friends with Katharina and Anna Boschek . In 1898 she appeared as a co-founder of the Association of Seamstresses in what was then the 15th Viennese district of Fünfhaus , after having previously worked for the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP), collecting membership fees and advertising for the Arbeiter-Zeitung .

The Königstetter, who came from the poorest of backgrounds and had no special schooling, largely taught herself her great practical knowledge and later even taught her younger employees, whom she used to work with the party. Königstetter, who was the only employee of the Seamstress Association for a long time, gave much-noticed presentations in this function. Königstetter was able to expand its organizational activities more and more, with the association of seamstresses becoming the home workers' organization with some local groups, an employment agency and a newspaper. The organization worked out wage rates that benefited the worst paid homeworkers, domestic unskilled workers, which included the waitresses and laundresses. Furthermore, the homeworkers' organization is able to regulate the working hours of its members. After initially violent protests from the employers' side, the housewives realized that the domestic helpers who came to them through the employment agency were working better, which is why they were happy to pay them better wages and got used to regular working hours. She was able to use her trade union experience there to improve the working conditions of this group of women.

After the home workers' organization merged with the Association of House Helpers, Käthe Königstetter took on a role as secretary for the bank clerks in the bank assistant organization. As she was primarily interested in community issues, she soon became a functionary in the district organization of what was then the 15th Viennese district of Fünfhaus. From 1919, Königstetter appeared as a Viennese councilor . As a member of the SDAPDÖ , she represented what was then the 15th district of Vienna, part of the first electoral term of the Vienna State Parliament and Vienna City Council and one of the first women in Austria to hold a higher political position. In this office she finally stayed in the 2nd , 3rd and 4th electoral periods , which were finally dissolved by the February fights in 1934 . Thus, she belonged to the Viennese provincial government and the Viennese municipal council for a period of around 15 years and during this time worked in various administrative groups, such as the housing and welfare sector. Furthermore, she was committed to improving the labor law situation of women throughout her life, with her work being highlighted as exemplary by Hugo Breitner , Julius Tandler and Vienna's Vice Mayor Georg Emmerling, among others . Two weeks before her 67th birthday, Käthe Königstetter died on April 3, 1940 in her hometown, Vienna.

On February 15, 1949, the urban residential complex with 143 (later 130) apartments with the addresses Tautenhayngasse 2–8, Johnstraße 77, Koberweingasse 4–10 and Neusserplatz 5, built between 1932 and 1933 according to plans by the architect Friedrich Pindt , was opened on the 15th. District renamed Käthe-Königstetter-Hof by a municipal council committee for culture in honor of the Viennese local politician . Municipal housing is now a listed building .

Honors

literature

  • Ilse Korotin (Ed.): BiografıA. Lexicon of Austrian Women. Volume 2: I-O. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2016, ISBN 978-3-205-79590-2 , pp. 1739–1740.
  • Paul Pasteur : Femmes dans le Mouvement Ouvrier Autrichien 1918-34 . Dissertation, Rouen 1986.
  • A helper for the homeworkers. From the life of the councilor Käthe Königstätter. In: The dissatisfied . January 19, 1924.
  • The social democratic councilors of Vienna. In: The dissatisfied . June 16, 1932.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Käthe-Königstetter-Hof on wienerwohnen.at , accessed on August 7, 2017
  2. ^ Käthe-Königstetter-Hof in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
personal data
SURNAME Königstetter, Kathe
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Königstetter, Katharina (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian politician (SDAP), trade unionist and seamstress
DATE OF BIRTH April 17, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH April 3, 1940
Place of death Vienna , Austria