Käthe Leichter

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Käthe Leichter (Austrian postage stamp, 1995)

Käthe Leichter (born as Marianne Katharina Pick on August 20, 1895 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ; died March 17, 1942 in the Nazi killing center in Bernburg , German Reich ) was an Austrian social scientist , socialist trade unionist and founder and head of the Vienna Women's Department Chamber of Labor .

Life

Käthe Pick was born in 1895 as the daughter of the lawyer Josef Pick and his wife Charlotte, b. Rubinstein, born in Vienna, where she grew up in a wealthy family and attended the "civil servants' daughters" Lyceum. Her sister was Vally Weigl (nee Valerie Pick).

As a woman, she was initially refused to study at the University of Vienna . She fought for admission through a lawsuit at the Reichsgericht and enrolled political science at the University of Vienna in 1914 . The lawyer and Reichsrat member Julius Ofner and the social reformer Josef Popper-Lynkeus aroused their first interest in social issues. In addition to her studies, she worked as an educator for working class children in the Döbling proletarian district " Krim ". When the First World War broke out , she welcomed it as a fight for freedom against the reaction and regretted not being allowed to serve at the front as a woman. However, two years later, through her contacts with the working class and the associated experiences, she was a staunch opponent of the war.

It was not possible to complete her studies in Austria at the time, so she moved to Heidelberg in 1917 . She was known as an active pacifist and, as the leader of a reading group, published an appeal against the war at the end of November 1917, which led to an indictment of high treason and ultimately to a ban on entry to Germany on December 26, 1917 for the duration of the war. With a special permit "for the purpose of taking the national economic doctoral examination", Käthe Pick received her doctorate with honors on July 24, 1918 with Max Weber in Heidelberg.

After her return to Vienna she joined the council movement , where she met her future husband, the social democratic journalist Otto Leichter (he received his doctorate in Vienna in 1920 at the law faculty ). From April 1919 she worked for Otto Bauer as a research assistant in the State Commission for Socialization. In 1921 Käthe Pick and Otto Leichter married. In 1924 their first son, Heinz (who later called himself Henry O. [tto], † December 20, 2010) was born, on August 19, 1930 their son Franz.

In 1925 Käthe Leichter took over the development of the women's department in the Vienna Chamber of Labor . In this position, she systematically built up a database of material on working women and used questionnaires to collect detailed information about their private and professional living conditions. This resulted in the film Frauenleben. Womanless. from 1931, as well as numerous studies, including How we live ... 1320 industrial workers report on their lives from 1932.

After the defeat of the Social Democrats by the Austro-fascist government Dollfuss in February 1934 and the family fled to Switzerland. In this context, she was released without notice by the Chamber of Labor on February 14th. In 1935 her action for severance pay was successful.

In September 1934 Käthe and Otto Leichter returned to Austria and worked for the party underground. Käthe Leichter was a member of the training committee of the Revolutionary Socialists Austria (RS). Their house in Mauer near Vienna (today Rosenhügelstrasse 245 in the 23rd district of Vienna) became a meeting place for officials of the persecuted labor movement.

During this time, the Austrian social-democratic monthly “Der Kampf”, whose employees included Otto Leichter from 1919 to 1934, published Käthe Leichter's article Experiences and Tasks of Socialist Training Work under her code name “Anna Gärtner” . The international review “Der Kampf” was a continuation of the Austrian magazine in exile in the Czech Republic. After the party was banned on February 12, 1934, the party apparatus of the Austrian Social Democracy organized its work in Brno , Czechoslovakia. There was close cooperation with the German Social Democrats in the Czechoslovak Republic, with the organ “Der Kampf” being combined with the Social Democratic monthly “Tribüne” of the German Social Democratic Workers' Party in the Czechoslovak Republic (DSAP). There was an edition for Austria and one for the ČSR from the resulting “International Review”.

The invasion of the troops of National Socialist Germany on March 12, 1938 in Austria resulted in the Leichter family being persecuted because of their political views and racial madness.

Otto Leichter was able to flee to Switzerland in March 1938 with a forged passport. The sons Heinz and Franz, later lawyers and politicians in the USA , were able to be brought abroad with the help of a family friend and the former housemaid.

While she was preparing to leave the country legally, Käthe Leichter was arrested by the Gestapo on May 30, 1938 after betrayal by the informer Hans Pav (born 1902), a former sports editor of the “ Arbeiter-Zeitung ” . She initially remained in Gestapo custody and was then taken to the prison in the Vienna Regional Court . While in custody she wrote her memoirs, which she was able to pass on to her friend Frieda Nödl . Hans Pav was sentenced to 15 years in prison by the People's Court in Vienna in 1947 (released early in 1953).

In 1939, Käthe Leichter was sentenced to “seven months in heavy dungeon” because she is said to have smuggled cashiers out of custody for the former prison guard Pauline Nestler after her arrest .

Despite numerous foreign interventions, the Nazi regime deported Käthe Leichter to the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp in January 1940 . Her fellow prisoner, the socialist Rosa Jochmann , wrote about Käthe Leichter in December 1945:

“Comrade Leichter was the soul of her block and for us 'politicians' the teacher she had been outside. The Jews were all housed on one block, 500 in 1940, no one was tortured like she ... Käthe Leichter wrote many wonderful poems, we had to destroy them all because of her wishes, because she always said: 'I have them in my head and I know I'll be home for sure. ' Unfortunately, all but one have now been lost. "

Grave at the Simmering fire hall

Käthe Leichter died in March 1942. At the age of 46, she was murdered with poison gas as a prisoner of the Ravensbrück concentration camp in the Nazi killing center in Bernburg in Germany as part of the so-called Operation 14f13 . Their ashes were allowed to be brought to Vienna after paying the prescribed “transport fee”.

“It would not correspond to the dignity or the character of Käthe Leichter to complain effeminarily at her grave. She was a hero ... So she stands before us, as a witness to the fact that socialism awakens the noblest in man, in her person a proclamation and an embodiment of that higher human species that socialism will develop. And with your image in mind, we cheerfully go to the hard work of the present in order to do our part in the historical construction of the future. "

- Obituary by Wilhelm Ellenbogen , published in Austrian Labor Information

Two tombstones in Vienna remember her: On the one hand, she is named on the grave of her husband, who died in New York in 1973, in the urn grove of the Simmering fire hall (Department ML, Group 32, Number 1G), and there is an urn that, according to the inscription, is made of earth Ravensbrück is filled. This grave is one of the honorary dedicated or honorary custody grave sites of the City of Vienna. A second grave monument for Käthe Leichter is located in group 16A in the New Israelite Department of the Vienna Central Cemetery (Gate 4).

After an intervention by her son Franz, Käthe Leichter was given back the doctorate from the University of Heidelberg in 2013, which had been revoked from her in 1939. The university asked the family for forgiveness for the unfair dishonor that had been unbearable injustice.

Recognitions

  • Since February 15, 1949, a street in Vienna's 13th district has been called Käthe-Leichter-Gasse .
  • On October 8, 1988, the name of the Käthe-Leichter-Hof of the housing association for private employees, 13th district of Vienna, Auhofstr. 152–156, and a plaque attached.
  • Käthe Leichter Prize
  • The documentary Käthe Leichter was released in 2016 . A woman like this. Its TV premiere was on March 8, 2016, International Women's Day .
  • There is a memorial plaque on Käthe Leichter's birthplace in Vienna 1., Rudolfsplatz 1.
  • Käthe Leichter Visiting Professorship in the Faculties of Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna (since summer semester 1999)

Publications

  • Marianne Katharina Pick: What do women want in politics? Row: rays of light. Issue 19, Vienna, 1910
  • Marianne Katharina Pick: Austria-Hungary's trade relations with Italy . Political dissertation, University of Heidelberg 1918 (typescript)
  • Kathe Leichter: Max Weber as a teacher and politician. In: Der Kampf, 19: 9 (1926)
  • Women’s work and protection of workers in Austria . Chamber for workers and employees in Vienna. Vienna: Verlag "Arbeit und Wirtschaft", 1927, 238 pp.
  • How do the Viennese homeworkers live? A survey of the working and living conditions of a thousand Viennese home workers . Chamber for workers and employees in Vienna. Vienna: Verlag "Arbeit und Wirtschaft", 1928, 146 pp.
  • (Compilation as editor): Handbook of women's work in Austria . Ed .: Chamber for workers and employees in Vienna. Carl Ueberreuters Verlag, Vienna 1930.
  • From revolutionary syndicalism to nationalization of the trade unions. In: Festschrift for Carl Grünberg. On his 70th birthday, Leipzig 1931, pp. 243–281.
  • Julius Deutsch: History of the Austrian trade union movement . Vienna: Wiener Volksbuchhandlung
    • Volume 1: From the beginnings to the time of the world war. 1929-1932 , 470 pp.
    • Volume 2: In the World War and in the post-war period . With the collaboration of Käthe Leichter u. a., 1932, 316 pp.
  • This is how we live ... 1320 industrial workers report on their lives; A survey . Vienna: Verlag “Arbeit und Wirtschaft”, 1932, 156 pages
  • Anna Gärtner (pseudonym): Experiences and tasks of socialist training work . In: Der Kampf, International Review, Prague, Volume 3, No. 6, June 1936, pp. 221–260
  • Maria Mahler (pseudonym): The trade unions in fascism . In: International Study Week, organized by the International Women's Committee of the Socialist Workers International, Brussels, 22-29 August 1936, 1936

literature

  • Herbert Exenberger (Ed.): As if the world was on fire. An anthology of murdered socialist writers . Mandelbaum Verlag, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-85476-037-X . (Anti-Fascist Literature and Exile Literature; Volume 19)
  • Walter Göhring (Ed.): Käthe Leichter: Trade union women policy. Historical dimension and political topicality. Vienna: Austrian Federation of Trade Unions [u. a.], [1996], 255 pp., ISBN 3-7063-0073-7 (series of publications by the Institute for Research into the History of Trade Unions and Chambers of Labor; No. 3)
  • Gabriella Hauch : Käthe Leichter, b. Pick. Traces of a woman's life . In: Archive. Yearbook of the Association for the History of the Labor Movement 8 (1992), pp. 97–123
  • Gabriella Hauch: Käthe Leichter (née Pick) . In: "Learned Women". Women's biographies from the 10th to the 20th century, Vienna, 1996, 10 pages
  • Evelyn Lacina:  Lighter, Käthe, née Pick. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , pp. 132-134 ( digitized version ).
  • Herbert Steiner (Ed.): Käthe Leichter. Life and work With a foreword by Hertha Firnberg. Vienna: Europaverlag, 1973, 523 p .; ISBN 3-203-50442-1 (Publications of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for the History of the Labor Movement)
  • Herbert Steiner (Ed.): Käthe Leichter. Life, work and death of an Austrian social democrat. Vienna: Ibera and Molden, 1997, 520 pp., ISBN 3-900436-28-2
  • Käthe Leichter on her 100th birthday. Texts on women's politics . Chamber for workers and salaried employees for Vienna, department for women's and family affairs in cooperation with the social science study library and the social science documentation. Vienna: AK, 1995, 236 pp., ISBN 3-7063-0060-5
  • Barbara Serloth: Lighter, Käthe. In: Brigitta Keintzel, Ilse Korotin (ed.): Scientists in and from Austria. Life - work - work. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-205-99467-1 , pp. 458-460.
  • Theresa Wobbe : Lighter, Käthe. In: Harald Hagemann , Claus-Dieter Krohn (Hrsg.): Biographical manual of the German-speaking economic emigration after 1933. Volume 2: Leichter branch. Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11284-X , p. 367f.
  • 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. 427

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Käthe Leichter - A woman like this
  2. ↑ [1]
  3. ↑ [2]
  4. ↑ A detention camp for social democratic leaders. In:  Innsbrucker Nachrichten , February 22, 1934, p. 1 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / ibn
  5. ↑ Personnel changes in the Chamber of Labor. In:  Der Tag / Der Wiener Tag , March 29, 1934, p. 4 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / maintenance / day
  6. ^ Trial of a February release. In:  Kleine Volks-Zeitung , October 6, 1935, pp. 11–12 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / kvz
  7. ↑ Wolfgang Neugebauer: The Austrian Resistance 1938-1945 - PDF
  8. ↑ Herbert Exenberger (Ed.): As if the world was on fire . An anthology of murdered socialist writers. Mandelbaum, Vienna / Berlin January 2000 ( online [accessed on March 13, 2020] Excerpt from the book on Käthe Leichter (1895 - 1942)).
  9. ^ Fifteen years in prison for the traitor Pav. In:  Österreichische Zeitung. Front newspaper for the population of Austria / Austrian newspaper. Red Army newspaper for the population of Austria / Austrian newspaper. Soviet Army newspaper for the population of Austria , January 19, 1947, p. 2 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / oez
  10. ↑ Hans Schafranek: Resistance and betrayal - Gestapospitzes in the anti-fascist underground , Czernin-Verlag, Vienna 2017, using the example of Käthe Leichter, reviewed by Niko Wahl, Die Spitzel der Gestapo. In: Die Zeit , Hamburg, Austria edition, No. 45, November 2, 2017, p. 12
  11. ↑ Photos of the trial, Vienna People's Court, 1947
  12. ^ Treasury smuggling for political prisoners. In:  Oesterreichische Kronen-Zeitung. Illustrirtes Tagblatt / Illustrierte Kronen-Zeitung / Wiener Kronen-Zeitung , October 17, 1939, p. 8 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / short
  13. ↑ Kaethe Leichter. :  Austrian Labor Information (Anti-Hitler Magazine) , year 1942, p. 26 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / ali
  14. ↑ Commemorative word for Käthe Leichter. :  Austrian Labor Information (Anti-Hitler Magazine) , year 1942, p. 24 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / ali
  15. ↑ www.friedhoefewien.at - Graves dedicated to honor in the fire hall Simmering cemetery (PDF 2016), accessed on March 7, 2018
  16. ↑ Prize winners ( Memento of the original from April 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 30, 2014 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bka.gv.at
  17. ^ Dor Film , accessed April 3, 2016
  18. ↑ Book Reviews. In:  educational work. Leaves for socialist education , year 1930, p. 50 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / maintenance / bar
personal data
SURNAME Lighter, Käthe
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pick, Marianne Katharina (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian socialist trade unionist and author of socio-political works
DATE OF BIRTH August 20, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 17, 1942
Place of death Bernburg killing center