Käthe Petersen

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Käthe Petersen (born May 13, 1903 in Elmshorn ; † January 10, 1981 in Hamburg ) was a German National Socialist lawyer and social politician.

biography

Petersen, the daughter of an engineer, finished her schooling at a convent school with a high school diploma . From 1923 to 1926, Petersen studied law and political science , psychology and economics at the universities of Gießen , Freiburg im Breisgau and Hamburg . She received her doctorate in 1930 at the University of Hamburg with the dissertation The legal position of the municipal youth welfare offices, presented with special consideration of the cooperation of the free associations for youth welfare and youth movement to the Dr. jur. After passing the second state examination, Petersen worked as a lawyer in a law firm.

Career in the Hamburg social administration

Petersen then embarked on a higher administrative career and from 1932 worked in Hamburg as an assessor in the legal department of the social welfare authority. She then made a career in the Hamburg social administration.

After the transfer of power to the National Socialists , Petersen remained in office despite her membership in the German State Party (formerly DDP), since her superior Oskar Martini successfully campaigned for her to remain in Hamburg's social administration with the Interior Senator. Petersen eventually became a member of the National Socialist People's Welfare (NSV), the National Socialist Women’s Association (NSF) and the National Socialist Legal Guardians Association (NSRB) and was a member of the NSDAP from May 1, 1937 .

From 1934, Petersen worked as a collective carer for “mentally frail” or “community-unfriendly” women in the Hamburg social welfare office. The collective guardianship was an instrument specific to Hamburg. By the end of the Nazi regime in May 1945, Petersen had 1,450 collective guardians or guardians. After a completed disenfranchisement procedure, which expedited more quickly due to the lack of a right to object, Petersen was appointed as collective caretaker or guardian for the incapacitated women and girls. In this function, Petersen, as head of the Hamburg nursing office and collective nurse, accommodated “mentally frail” or “disagreeable” women and girls in closed institutions or, in more than 600 cases, carried out their forced sterilization in accordance with the law for the prevention of genetically ill offspring . Victims of these measures were so-called asocial women , prostitutes, women with illegitimate children or the sick. Women who opposed a planned forced sterilization were sent to closed institutions. Petersen justified the institutional accommodation as follows:

"Through strict discipline and discipline, combined with fair and educational treatment, an attempt is made to get the wards used to cleanliness, punctuality, order and an orderly lifestyle."

- Käthe Petersen 1943

Petersen was seen as a proponent of a preservation law that was never enacted , which was supposed to regulate the legal basis for the compulsory placement of so-called "anti-social" and "inferior" people. The practice of collective guardianship carried out in Hamburg was already criticized during the Nazi era, as a loophole in the law would be exploited for the incapacitation of prostitutes by means of the misused argument “mental weakness”, according to J. Enge. Petersen responded to these concerns, however, with the argument that the incapacitation of prostitutes according to the method practiced in Hamburg is lawful due to the case law of the competent courts.

From 1937 Petersen was deputy head of the welfare department in the Hamburg social administration, was promoted there to Senate Councilor in 1939 and from that year took over the management of health and vulnerable care. In this function, she was also responsible for the homeless and hikers, and others. a. she was also responsible for Sinti and Roma . Petersen was familiar with the fact that women were also transferred to concentration camps under their guardianship or, as part of the T4 campaign, to Nazi killing centers. During the Second World War , she also had the wives of Wehrmacht soldiers checked for “infidelity”. From 1943 Petersen headed the Hamburg welfare department.

After the end of the war

After the end of the Second World War , Petersen was classified in category five as part of the denazification process and was therefore considered exonerated. From 1948, despite her involvement in the machinations of Nazi welfare policy, she again headed the Hamburg State Welfare Office. Petersen was promoted to senior government councilor in 1949 and, from 1951, again acted as collective guardian. As a collective guardian, Petersen instructed incapacitated “sexually endangered” women in closed institutions and, if necessary, advocated their being taken to a workhouse .

“Unstable and work-shy are usually not only noticeable by avoiding work, they also let themselves go in the rest of their life. Unsettled women tend to live unsound lives. However, they do not consciously go this way, but succumb to the unsound way of life because they lack the willpower to lead an orderly life. In contrast to this, work-shy women deliberately avoid work and sometimes deliberately engage in occasional or professional prostitution. The boundaries between unsteady and work-shy are often fluid. "

- Käthe Petersen at the German Welfare Day in Stuttgart in 1952 in the introduction to her keynote address by Working Group 4

Petersen was promoted to government director in 1954 and to senior government director in 1956. As a representative of the federal states, Petersen worked from 1956 to 1958 in the committee for questions relating to the welfare of the Federal Minister of Labor. She was involved in the creation and further development of social welfare law. The section “ Welfare at Risk” in the Federal Social Welfare Act (BSHG) was designed by Petersen. She retired on September 30, 1966.

At the German Association for Public and Private Welfare , Petersen was a member of the main committee from 1957 to 1981 and of the executive committee from 1959 to 1981. Petersen was deputy chairwoman of the German Association from 1965 and took over chairmanship there from 1970 to 1978. In personal union, she also chaired the specialist committee for welfare and disabled people at the German Association.

Petersen, who was involved in numerous social clubs and associations and received several awards for this, died in Hamburg in 1981. A facility for mentally ill adults in Hamburg-Hummelsbüttel was named after Petersen until it was renamed in 1990.

Honors

literature

  • Michaela Freund-Aries: women under control. Prostitution and its state control in Hamburg from the end of the German Empire to the beginning of the Federal Republic. Lit Verlag, Münster 2003, ISBN 3-8258-5173-7 .
  • Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich . Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd Edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 .
  • Kathrin Kompisch: perpetrators. Women in National Socialism , Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-412-20188-3 .
  • Christiane Rothmaler: The social politician Käthe Petersen between selection and destruction. In: Angelika Ebbinghaus (ed.): Victims and perpetrators. Women's biographies of National Socialism , Nördlingen 1987, pp. 75–90.
  • Matthias Willing: The Preservation Act (1918-1967). A legal historical study on the history of German welfare. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2003, ISBN 3-16-148204-2 .
  • Hugo Maier (Ed.): Who is who of social work. Lambertus, Freiburg im Breisgau 1998, ISBN 3-7841-1036-3 .
  • Walter Thorun : Petersen, Käthe , in: Hugo Maier (Ed.): Who is who of social work . Freiburg: Lambertus, 1998 ISBN 3-7841-1036-3 , p. 466f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Kathrin Kompisch: perpetrators. Women in National Socialism , Cologne 2008, p. 104
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Michaela Freund-Aries: Women under control. Prostitution and the state fight against it in Hamburg from the end of the German Empire to the beginning of the Federal Republic , Münster 2003, p. 292
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 455f.
  4. ^ A b Matthias Willing: The Preservation Law (1918-1967). A legal historical study on the history of German welfare. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2003, p. 206
  5. ^ Matthias Willing: The Preservation Law (1918-1967). A legal historical study on the history of German welfare. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2003, pp. 206f
  6. ↑ Quoted from Matthias Willing: The Preservation Law (1918-1967). A legal historical study on the history of German welfare. , Tübingen 2003, pp. 206f.
  7. ^ Matthias Willing: The Preservation Law (1918-1967). A legal historical study on the history of German welfare. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2003, p. 232
  8. ^ Matthias Willing: The Preservation Law (1918-1967). A legal historical study on the history of German welfare. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2003, p. 207
  9. ↑ Friederike Föcking: Care in the economic boom. The creation of the Federal Social Welfare Act of 1961 . Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58132-4 , p. 358
  10. ↑ Carl Wolfgang Müller: How helping became a profession. A history of methods of social work , Juventa, Verlag, Weinheim and Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-7799-2066-3 , p. 176
  11. ↑ Friederike Föcking: Care in the economic boom. The creation of the Federal Social Welfare Act of 1961 . Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58132-4 , p. 178
  12. ↑ Announcement of awards of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Federal Gazette . Vol. 25, No. 43, March 9, 1973.
  13. ↑ Honor plaque of the city of Frankfurt am Main on www.frankfurt.de
personal data
SURNAME Petersen, Kathe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and social politician
DATE OF BIRTH May 13, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Elmshorn
DATE OF DEATH January 10, 1981
Place of death Hamburg