Kunigunde Schwab

Kunigunde Schwab , married Schumann , (born July 3, 1910 in Nuremberg ; † January 10, 1997 ibid) was a German communist politician , pacifist and resistance fighter against National Socialism . She was one of the first women to be a member of the Nuremberg city council. As Vice President of the Constituent Assembly in Bavaria in 1946, she campaigned in particular for women's rights .

youth

Kunigunde Schwab grew up as the youngest of ten children in a social democratic family. After attending the Lutherstrasse elementary school in Nuremberg, she continued her training at a commercial school for three years . Their livelihood first she earned as municipal employees and then by the end of 1932 as a clerk a Nuremberg bookstore.

Her political engagement began as a member of the Socialist Workers' Youth (SAJ), the youth organization of the SPD , and the social democratic child friends movement . After the ministers of the SPD had approved the construction in the dispute over the armored cruiser A in 1929, they turned away from the party. She saw this as a step towards armament that she could not support. Instead, she now took part in educational evenings organized by the KJVD , the KPD's youth organization . In 1932 Kunigunde Schwab joined the Communist Young Pioneers.

time of the nationalsocialism

From March 1933 to June 1933 Schwab worked as a secretary and typist for the KPD state parliament members Jakob Boulanger , Bavaria, and Friedrich Heilmann , Thuringia.

When the KPD was banned when the National Socialists came to power , Schwab worked underground with other Nuremberg Communists. The new, now illegal district leadership of the KPD pursued the goal of creating a central newspaper for Nuremberg and the northern Bavarian district. For this purpose, the printing press was moved from the former party rooms to a carpenter's garden house. The production of the artwork was the responsibility of the district management member Hans Pickel in cooperation with Kunigunde Schwab. Together they selected suitable sections from the illegal Rote Fahne and other writings, which Pickel added to further texts. Schwab took over the writing of the wax matrices . The newspaper was published under the name Blätter der Sozialist Freiheitsaktion . After the first edition, because the printing noise was too loud, another location had to be found for the printing press. The difficult-to-access Anton Völkel Grotto near Königstein in the Franconian Jura was chosen as the new location . A total of three issues of the newspaper were published, which comprised about six pages with a circulation of 1,000 copies. While distributing the third edition in mid-August 1933, the distributor Ludwig Göhring was arrested. Brutal interrogation methods by the SA police officers involved resulted in Goehring disclosing the hiding place in the cave and connections. On August 21, 1933, Schwab and other like-minded people were arrested by the Gestapo .

August 21, 1933 to April 18, 1934 Kunigunde Schwab was at City Hall Nuremberg and in the penitentiary Aichach in protective custody taken. She spent several months in solitary confinement . Under the file number OJs / 16/23, the Munich Higher Regional Court sentenced her to five months in prison on April 18, 1934. The reasons for the verdict read on preparation for high treason and the publication and dissemination of writings critical of the regime. Schwab served this prison sentence from April 18, 1934 to August 14, 1934 in the Aichach prison. In retrospect, she stated: "I was lucky that there were no camps for women yet".

After her release from prison, she saw no opportunity for further active political engagement. Schwab was in poor health, and the original networks no longer existed.

post war period

From 1946 Schwab held the position of a department head of the Nuremberg employment office.

She was a member of the Nuremberg KPD and was first elected to the Nuremberg City Council in 1946, where she was represented until 1956. As Vice-President of the Constituent Assembly in Bavaria in 1946 , she was particularly committed to women's rights . For example, it succeeded in preventing the restrictive word “ fundamentally ” from being included in the constitutional article with equal pay for women and men.

Schwab became known on a social level for its pacifist engagement. In the 1950s she was active in the fight against rearmament in the Federal Republic of Germany. In this context, she received a penalty warrant in 1951 for having participated in a banned referendum on remilitarization. In the 1980s she continued her engagement in the peace movement by opposing the arms race and nuclear armament. In this context she was particularly involved in the Nuremberg Northeast Peace Initiative. She was also active for many years on the district executive committee of the Association of Victims of the Nazi Regime (VVN) Nuremberg.

Personal

In 1959 Kunigunde Schwab married her partner Richard Schumann. The marriage resulted in two daughters.

Appreciations

In 1994 Kunigunde Schumann was honored with the Lina Schneider Prize for outstanding commitment to preserving decent living conditions, which was awarded by the Nuremberg Green Party. She donated it in equal parts to the Association of People Persecuted by the Nazi Regime (VVN) and the Peace Initiative Nuremberg-Northeast, which initiated the Nuremberg Peace Museum in 1995 . She commented on the award ceremony with the words: " I didn't know that you get an award for a decent life ."

swell

• Peace women encourage. (PDF; 771 kB) Retrieved August 15, 2013 .  page 5
• Kunigunde Schwab in the parliamentary database at the House of Bavarian History

Individual evidence

1. ^ Portrait of Ludwig Göhring
2. ^ ^{A b} Hartmut Mehringer : The KPD in Bavaria 1919-1945. Prehistory, persecution and resistance, in: Martin Broszat and Hartmut Mehringer (eds.): Bavaria in the Nazi period V. The parties KPD, SPD, BVP in persecution and resistance , Munich, Vienna 1983, pages 171ff, ISBN 3-486 -42401-7 .
3. ↑ Bavaria State Parliament: Commemoration of the victims
4. ↑ Peace women encourage courage (PDF; 771 kB) page 5
5. ↑ Lina Schneider Prize
6. ↑ Network Peace Cooperative : Excellent women from Bertha von Suttner to Kuni Schumann

further reading

• Hartmut Mehringer : The KPD in Bavaria 1919-1945. Prehistory, persecution and resistance, in: Martin Broszat and Hartmut Mehringer (eds.): Bavaria in the Nazi era V. The parties KPD, SPD, BVP in persecution and resistance , Munich, Vienna 1983, pp. 1–286, ISBN 3-486-42401-7 .