Luise Schoeffel

Luise Schöffel (born July 8, 1914 in Mannheim , † September 18, 1997 in Nebringen ) was a German teacher, city councilor and district councilor. In 1967 she founded the "Association of Single Mothers" in Herrenberg , now the Association of Single Mothers and Fathers (VAMV).

Life and work

Luise Schöffel was born in Mannheim. Her mother raised Luise and her four siblings alone because the father had died early. After elementary school, she attended a commercial college. She then worked as a typist and secretary in various Mannheim companies. Luise Schöffel lived in Berlin from 1939 to 1944. There she worked as a typist for the representative for the four-year plan in the Reich Chancellery and as Secretary to Count Peter Yorck von Wartenburg in the Reich Commissioner for Pricing. From 1943 to 1944 she was the deputy head of the office in the Reich Commission for Pricing. In April 1944 Luise Schöffel moved from Berlin to Kayh. After attending a three-month school assistant course at the teacher training institute in Esslingen, she worked as a school assistant in Kayh and Mönchberg from 1945 to 1947 and made up her graduation. From 1947 to 1949 she attended the Pedagogical Institute in Stuttgart. From 1949 to 1972 she worked as a primary school teacher and later as a primary and secondary school teacher at the Albert Schweitzer School in Herrenberg, Baden-Württemberg .

In 1945 she was already the single mother of a one-year-old son and was exposed to a lot of discrimination. Insulted as a "dissolute woman", the staunch social democrat stood up for equality and social justice despite all hostility : "I wanted to reform the law, because whoever is discriminated against in the law is also in society."

VAMV

On July 8, 1967, Luise Schöffel founded the "Association of Single Mothers". Together with six other unmarried mothers, she formed the first board of directors and ran the association's affairs as honorary chairwoman for ten years. Even in the first years of the association, Luise Schöffel was able to exert a significant influence on German politics: the reform of illegitimate law and the improvement of social legislation for single parents are being pushed. Prominent supporters were Alice Schwarzer and Helga Stödter , who are still honorary president of the VAMV today.

In 1970 the name of the association was first updated in "Association of Single Mothers" - in 1976 in "Association of Single Mothers and Fathers".

Ten years after the founding of the Association of Single Mothers and Fathers, Luise Schöffel hired the first full-time manager and the association moved from Herrenberg to Frankfurt am Main . The brochure “This is how I can do it on my own” was published with a circulation of 200,000, financed by the Federal Center for Health Education . In a press conference, Luise Schöffel presented a legislative proposal to secure maintenance for children - the later Maintenance Advance Act (1980).

In 1976, Luise Schöffel passed the chairmanship on to her successor Ursula Beutel and only acted in the background for the association. Up until old age she could be found advising initiatives and groups of single parents. For the brochure for the 25th anniversary of the VAMV, she wrote the article “Single mothers, let's join together!” In 1992, in which she reflects the political mood during the foundation.

Public offices

From 1968 to 1976 and 1984 Luise Schöffel sat for the SPD in the municipal council of the city of Herrenberg. She was an honorary administrative judge, a member of the school advisory board and the administrative committee. From 1971 to 1973 she was the first woman to be a member of the district council in the Boeblingen district .

Honors

In December 1972 she was presented with the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon by the Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg . The large district town of Herrenberg presented Luise Schöffel with the citizen's medal in silver on September 8, 1992. In doing so, the city honored Luise Schöffel's “merits in the voluntary and local political area” as well as her “outstanding social commitment as a founding member of the Association of Single Mothers and as the long-term federal chairwoman of today's Association of Single Mothers and Fathers (VAMV)”.

Luise Schöffel died on September 18, 1997 at the age of 83.

As part of the European Year of Equality 2007, Herrenberg and its partner city Fidenza (Italy) started an initiative in both cities to name six streets, squares and gardens after women. The citizens of Herrenberg voted Luise Schöffel at the top of their list via the Internet and by voting slip. In Fidenza, too, a street is named after Luise Schöffel.

literature

• Where from - why then and where to , Festschrift 25 Years VAMV, Bonn 1992.
• Paul Binder: Luise Schöffel (1914–1997). Portrait of a courageous woman, in: Herrenberg personalities from eight centuries. Selected and presented by Roman Janssen and Oliver Auge, Herrenberg 1999 ( ISBN 3-926809-09-4 ), pp. 417-421.
• FrauenWege. Looking for traces in Herrenberg , ed. by the Herrenberg women's history workshop in collaboration with Birgit Kruckenberg-Link, Herrenberg City Women's Representative, Herrenberg 2008.
• Valentina Finckh / Claudia Nowak-Walz: "I wanted to reform the law, because if you are discriminated against in the law, you are also in society" - Luise Schöffel (1914–1997), in: Frauengeschichtswerkstatt Herrenberg (ed.): Women design Herrenberg . Herrenberginnen of the 20th century. Politics-Education-Culture-Sport , Mössingen-Talheim 2014 ( ISBN 978-3-89376-163-0 ), pp. 23–34.

Individual evidence

1. ^ V. Finckh / C. Nowak-Walz: Luise Schöffel (1914-1997), in: Women design Herrenberg , p. 26.
2. ↑ P. Binder: Luise Schöffel (1914-1997), in: Herrenberg personalities from eight centuries , Herrenberg 1999, p. 417.
3. ↑ https://www.vamv.de/fileadmin/user_upload/bund/dokumente/intern/Luise_Schoeffel.pdf
4. ↑ Award certificate for the citizen medal of the city of Herrenberg in silver, in: Stadtarchiv Herrenberg, file number 022.1, quoted. after: V. Finckh / C. Nowak-Walz: Luise Schöffel (1914-1997), in: Frauengeschichtswerkstatt Herrenberg (ed.): Women design Herrenberg, p. 31.