Magdalene Schoch

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Maria Magdalene Schoch (born February 15, 1897 in Würzburg ; † November 6, 1987 in Falls Church , Fairfax (Virginia) ) was a German lawyer and in 1932 the first woman in Germany to qualify as a professor in law . In 1937 she emigrated to the United States for political reasons , where she continued her work.

Life

1897 to 1920

Magdalene Schoch came from a the educated classes associated family. Her father, the sales representatives Johann Leonhard Schoch, led since 1905 a separate cloth to act in Würzburg. The mother Margarete Schoch, b. Gundermann worked as a teacher until her marriage . In 1912 she was one of the initiators of an association for women's suffrage and openly spoke out against warmongering and militarism . The family life led up to then suffered a dramatic collapse in 1914 when the father first committed suicide in January and at the end of the year the only son, Heinz, died in the First World War . Magdalene, as the eldest of the three daughters, took on the management of the household and the family alongside her mother, a responsibility that she retained throughout her life. After his father's death and in the wake of the war, the financial situation of the four-member female household were very cramped, but began Magdalene after July 1916 at the Würzburg grammar school the external high school had taken, at the local University with the study of law. She initially planned to study medicine, but dropped that thought after realizing that as a doctor it would take her years to earn a living from her job. Only since 1908 were women allowed to study in Germany, and she was mostly the only woman in the seminars she attended . She shared this experience with the first German law students of the time and the later members of the German Women Lawyers Association, such as B. Marie Munk and Margarete Berent . The professor opened her first lecture in Roman law with the address “Gentlemen” - until he saw Magdalene Schoch, struggled for several minutes to be composed, and then started again with a slightly ironic tone: “Gentlemen and my lady”. She took state scholarships to complete her studies . Her acquaintance with Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy , who taught as an international lawyer in Würzburg, was of decisive importance for her . After eight semesters , including one at the University of Munich , Magdalena Schoch was in Würzburg (s. Documents) in 1920 with her work on the English war legislation Dr. jur. PhD . In the same year she followed her doctoral supervisor Mendelssohn Bartholdy, who had been appointed to the University of Hamburg , which was founded in 1919 . During her studies, which Magdalene Schoch herself described as “colorful and humane”, she was active in student self-administration.

1920 to 1937

Mendelssohn Bartholdy headed the seminar for foreign law and international private and procedural law in Hamburg, which Magdalene Schoch was involved in building up from the start. Since 1923 she has also worked in Mendelssohn Bartholdy's "Institute for Foreign Policy", one of the first of its kind in the world to research the conditions of peace. With a scholarship from the Notgemeinschaft der deutschen Wissenschaft she came to England in 1928 to study the local court system. When she returned to Hamburg, she began teaching in the summer semester of 1929 in questions of English and American law and comparable areas. Meanwhile, Mendelssohn Bartholdy founded the “Institute for Foreign Policy”, which subsequently became important for the external relations of the city of Hamburg and Magdalene Schoch was involved in its work as his assistant. In 1929 she was one of the founding members of the Society of Friends of the United States. In addition to Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Kurt Sieveking , Erich M. Warburg and Otto Laeisz, she was a member of their first executive board and acted as the publisher of the company's organ, the bilingual Hamburg-Amerika-Post (from 1931 Amerika-Post ); its subtitle: "A Messenger of good will between the United States and Germany". When the America Library was opened as a special library for American law and political science in the New Law House in Hamburg on June 27, 1930 , she took over its management. In 1932 she was the first woman in Germany to attend a law and political science faculty in Hamburg. She then became the first private lecturer at the University of Hamburg's Law and Political Science Faculty for international private and procedural law, comparative law and civil procedural law at Hamburg University. Her first lecture was entitled: The Concept of Property in the American Constitution. The 14th Amendment . During this time she also took her mother to live in Hamburg after her sister's marriage.

“When the Nazi regime began in 1933, she was, according to the well-known custom of that time, as the next employee of the 'Jewish tribal' Mendelssohn Bartholdy, a 'marked person'. It stayed that way all the more as it did not hide its critical stance. [...] It hardly needs further elaboration that such a person felt persecuted or at least threatened under the rule of National Socialism. "

- Eduard Rosenbaum , former director of the Hamburg Commerzbibliothek emigrated to England in 1934 as part of the reparation proceedings initiated by Magdalene Schoch.

After taking power , Mendelssohn Bartholdy was first put into retirement in September 1933 and, after being forced to resign from the management of the "Institute for Foreign Policy" on January 1, 1934, left the Third Reich in 1934 for England , where he died in 1936 . Magdalene Schoch's position became more and more isolated. In 1934, she provided the print edition of her habilitation thesis with a full-page dedication in honor of Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Her participation in his funeral in Oxford in November 1936 also endangered her employment. When in 1937 she was invited to join the NSDAP , Magdalene Schoch preferred to quit, to give up the lectureship and to leave Germany.

"Dr. Without being bound by party politics, Schoch has always and on various occasions proven to be a firm believer in liberal and social outlook on life and world, and with uncompromising clarity rejected the notions of tyranny, anti-Semitism and militarism that came to light in National Socialism fights. It did that at the beginning and long before the seizure of power in 1933. "

- Olga Essig , in the context of the reparation proceedings initiated by Magdalene Schoch.

She had given up her own activities at the Institute for Foreign Policy soon after the assumption of power and the realization that it would be used for the purposes of National Socialist propaganda. The institute moved to Berlin in 1937, where it was affiliated to the Foreign Ministry under Ribbentrop . The America Post , which she looked after , was discontinued, as was the “Society of Friends of the United States”. She spent the period from autumn 1934 to October 1935 on a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation at various universities in the United States in order to continue her research on the legal system there and at the same time to deal with it in practice. If she was still convinced on her departure that the regime in the Third Reich would not be able to hold out for long under the pressure of foreign countries and internal democratic circles, on her return she had to realize that there was no longer any free development in life. For her seminars and lectures she only chose non-political topics. Refusing to accept the Hitler salute or joining the party and maintaining contact with Jewish friends, she did not see herself as brave enough to openly join the resistance . Nevertheless, their actions show that at least in 1935 “there was still room for resistance”. As a consequence, she left Germany in October 1937.

“[...] I can only testify that her demeanor was impeccable, although it was foreseen that it would suffer great disadvantages over time. [...] When she returned to Hamburg from America in 1935, she soon discovered that she would not be able to continue her previous teaching and official work here under National Socialist rule. So after a long time, due to persecution, she made the decision to finally emigrate to America. "

- Rudolf Laun as part of the reparation proceedings.

1937 to 1987

Magdalene Schoch arrived in the USA in 1937, penniless and with no direct professional prospects. The first year she was only able to bridge the gap with the help of a friend, Louise Gerry in Buffalo, whom she met through the Zonta Club . In 1938 she got a badly paid job as a research assistant at the law faculty of Harvard University with Erwin Griswold . There she held lectures and seminars in conflict law, supervised advanced students in the upcoming final theses and, according to her own account, was the first private lecturer at a law faculty in the USA. She also used the time for further research in her areas of interest and for publications. In 1943, Magdalene Schoch, who consciously avoided her mother tongue since emigrating , took on the US citizenship. At the same time, she moved to Washington to work as a lawyer in order to make her contribution to the conflict with Germany. At the side of the emigrants Ernst Fraenkel , Otto Kirchheimer , John Herz and Franz Neumann , she worked in the “Foreign Economic Administration”, a government agency, on legal issues in connection with an upcoming occupation in Germany and on studies of the legal system in the Nazi state. During this time, she stood up for her German colleague Marie Munk and vouched for her so that Munk could receive American citizenship. From 1946 to 1966, Magdalene Schoch worked as an expert on international and foreign law in managerial positions in the US Department of Justice, first as a department head and later as a division head. After her retirement, she remained professionally active as a lawyer (since 1949, most recently with admission to the Supreme Court) and appraiser in Washington until old age . In Germany Magdalene Schoch fell into oblivion. In 1998, for the third edition of a publication on German women lawyers, little was known about her résumé from 1937 and her death ten years earlier. The University of Hamburg had offered her a return as a professor at her house after the Second World War, which she politely but firmly refused. She never wanted to enter this institution again. Suffering from Alzheimer's disease, she died in a nursing home in Arlington. In 1951 she had taken in her now divorced sister Elisabeth Cujé and her four children, and had been funding one of her nephews' studies in the USA for years. The University of Hamburg remembered her in a ceremony on June 15, 2006 by naming a lecture hall in its main building, the Magdalene Schoch lecture hall .

After Magdalene Schoch had neglected herself and her own old-age security through her professional and private obligations, she followed Anna Selig's advice in 1958 and applied for reparation in Germany . Despite numerous clear statements, she was ultimately denied this. The testimony of Leo Raape , who succeeded Mendelssohn Bartholdy in 1934 as head of the seminar for foreign law and whom she herself proposed as a witness for the trial, was a decisive factor. Raape had advised her to join the party in May 1937. In 1959, he stated that Magdalene Schoch had asked for her release and left Germany without pressure from the authorities or the NSDAP. As a result, Robert Gärtner submitted an action for compensation under the "Law to regulate the reparation of National Socialist injustices for members of the public service" before the Hamburg Regional Court , which was concluded in the spring of 1963 with a settlement. Magdalene Schoch received a retirement pension retroactively from March 1962 on the basis of almost three years of civil service.

“Her decision to emigrate turned out to be more permanent, as a dividing line between her and all those who, even after the 'Third Reich', maintained that 'one' couldn't help but adapt to the regime. In view of the oppressive conditions, Magdalene Schoch's resignation in 1937 was not a 'voluntary' decision, but an impressively autonomous one - and one that is unique for the University of Hamburg in this form. "

- Rainer Nicolaysen

Zonta Club

After the first Zonta Club was founded in the United States in 1919 as a meeting place for working women in management positions, the first in Europe (Vienna) followed in 1930 and another in Hamburg in 1931. The initiative for the latter came from Elisabeth Mc in 1930 . K. Scott , a member of the New York Zonta Club and the "American Society for Foreign Policy", who inquired about interested parties on the occasion of a stay in Hamburg. Alfred Herrmann , editor-in-chief of the Hamburg Foreign Journal named her a number of successful women, so that on January 6, 1931 the Hamburg correspondent was able to report on the founding of the Hamburg Zonta Club. Magdalene Schoch assumed its chairmanship. She kept him until she migrated. The club, which was entered in the register of associations from the start, should have excluded its Jewish members after the NSDAP and its allies came to power . In order to avoid this, they were deleted from the register of associations and from then on only met privately, secretly and in secret. The Hamburg Zonta Club is the only European one that has existed without interruption. After the Second World War, members of the Hamburg Zonta Club resumed connections. Magdalene Schoch, at that time a member and later president of the club in Arlington , organized on November 9, 1946 together with the then president of the club in Albany (New York) and later international president, Louise Gerry, an "International Relation Diner" attended by over a hundred Zontians from Vermont, New York and Canada. Magdalene Schoch presented the situation in Germany and Austria to the guests at this event. The response to her presentation was overwhelming. Whereas previously only a few care parcels reached Hamburg via this connection, their number has now increased by leaps and bounds. Their content has been tailored precisely to individual needs. The Hamburg Zontians' footprints were also taken so that the shoes fit exactly. In 1958 Ada Sieveking traveled from Hamburg to the “International World Convention” in New York. American friends paid half of her travel expenses, Sieveking himself lived with Magdalene Schoch. On the occasion of the “Inter-European District Conference” in Hamburg in 1963, she returned there herself. Recent contacts are not documented.

Fonts

  • The forced liquidation of enemy companies by the English trade office according to the Trading-with-the-Enemy-Act 1918. Dissertation. University of Würzburg, Würzburg 1918.
  • Overview of the law of the United States in its specifics. (= Handbook of Foreign Customers. Volume 5) Diesterweg, Frankfurt am Main 1931.
  • Action, litigation and evidence in the light of international law. At the same time a contribution to the teaching of qualification. at the same time habilitation. University of Hamburg, 1932. (= documents and research on international law. Volume 2) Tauchnitz, Leipzig 1934.
  • The decisions of the International Tribunal on the Interpretation of the Dawes Plan. with a foreword by Paul Marc . Dr. W. Rothschild, Berlin 1926–1929. (4 parts)

literature

  • Oda Cordes: Marie Munk (1885–1978) life and work. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne 2015, ISBN 978-3-412-22455-4 , p. 368, 914–917.
  • Traute Hoffmann: Dr. jur. Magdalene Schoch. In: The first German ZONTA club. On the trail of extraordinary women. 2nd Edition. Dölling and Galitz Verlag , Munich / Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-937904-43-3 , pp. 21-28.
  • Eckart Krause, Rainer Nicolaysen (ed.): In memory of Magdalene Schoch (1897–1987). (Hamburg University Speeches, New Episode 16). Verlag der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-937816-60-7 . (digital)
  • Ulrike Lembke, Dana-Sophia Valentiner: Magdalene Schoch - the first qualified lawyer in Germany. In: Hamburger Rechtsnotizen. Journal of the Faculty of Law at the University of Hamburg. 2012, pp. 93-100. (digital) (PDF; 343 kB)
  • Rainer Nicolaysen: For law and justice through the courageous life of the lawyer Magdalene Schoch (1897–1987). In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History . Volume 92, Verlag Verein für Hamburgische Geschichte , Hamburg 2006, pp. 113–143. (digital)
  • Rainer Nicolaysen: Schoch, Magdalene . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 4 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0229-7 , pp. 309-310 .
  • Konstanze Plett: Magdalene Schoch (1897–?). In: Lawyers in Germany. The period from 1900 to 1998. (Series of publications by the Deutscher Juristinnenbund eV, Volume 1). Edited by Deutscher Juristinnenbund eV 3rd edition. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 1998, ISBN 3-7890-5611-1 , p. 195 f. (with picture)
  • Marion Röwekamp: Magdalene Schoch. In: Lawyers. Lexicon on life and work. Published by Deutscher Juristinnenbund eV Nomos Verlag , Baden-Baden 2005, ISBN 3-8329-1597-4 , pp. 368–372. (There also a selection of other fonts).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Marion Röwekamp: Magdalene Schoch. P. 368.
  2. ^ A b Oda Cordes: Marie Munk (1885–1978) life and work. Pp. 75,78,122-125,914-917.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Rainer Nicolaysen: Schoch, Magdalene.
  4. ↑ a b c d Marion Röwekamp: Magdalene Schoch. P. 369.
  5. ↑ a b c Rainer Nicolaysen: For law and justice about the courageous life of the lawyer Magdalene Schoch (1897–1987), p. 136.
  6. ^ Rainer Nicolaysen: For law and justice on the courageous life of the lawyer Magdalene Schoch (1897-1987). P. 126.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f Marion Röwekamp: Magdalene Schoch. P. 370.
  8. ↑ Konstanze Plett: Magdalene Schoch (1897–?).
  9. ^ A b Rainer Nicolaysen: For law and justice about the courageous life of the lawyer Magdalena Schoch (1897–1987), pp. 135–139.
  10. ^ Rainer Nicolaysen: For law and justice on the courageous life of the lawyer Magdalene Schoch (1897-1987). P. 126.
  11. ^ Rainer Nicolaysen: For law and justice on the courageous life of the lawyer Magdalene Schoch (1897-1987). P. 141.
  12. ^ A b c Traute Hoffmann: The first German ZONTA club. On the trail of extraordinary women.
  13. ↑ a b Traute Hoffmann: Dr. jur. Magdalene Schoch.
personal data
SURNAME Schoch, Magdalene
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schoch, Magdalena (different spelling); Schoch, Maria Magdalene (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, first qualified lawyer in Germany, American lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Wurzburg
DATE OF DEATH November 6, 1987
Place of death Falls Church , Fairfax, Virginia, USA