Margarete Cordemann

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Margaret (h) e Elisabeth Dorothea Cordemann (born January 7, 1889 in Minden , † March 19, 1968 in Gelsenkirchen ) was a German social worker in managerial positions.

Live and act

Cordemann grew up with a sister and a brother in a Prussian-Protestant family. The father was a major, the mother, who always encouraged her daughters to take up a job, was responsible for bringing up the children and running the household. After completing the teacher exam, Cordemann prepared externally for the Abitur, which she passed in Dortmund in 1914. She then studied German, French, history and literature in Munich, Bonn, and then again in Munich. The subject of her doctorate was: The swing in art between the first and second collection of fables by La Fontaine . In Munich she volunteered in the homeworkers movement and in the Academic Aid Association .

After completing his studies, Cordemann worked at various social institutions in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf. In the latter city she founded the office for family welfare , which bundled all branches of welfare care / welfare in one office. In relation to this she wrote:

In principle, there is no youth welfare service that is special care, even if it is organized as such. The youth welfare officer, who is employed by the youth welfare office and is responsible to it, cannot avoid considering the overall economic and health conditions of all family members as well as the type of family coexistence .

In 1927 Cordemann took over the management of the newly founded Evangelical Welfare School of the Westphalian Women's Aid , which trained women to be church and state welfare workers. During the global economic crisis, the headmistress moved the training center to Gelsenkirchen. During the Nazi dictatorship, Cordemann had worked on the National Socialist curriculum specifications at a crucial point, but did not mention this activity in her memoirs. She also committed herself to the new state and its tightly organized welfare tasks in various publications, as exemplified by the following quote:

The asocial families cannot be left to their own devices, since they represent a festering wound on the national body that continues to eat away [...] As far as the extent and financial means of this aid are concerned, one must always keep in mind that in the new one State not the anti-social and sick, but primarily the mentally and physically healthy have a right to the help of their people .

After 1945, Cordemann campaigned for the rebuilding and renewal of welfare and welfare and fought for the admission of men to the former women's schools for social work .

Honors / awards

  • On his 70th birthday, the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st Class (January 1, 1956)
  • On the 74th birthday the Wichernplakette of the Central Association of the Inner Mission (because their school was not closed during the Nazi era and the lessons continued to follow its Christian line )

Works (selection)

  • Family welfare within youth welfare, in: Cordemann u. a. (Ed.): Social work, Kassel 1928
  • Welfare care in connection with the practical training of female students, in: Prussian Ministry for People's Welfare (Ed.): Contributions to the question of methods of welfare schools, Berlin 1931
  • Cooperation between professional and voluntary workers in the welfare work of the National Socialist state, in: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Wohlfahrtspflege 1934
  • How it really was, Gladbeck 1963

literature

  • R. Menter: Association Protestantism and women's emancipation. The Evangelical Welfare School of Westfälische Frauenhilfe and its director Dr. Margarete Cordemann , in: W. Belitz / G. Brakelmann / N. Friedrich (Hrsg.): Departure in social responsibility , Waltrop 1998, pp.? - ?.
  • Manfred Berger : Who was ... Margarete Cordemann? , in: Sozialmagazin 2002 / H. 1, pp. 6-9
  • Gudrun Wedel: autobiographies of women. A lexicon. Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2010, p. 159
  • Monika Bourmer: Professional Identity in Social Work. Bad Heilbrunn 2013, pp. 187–343
  • Sigrid Willemsen: Cordemann, Margarete , in: Hugo Maier (Ed.): Who is who of social work . Freiburg: Lambertus, 1998 ISBN 3-7841-1036-3 , p. 127ff.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cordemann 1918, p. 50.
  2. ↑ cf. Berger 2002, p. 8.
  3. ↑ Cordemann 1943, p. 492.
  4. ↑ Information from the Office of the Federal President
  5. ↑ Menter 1998, p. 184


personal data
SURNAME Cordemann, Margarete
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cordemann, Margarete Elisabeth Dorothea; Cordemann, Margarethe Elisabeth Dorothea
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German social worker
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Minden
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 1968
Place of death Gelsenkirchen