Marie-Elisabeth Lüders

Marie-Elisabeth Lüders (1949)

Marie-Elisabeth Lüders (born June 25, 1878 in Berlin ; † March 23, 1966 there ) was a German politician ( DDP , later FDP ) and women's rights activist . She was also known under the name Lisbeth Lüders , especially in her younger years . The parliament building Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus is named after her.

Life and work

Marie-Elisabeth Lüders was born as a descendant of the agricultural reformer Philipp Ernst Lüders and as the daughter of a high Prussian government official. After attending a girls' school in Berlin-Charlottenburg, she first did private vocal training and attended a course in amateur photography. When the family agreed to vocational training, they went through one of the first “maiden classes” of the Reifensteiner economic women's schools in Nieder-Ofleiden in Hesse from 1897–1898 . After continuing education in education, she initially taught at a girls' boarding school , but had little pleasure in the teaching profession.

Around 1900 Lüders came into contact with the women's movement. From then on, she was mainly involved in women's social work, including in the Central Association for the Promotion of Workers' Interests, headed by Margarete Friedenthal . From 1901 to 1906 she worked in the Berlin Central Office for Private Welfare, which was headed by Jeannette Schwerin . At the general assembly of the Federation of German Women's Associations in Wroclaw in October 1908, she spoke out against paternalistic working conditions and for better wages for maids and supported the establishment of servants' associations on a union basis . Furthermore, until the 1920s she was a member of the Berlin branch of the International Abolitionist Federation, led by Anna Pappritz , which campaigned for the fight against state-regulated prostitution and the associated police and legal exemptions at the expense of women.

After the opening of higher education for women in Prussia, Marie-Elisabeth Lüders was one of the first female students of political science at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin from 1909 . As early as 1912 she did her doctorate on the training and further education of women in industrial professions, as her previous training achievements were recognized. She was the first woman who at a German university doctorate Dr. rer. pole. attained. She then took on various positions in social administration and social self-help, including as a caretaker. She was also influenced by encounters with Helene Lange . In 1916 she was appointed head of the women's labor center in the War Ministry.

Social Commitment

In the 1920s she worked actively with the first German women lawyers, such as B. Marie Munk , Margarete Berent and Margarete Meseritz-Edelheim , in the legal commissions of the Federation of German Women's Associations on the Weimar reforms on matrimonial property law. Her speech in the Reichstag on the admission of women to the legal state examinations and to the legal professions, printed under the title The administration of justice and women , paved the way for a Reichstag resolution to amend the Judicial Constitution Act (GVG) in 1922. Women could for the first time in Germany Become a judge, lawyer, administrative lawyer or public prosecutor.

Also in the 1920s, Lüders was the only woman on the standards committee at the Association of German Engineers (VDI). In 1926 she founded the German Association of Women Academics with Agnes von Zahn-Harnack and Margarete von Wrangell , of which she was chairman from 1930. The association disbanded in 1933 to avoid being brought into line by the National Socialists .

In 1933, the women's organizations in which Marie-Elisabeth Lüders was a member or chairperson (German Association of Female Academics, Association for National Economists in Germany, etc.) were dissolved and she was prohibited from being a board member in international women's organizations. At about the same time, the first search of her private work space took place. In 1934 she was excluded from the Reichsschrifttumskammer and thus prohibited from any independent publication. Friends suggested that she go into exile, but she refused.

One publication that Marie-Elisabeth Lüders was nevertheless allowed to do was her monograph The Unknown Heer , published in 1936 . Women fight for Germany 1914-1918 . This is an overview of women's work in World War I , which focuses on the performance of women in various, also traditionally male-dominated professions. The book bears a foreword by the Reich Minister of War Werner von Blomberg . Nothing is known about the exact circumstances in which the book and the preface were written. Ahead Reich Women's Leader had Gertrud Scholtz-Klink requires Luders, "you ask all my material about women's work in the war available," but what Lueders refused. Possibly she wanted to forestall the appropriation of her work by the National Socialists and possible misrepresentations with her own publication: The social work of women in the First World War was largely non-partisan; Liberal women had not only worked with conservative women, but also occasionally with social democrats and socialists. It is also noticeable in this context that more than a year apparently passed between the completion of the foreword in November 1935 and the publication of the book at the end of 1936. How much influence was exerted on the manuscript during this period and by whom cannot be said based on the current state of research.

Along with Anna Pappritz and Dorothee von Velsen, Lüders was one of the women's rights activists who criticized her fellow campaigner and former DDP party colleague Gertrud Bäumer for continuing to publish the women's political magazine Die Frau , founded by Helene Lange, after 1933. Lüders, Pappritz and Velsen considered the content-related concessions that Bäumer made to the National Socialist press censorship to be too big and the further publication of the magazine was therefore counterproductive.

In June 1937 Marie-Elisabeth Lüders was arrested by the Gestapo on charges of "treachery" and imprisoned in Moabit for several months. After her release in October 1937, she worked temporarily for the Quakers and during the war earned her living through social work, and after losing her apartment in a bombing, then doing farm work and private lessons.

politics

Before 1933

In 1918 Lüders was a founding member of the DDP , of which she was a member of the board at the Reich level.

In autumn 1919 she replaced Friedrich Naumann , who died in August, as a member of the DDP in the Reichstag, to which she was a member from 1919 to 1921 and from 1924 to 1930. There she was particularly committed to social, health and housing issues, often in collaboration with her social democratic colleague Louise Schroeder . In 1930 Lüders did not run again for the Reichstag. The reason for this was probably her sharp criticism of the merger of the DDP with the Young German Order to form the German State Party , whereupon she was no longer offered any promising list positions. Until 1933 she still wrote newspaper articles and gave lectures that, among other things, dealt critically with National Socialism.

After 1945

After the war, Lüders was elected to the city council of Berlin for the LDPD , which became part of the FDP at the end of 1948 . In 1949 she participated in the re-establishment of the female academics association. From 1949 to 1951 she held the office of councilor for social affairs in West Berlin . From 1949 to 1955, Lüders was the first woman ever to be a member of the Main Deputation Committee of the German Lawyers' Association . Lüders was also a member of the German Association of Women Lawyers . From 1950 until her death she was a member of the federal executive committee , from 1957 as honorary president.

From 1953 to 1961 Lüders was a member of the German Bundestag . In both 1953 and 1957, although she was only the second oldest member, she was the President of Parliament because Chancellor Konrad Adenauer waived this privilege. In the Bundestag she provided for a legal regulation that safeguards the legal status of German women who are married to foreigners (so-called "Lex Lüders").

Lüders did not run for the office of Federal President in 1954 , but she still received a vote and was the first woman to passively appear here.

Lüders' grave in Berlin-Dahlem

Family and death

During her time as a member of parliament, Lüders gave birth to a son. The child's father - also rumored to be a prominent politician - did not recognize paternity; Lüders raised her son alone. Marie-Elisabeth Lüders died in Berlin at the age of 87 and was buried in the Waldfriedhof in Berlin-Dahlem in an honorary grave of the city of Berlin .

Documents on Lüders' political activities are in the Archives of Liberalism of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Gummersbach ; further parts of her estate are in the Federal Archives in Koblenz .

Honors

1969 postage stamp from the block 50 years of women's suffrage in Germany

In 1952, Federal President Theodor Heuss awarded Lüders the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. On June 25, 1958, she was made an honorary citizen of Berlin. The Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus of the German Bundestag as well as a street and a high school in Berlin are named after her. Lüders was depicted on German postage stamps in 1969 and 1997.

Since 2009, the German Association of Women Lawyers has been awarding the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders Prize for legal or economic work in the field of law and gender and the topic of equality between women and men.

In 2013 a street in Bonn-Röttgen was named after Lüders.

Publications

• Structure without apartments . In: Die Form , Vol. 2, 1927, pp. 316-319 ( digitized version ).
• The unknown army. Women fight for Germany 1914–1918. With a foreword by the Reich Minister of War and Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht, Colonel General von Blomberg. Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1936.
• People's service of women. Bott, Berlin 1937.
• As a member of parliament in Bonn. In: Political Studies. Born 1963, issue 152, pp. 692-701.
• Do not be afraid. Personal and political issues from more than 80 years. 1878-1962. West German publishing house, Cologne / Opladen 1963.

literature

• "Everyone is responsible for everyone". Marie-Elisabeth Lüders, “strongest man” of the Liberals . In: Antje Dertinger : Women of the First Hour. From the founding years of the Federal Republic . Latke, Bonn 1989, pp. 95-107, ISBN 3-925-06811-2 .
• Oda Cordes: Marie Munk (1885–1978). Life and work . Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-412-21857-7 , pp. 105–106, 128–130, 871–875.
• Renate Genth: Women's Politics and Political Activity of Women in Post-War Berlin, 1945–1949. Edited by the Senator for Labor, Vocational Training and Women, Berlin. Trafo-Verlag, Weist 1996, ISBN 3-89626-109-6 .
• Annemarie Haase, Harro Kieser (Ed.): Ability, courage and imagination. Portraits of creative women from Central Germany (= From Central Germany , Volume 26). Böhlau, Weimar u. a. 1993, ISBN 3-412-02993-9 .
• Eckhard Hansen, Florian Tennstedt (Eds.) U. a .: Biographical lexicon on the history of German social policy from 1871 to 1945 . Volume 2: Social politicians in the Weimar Republic and during National Socialism 1919 to 1945. Kassel University Press, Kassel 2018, ISBN 978-3-7376-0474-1 , pp. 120–122 ( Online , PDF; 3.9 MB).
• Irma Hildebrandt : Between the soup kitchen and the salon. Eighteen women from Berlin. Diederichs, Cologne 1987, ISBN 3-424-00895-8 .
• Henrike Hülsbergen (ed.): Cityscape and women's life. Berlin in the mirror of 16 portraits of women (= Berlinische Lebensbilder , Volume 9). Stapp Verlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-87776-213-1 .
• Heide-Marie Lauterer : Parliamentarians in Germany. 1918 / 19-1949. Helmer, Königstein / Taunus 2002, ISBN 3-89741-090-7 .
• Doris Kull: Marie-Elisabeth Lüders (1878–1966). The life of a parliamentarian between progress and tradition. Düsseldorf 1988 (microfiches).
• Ludwig Luckemeyer:  Lüders, Marie-Elisabeth. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , pp. 454-456 ( digitized version ).
• Ilse Reicke : The great women of the Weimar Republic. Herder Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 1984, ISBN 3-451-08029-X .
• Martin Schumacher (Hrsg.): MdR The Reichstag members of the Weimar Republic in the time of National Socialism. Political persecution, emigration and expatriation, 1933–1945. A biographical documentation . 3rd, considerably expanded and revised edition. Droste, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5183-1 .
• Dorothee von Velsen : Marie-Elisabeth Lüders on June 25, 1958. A tribute to her 80th birthday , Bonn 1958.
• Peter Reinicke : Lüders, Marie Elisabeth , in: Hugo Maier (Ed.): Who is who of social work . Freiburg: Lambertus, 1998 ISBN 3-7841-1036-3 , p. 374ff.

Web links

Commons : Marie-Elisabeth Lüders  - Collection of Images

• Literature by and about Marie-Elisabeth Lüders in the catalog of the German National Library
• Marie-Elisabeth Lüders in the database of members of the Reichstag
• Marie Elisabeth Lüders. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Marie Elisabeth Lüders. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG ).
2. ↑ cf. u. a. Dorothee von Velsen : Abundance in old age. Rainer Wunderlich Verlag, Tübingen 1958, p. 118.
3. ↑ Ortrud Wörner-Heil: Frauenschulen auf dem Lande , 1997, pp. 60-109.
4. ↑ memoirs of Marie-Elisabeth Lueders: Maid in Lower Ofleiden the first year 1889/99 . In: Blatt der Altmaiden , No. 445 May, June 2003, first publication in 1954 in the association magazine , quoted from the association website of the Reifensteiner Association. ( PDF ).
5. ^ Socialist monthly books. Issue 1 of January 14, 1909, p. 61 (PDF; 5.1 MB).
6. ↑ Marie-Elisabeth Lüders: Do not be afraid: Personal and political issues from more than 80 years . Westdeutscher Verlag, Cologne and Opladen 1963, p. 107 ff.
7. ^ Oda Cordes: Marie Munk (1885–1978) life and work . Böhlau Verlag , Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2015, pp. 105–106, 128–130, 873–874.
8. ^ Oda Cordes: Marie Munk (1885–1978) life and work . Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2015, pp. 873–874.
9. ↑ Marie-Elisabeth Lüders: The unknown army. Women fight for Germany 1914-1918. Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1936, p. IX.
10. ↑ Marie-Elisabeth Lüders: Do not be afraid: Personal and political issues from more than 80 years . Westdeutscher Verlag, Cologne and Opladen 1963, p. 139.
11. ↑ Marie-Elisabeth Lüders: Do not be afraid: Personal and political issues from more than 80 years . Westdeutscher Verlag, Cologne and Opladen 1963, p. 139.
12. ↑ Marie-Elisabeth Lüders: Do not be afraid: Personal and political issues from more than 80 years . Westdeutscher Verlag, Cologne and Opladen 1963, p. 140.
13. ^ Marie Elisabeth Lüders. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG ).
14. ^ Marie Elisabeth Lüders. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG ).
15. ↑ Marie-Elisabeth Lüders: Do not be afraid: Personal and political issues from more than 80 years . Westdeutscher Verlag, Cologne and Opladen 1963, p. 209.
16. ↑ German Bundestag, ReferatWD 1 (ed.): The Federal meetings from 1949 to 2010: A documentary on the occasion of the election of the President 18 March 2012 . ( Memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Berlin, March 15, 2012, ISBN 978-3-930341-84-9 , p. 127 (pdf; 5 MB).
17. ^ Thomas Mergel : Parliamentary culture in the Weimar Republic. Political communication, symbolic politics and the public in the Reichstag (= contributions to the history of parliamentarism and political parties , 135). Droste, Düsseldorf 2002, p. 126.
18. ^ Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Strasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert ).
19. ^ Marie-Elisabeth Lüders Science Prize. Deutscher Juristinnenbund eV, accessed on January 4, 2019 . 
20. ^ Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Strasse in the Bonn street cadastre.