Marie Zehetmaier

Marie Zehetmaier (born August 28, 1881 in Bad Aibling ; † May 14, 1980 there ) was a German peace activist.

Origin and education

Marie Zehetmaier was born in the Hofmühle in Thürham near Bad Aibling in 1881 and spent many years in the small town until her death in 1980. She comes from a Catholic trucking family and grew up with six siblings; she did not found a family of her own. After she had attended the elementary school of the English Misses and the Higher School for Daughters in Wasserburg , among other things , she went to Greece in autumn 1899, where she worked as a teacher for six and a half years. In addition, she completed a private degree and learned Latin. After that, from March 1906, she prepared privately for the matriculation examination, which she successfully passed a year later. She then studied mathematics and physics in Munich and Jena , earned her money as a private teacher and passed the first teacher examination in 1911. Since 1914 she has been teaching at various higher girls' schools in Munich, including what later became the Luisengymnasium .

First World War

Marie Zehetmaier became involved in the peace movement early on. In a letter she wrote on October 24, 1914:

“Women of Europe, German women, how long can you hear this wailing cry that penetrates your soul from all battlefields? How long can you bear the awareness that everything that human ingenuity has devised is used with unprecedented brutality to destroy human life? How much longer will you find it to be taken for granted, as quite all right, that your brothers bleed to death outside for no reason, useless: because this war no longer makes sense! Go to the hospitals and let the few survivors tell you that this is no longer war, but slaughter. Remember that anything great prevailed over violence without success until violence had to give way. "

On April 29, 1915, the oldest brother died in World War I. Marie's older brother died in a bomb attack in a military hospital as a result of his injuries. Marie felt confirmed in her pacifism and called for actions against the war and moral decline. Horrified by the immoral killing, known as heroic death, she sent appeals against war and moral decay to “Her Majesty, the Queen of Bavaria”, chain letters “To the German women and women's associations” and protested against the restriction of her pacifist educational work, which she recognized as the only correct one.

Their activism was monitored by the War Department and punished with threats, house searches, subpoenas and repeated custody. Since Marie Zehetmaier was not impressed by such measures, in 1916 she was finally banned from any "pacifist activity". She was not confused by summons to the War Ministry, warnings and prohibitions on further distribution of her writings.

In 1917 a representative of the Ministry of Education inspected her teaching because the Ministry of War would have liked to remove her from teaching because of her pacifist efforts. As early as 1917, the War Ministry made the first application to remove Zehetmaier from teaching due to political efforts. She was finally accused of "war offenses" in 1917, but acquitted because of her "insanity" and from May 1917 was admitted to the insane asylum in Eglfing (now Haar) for the duration of the war.

Interwar period

After the First World War, she continued to work for peace: for this purpose she also worked with other women who resisted, such as Constanze Hallgarten . With the support of the "Munich Peace Cartel" and the Catholic Church, the women were able to put together an exhibition. In 1926 and 1927 she was heavily involved as the secretary of the "Munich Peace Cartel" in the idea, planning and design of the exhibition "Peace Movement and Peace Work in All Countries" in Munich. It was presented for the first time in the Asamaal on Sendlingerstrasse in Munich. The exhibition was particularly well received by the foreign press.

time of the nationalsocialism

Marie Zehetmaier left Germany in the early 1930s to emigrate again, first to Greece and then to France. It was there that she saw Adolf Hitler come to power . In 1934 Marie Zehetmaier returned to Germany from exile in France and was taken into protective custody several times . The fact that she was interned in the Gabersee sanatorium and nursing home for the duration of the war as an “incurable pacifist” (according to a chancellery note on her request for liberation of August 20, 1942) saved her, despite outraged petitions to the authorities and sharp protests against her capture probably life.

After the war, she resumed her work for her conviction under modest living conditions. In 1980 she died at the age of 99 in her hometown. She is buried in the family grave of the Zehetmaier and Leuprecht families in the cemetery in Bad Aibling.

Honors

In her hometown Bad Aibling, a street was named after Marie Zehetmaier.

Exhibitions

• Marie Zehetmaier - The first female pacifist from Aibling , 2003, Bad Aibling high school

Works

• Requiem: A warning to the women of the cultural nations from a mourner. 1916-1919 . Weinaug, Barsinghausen, 1919

literature

• Sybille Kraft: Between the fronts. Munich women in war and peace 1900-1950 . Buchendorfer Verlag, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-927984-37-X .
• Monika Meister: An incurable pacifist: the Catholic teacher Marie Zehetmaier (1881-1980) . In: Bavaria - Land und Menschen , Bayerischer Rundfunk, 1998
• Adelheid Schmidt-Thomé: Social to Radical. Portrait of political women from Munich . Allitera Verla, Munich 2018.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Monika Meister: An incurable pacifist: the Catholic teacher Marie Zehetmaier (1881-1980). In: Bavaria - Land und Menschen, Bayerischer Rundfunk, 1998
2. ↑ Sybille Krafft, Christina Böck: Between the Fronts: Munich Women in War and Peace, 1900-1950 . Buchendorfer Verlag, Munich, 1995, p. 34
3. ^ Marie Zehetmaier - The First Aiblinger Pacifist ", 2003, Bad Aibling High School