Martha Ruben-Wolf

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Martha Ruben-Wolf (born June 17, 1887 in Löhne , † August 16, 1939 in Moscow ) was a German doctor and author.

Life

Martha Ruben was the daughter of the small business owner Max Ruben. After graduating from high school, she completed a medical degree in Berlin, which she completed in 1914. In 1915 she was promoted to Dr. med. PhD . During the First World War she worked in a hospital and after the end of the war she settled down as a gynecologist in Niederschöneweide . She was a suffragette and campaigned for working class women.

Together with her husband Lothar Wolf , she was an active member of the KPD . She was a co-founder of the Red Women's and Girls' Union (RFMB). In the 1920s and early 1930s she and her husband published a number of travelogues, including about the Soviet Union and Italy. In addition, Ruben-Wolf published books and essays on the subject of abortion, in which, in her opinion, the Soviet Union took an exemplary position. The brochure Abortion or Contraception? had a circulation of 150,000 copies in 1931. As a well-known communist, she ran as a candidate for the Prussian state elections in 1928 and for the Reichstag elections from 1930 to 1933.

In February 1933, Lothar Wolf and his family fled to Moscow via Lugano and Paris . There Ruben-Wolf was able to work as a doctor again, but lost her job and was disillusioned by the changed abortion law.

Her husband was arrested, sentenced and executed as a "Gestapo spy" in 1938. After a long search, Ruben-Wolf found a job as a nurse again, and a little later as a doctor again.

Martha Ruben-Wolf committed suicide in 1939. Her son Walter was drafted into the Labor Army and the Red Army during World War II and died in 1943. Her daughter Sonja Friedmann-Wolf returned to East Berlin in 1958 and in the same year migrated to Israel via West Berlin. She committed suicide in Tel Aviv in 1986.

A street in Berlin-Altglienicke has been named after Martha Ruben-Wolf since 1997 .

Fonts

  • with Lothar Wolf: Moscow sketches by two doctors. Berlin 1926.
  • with Lothar Wolf: Russian sketches by two doctors. Second trip to Russia in spring 1926. Berlin 1927.
  • with Lothar Wolf: German doctors in the Caucasus. Third trip to Russia in 1927. Berlin 1928.
  • Abortion or Contraception? With a foreword by Friedrich Wolf and an afterword by Alfred Apfel . Internationaler Arbeiter-Verlag, Berlin 1929. 6th edition 1931.
  • Guidelines on the Issue of Birth Control. The successes of the Soviet Russian population policy. Hamburg 1930.
  • with Lothar Wolf: In the free Asia. Travel sketches by two doctors. Berlin 1931.
  • with Lothar Wolf: Fascist country. Italian travel sketches. Spring 1931. Berlin 1932.

literature

  • Sonja Friedmann-Wolf : In the red ice. The fate of my family from 1933–1958. Berlin 2013
  • Hermann Weber , Andreas Herbst (ed.): German communists. Biographical Handbook 1918 to 1945 . 2., revised. and strong exp. Edition. Dietz, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-320-02130-6 ( online ).
  • Anja Schindler: Through the Brandenburg Gate with the International: Martha Ruben-Wolf (1887–1939). In: Ulla Plener (ed.): Living with hope in pain. The fate of women under Stalin. Frankfurt-Oder-Edition, Frankfurt (Oder) 1997 ISBN 3-930842-11-4
  • Birgit Schmidt: "You have to be ashamed of your eyes." Martha Ruben-Wolf died 80 years ago ... , Jungle, supplement to jungle world , 29, 18 July 2019, pp. 8 - 11 (with many photos) Text also online

Web links

credentials

  1. ↑ Birgit Schmidt: Sex reformer Martha Ruben-Wolf: "You have to be ashamed of your eyes". In: jungle.world. July 18, 2019, accessed July 19, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Ruben-Wolf, Martha
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor and author
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Wages
DATE OF DEATH August 16, 1939
Place of death Moscow