Mathilde Plate

Mathilde Anna Plate (born July 5, 1878 in Bremen ; † January 24, 1963 in Bremen) was a German educator, women's rights activist and politician ( DNVP , CDU ) in Bremen.

biography

education

Plate was the daughter of the teacher Friedrich Plate (1854–1938), later headmaster in Bremen - Walle , and Sophie Gesine Plate, b. Steinberg (1853-1938). She was one of the two sisters of the electricity construction director Ludwig Plate . She attended her father's school in Walle and then Johanne Kippenberg's secondary school for girls . As a gifted student with a strong literary inclination, she was allowed to complete the seminar classes at Kippenberg from 1895. She deepened her acting talents. In 1897/98 she passed the teacher examination and was entitled to teach at elementary and higher girls' schools.

Teacher and training

From 1898 she taught at A. H. Dreyer's girls' school in Bremen- Mitte . In 1902 she expanded her knowledge by taking language lessons in Paris . From 1904 to 1905 she taught at the Kippenberg School . She studied again as a guest student at the University of Göttingen, the University of Freiburg and then again in Göttingen . The historian Karl Brandi , who teaches in Göttingen , had a lasting influence on them. Her thesis, The Development of Commerce in Bremen, is unpublished .

The conservative and monarchist Plate was from 1909 senior teacher at the Kippenbergschule. It was not until 1913 that she moved from her parents' house to a single-family home in Findorff- Weidedamm. In 1916 she became a senior teacher at the newly founded municipal lyceum with a university at the Kleine Helle . After the founding director of the school, Landesschulrat Bohm, she took over this secondary school for girls in 1919 as head and high school director. The school was strongly influenced by her in the musical subjects and concerts and theater performances often took place.

Politics and profession

In 1919 she joined the right-wing German National People's Party (DNVP). In 1919/20 she was a member of the constituent Bremen National Assembly and thereafter until 1933 a member of the Bremen Citizenship . She advocated strengthening women's rights and solving social problems. She was a member of Ottilie Hoffmann's German women's association for alcohol-free culture , in which she worked until the 1950s. Until 1934 she was a member of the Kirchentag of the Bremen Evangelical Church .

As in the past, Plate was skeptical of the takeover of power and National Socialism . Her school was largely able to keep her out of the politicization. It stood for a conservative school education and for an elite-conscious offspring. The authority-conscious pedagogue was promoted to senior studies director in 1939 .

After the Second World War , she remained the school director until she retired in 1949. She actively helped rebuild the school. In the first post-war years she joined the CDU , but did not have a leading position in the party. In 1949 she ran in vain for the German Bundestag .

literature

• Hannelore Cyrus: Plate, Mathilde Anna . In: Frauen Geschichte (n) , Bremer Frauenmuseum (ed.). Edition Falkenberg, Bremen 2016, ISBN 978-3-95494-095-0 .
• Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . 2nd, updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .