Meta Schmidt

Meta Elisabeth Schmidt (born July 24, 1878 in Bremen ; † January 29, 1941 there ) was a German educator, cabaret artist and women's rights activist .

biography

Schmidt was the daughter of the engraver Andreas Friedrich Schmidt (1851–1932) and Marie Catherine Schmidt, b. Kruger (1857-1932).

She completed the private secondary school for girls in Kippenberg and then the affiliated teachers' seminar. In 1897 she passed the teacher examination. One year in England and seven years in Argentina as a teacher and educator deepened her teaching and language skills. She then worked at elementary schools in Bremen and also gave evening courses in Spanish. She taught exclusively at boys' schools. She was a member of the Bremen teachers' association . In 1919 she was elected to the teachers' association. In the teachers 'association campaigned for girls' education, for equality for women, for recruitment of women into the public service and for salary and pension improvements.

Schmidt led a group of teachers who annually performed the cabaret pieces she had written in the Centralhallen on Düsternstrasse (now Falkenstrasse / Bomstrasse) in what was then Utbremen . The ballet master of the Bremen theater Fanny Bourgeau was the choreographer for the dance . After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, they were still able to prevent the first attacks by the SA . Since 1935/36, her artistic work has been more closely monitored and censored. In January 1941 the windows of her house were thrown in by the SA. She caught a cold and pneumonia and died as a result.

Works

• Seven geniuses are looking for an operetta composer
• Blue haze , 1933
• Schloß und Hütte , 1934, parody of the new racial laws and heredity
• An Olympiad , 1936, criticism of the ideology of motherhood propagated by the Nazis

Literature, sources

• Edith Laudowicz : Schmidt, Meta Elisabeth . In: Women's history (s) , Bremer Frauenmuseum (ed.). Edition Falkenberg, Bremen 2016, ISBN 978-3-95494-095-0 .
• Hannelore Cyrus: It was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful ; A female network of relationships and a reference system using the example of teachers from Bremen and their cabaret under the “director” Meta E. Schmidt . Bremen 1993 in: L'Homme. Volume 4, Issue 1, pages 57-73.