Minna Cauer

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Minna Cauer
Cauer and her companions of the Association for Women's Suffrage , from left to right: Anita Augspurg , Marie Stritt , Lily von Gizycki , Minna Cauer and Sophia Goudstikker , Atelier Elvira around 1896
Memorial plaque on the house at Mansteinstrasse 8 in Berlin-Schöneberg

Wilhelmine "Minna" Theodore Marie Cauer , b. Schelle (born November 1, 1841 in Freyenstein , † August 3, 1922 in Berlin ) was a German educator , activist in the so-called “radical” wing of the bourgeois women's movement and journalist.

Life

Minna Cauer was born as the daughter of pastor Alexander Schelle and his wife Juliane (née Wolfschmidt). In 1862 she married the doctor August Latzel. The couple had one son who died of diphtheria in 1865 at the age of two; August Latzel also died a year later. Minna Latzel then undertook a one-year training course as a teacher and worked in Paris in 1868 .

In 1869 she married the city school councilor Eduard Cauer , with whom she lived in Berlin . With her husband, she became active in progressive politics in the 1870s and 1880s. She devoted herself woman historical studies about in several articles about famous female figures as Rahel Varnhagen resulted. After the death of her husband in 1881, she devoted herself entirely to the women's movement. In 1887 she was still working under the leadership of the teacher Helene Lange (with whom she would later quarrel) on a petition to the Prussian House of Representatives for a better education for girls ( yellow brochure ); In 1888 she was a co-founder of the Berliner Verein Frauenwohl , which she headed until 1919.

Cauer was a vehement campaigner for women's suffrage , the support of single mothers and the free choice of career for women. From 1892 it also belonged to the German Peace Society , which had been founded by Bertha von Suttner . Around 1899 there was a falling out with other leading women’s rights activists, which primarily attached itself to different attitudes to the so-called “moral question” ( prostitution and the fight against the spread of venereal diseases). As a result, the Frauenwohl association split off under Cauer's leadership as a so-called “radical” wing from the majority in the women's movement, which was henceforth designated as “moderate”. The “radicals” then organized themselves in the newly founded Association of Progressive Women's Associations , while the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine represented the majority women's movement .

As early as 1895, Minna Cauer had founded the newspaper Die Frauenbewegung , which she published until 1919. For Cauer, the magazine, which she said she wanted to keep open to all directions and aspects of the women's movement, became a life's work. After the rift in 1899, the women's movement became the mouthpiece of the “radicals”, not only because it was an organ of some of the associations organized in the Association of Progressive Women's Associations, but above all because of its employees who belonged to the “radical” wing of the women's movement (Cauer himself , Hedwig Dohm , until 1900 Anna Pappritz , Anita Augspurg , Lida Gustava Heymann ). Anita Augspurg edited a regular supplement from 1899. Cauer's journalistic approach in countless editorials was to place a topic that was considered relevant to women in contemporary discourse in a societal context or, conversely, to update political or cultural topics as being particularly relevant for women; preferably it was the political significance that the left-liberal Cauer particularly worked out.

In 1908 she joined the newly founded Democratic Association , which was the first civil party in Germany to demand unrestricted voting rights for women. In the last years of her life, however, she no longer believed that the bourgeois parties had the courage to move forward, and turned her hopes on the Social Democratic Party of Germany .

Cauer was also interested in working women and was the founder of the association of female employees .

Grave of Minna Cauer in the old St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof Berlin
Grave Minna Cauer, photomontage: former tombstone figure by Kurt Kroner

Cauer was born in the old St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof in Berlin-Schöneberg Großgörschenstr. 12 buried (burial site Qo-47). Her grave has been dedicated to the city of Berlin as an honor grave since 1952 . In 2006 one of the newly laid streets north of Berlin Central Station was named after her.

Honors

Quote

"We end tragically and suffer martyrdom if we want to bring the future into the present too early."

“There are higher and world-shattering things than the victory of the sword - the victory of spirit, justice and freedom. And I still firmly believe in this ultimate victory today. "

Bibliography (selection)

  • The Woman in the United States of North America, 1893
  • The woman in the nineteenth century, 1898
  • The progressive women's movement: for the 25th anniversary of the Frauenwohl Groß-Berlin association, 1913. Digitized by: Central and State Library Berlin, 2013. URN urn: nbn: de: kobv: 109-1-13925372

literature

Web links

Commons : Minna Cauer  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Else Lüders: Minna Cauer: Life and Work . Perthes, Gotha / Stuttgart 1925, p. 12
  2. ↑ The sharp separation into a “radical” and a “moderate” wing, which has long been assumed to be given, is increasingly being questioned in recent research, since in practice positions on individual topics often overlap. It is true, however, that there were two wings that preferred different approaches: while the “radicals” worked more programmatically and propagandistically, the “moderates” tended to be more pragmatic and were more willing to compromise for practical improvements. See Bock, Gisela : Frauenwahlrecht - Germany around 1900 in a comparative perspective , in: History and Emancipation. Festschrift for Reinhard Rürup, ed. v. Michael Grüttner u. a., Frankfurt a. M. and New York 1999, pp. 95-136.
  3. ↑ Nikola Müller: Hedwig Dohm (1831-1919), an annotated bibliography . trafo Verlag, Berlin 2000. p. 30.
  4. ↑ a b Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures . Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 100.
personal data
SURNAME Cauer, Minna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cauer, Wilhelmine Minna Theodore Marie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German educator and women's rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1841
PLACE OF BIRTH Freyenstein
DATE OF DEATH August 3, 1922
Place of death Berlin