Olga Gebauer

Olga Gebauer, (born March 2, 1858 in Saint Petersburg , † May 1, 1922 in Berlin ) was a German midwife and a founder of the forerunner of the German Midwives Association .

Life

Memorial plaque on Schloßplatz, in Lutherstadt Wittenberg

Born as Bertha Malwina Mangelsdorf, daughter of a German engineer, she lost her father at an early age. The mother therefore moved back to Germany and was accepted by her relatives in Halle (Saale) . After her mother's death, she lived with her aunt in Berlin. In 1875 Olga Gebauer went to Leipzig to prepare for a teaching position. She moved to Dresden and passed her teaching exams there in February 1876. In August 1876 she took up a teaching post in Bechstedt , married on August 16, 1880 and moved to Drachenbrunn in the district of Breslau . For economic reasons, the family moved to Breslau , then to Berlin, where Olga Gebauer took up the profession of midwife.

Her concern was the organization of midwives and the struggle for recognition of their profession. Then she took up midwifery studies at the Wittenberg Midwifery School in October 1884. After graduating on March 27, 1885, she returned to Berlin, became a self-employed midwife and took over representation at the University Women's Clinic at the Charité . In October 1885 the Association of Berlin Midwives was founded, which by the end of the year already had 205 members. Gebauer was initially the secretary and on April 1, 1886, self-published the first midwifery newspaper. Midwives' associations were soon founded across Germany. Gebauer accompanied start-ups in Leipzig, Chemnitz, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Munich, Zurich etc.

On April 16, 1888, she took over a midwifery position at the University Women's Clinic in Berlin and, as senior midwife, headed the clinic's practical and sometimes theoretical midwifery classes. Gebauer, who was committed to the social, professional and economic development of midwives, helped the profession to gain social recognition. With her participation, the first German midwives' day was constituted in Berlin on September 22, 1890 , on August 25, 1892 she became chairwoman of the German Midwives Association, and took part in this function at the first international midwifery congress in Berlin. By 1917, 796 midwifery associations were organized in Germany with her participation.

After she resigned her chairmanship of the midwifery association in 1920, Olga Gebauer died of a heart condition.

A commemorative plaque was attached to the former educational institution in Wittenberg in memory of her.

literature

• J. Gebauer: Memories of Olga Gebauer, Osterwieck 1930