Paula Thiede

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Paula Thiede (1906)
Paula Thiede, portrait panel by Erika Klagge

Paula Thiede (born January 6, 1870 in Berlin as Pauline Philippine Auguste Berlin , † March 3, 1919 ibid) was a German trade unionist . She was the first woman to lead a full-time union across the Reich.

Life

Thiede grew up around today's Kreuzberg Mehringplatz . The working-class family - their father was a carpenter from Preetz near Kiel , the mother came from Woldenberg in Brandenburg at the time - lived on the southern edge of Berlin's up-and-coming newspaper district .

Professional development

At the age of about 14 she started as a sheet feeder in a book printer (she put the paper sheets into the high-speed press ). Despite considerable advantages over other activities and the responsible task in the production process, the lot of an investor in book printing was difficult. As a rule, if a girl was put on the machine at the age of 16 and worked on it for six years, then she was usually sick from the toxins and metals used. She also drew combative consequences from her personal blows of fate. Within a year she had lost her job, her husband and her second child and had been forced by the circumstances to pay the rent as a dry dweller with her health and that of her children in a part of the city that was far away and unknown to her .

Formation of the union

Due to the direct experience of the social and economic hardship of the unskilled workers there, in March 1890 she took part in the founding of the “Association of Workers in Book and Stone Printing Schnellpressen” , the first central association in the history of the trade union and one of the first trade union women's organizations. The merger was triggered by the untenable conditions in the employment agency, which at that time was organized by private agents on behalf of the companies.

Fight for the nine hour day

In 1891 - at that time only 21 years old - she moved back to Kreuzberg and started working on the express press again. She immediately got caught in one of the biggest strikes the German Empire had seen so far: from October 1891, the printers waged a hopeful fight for the nine-hour day. On November 14th, 12,000 printers were on strike - and with them thousands of printing assistant workers. However, the authorities confiscated the union's own relief funds and the strike in January 1892 was lost despite broad solidarity. The association of women workers on high-speed printing presses collapsed. The new beginning also became a new beginning for Paula Thiede. In 1894 she became chairwoman of the Berlin unskilled workers. The next great printing strike (1896) was a great success. A union evaluation ends with the succinct statement: "The strike was an aggression strike and fell out in favor of the workers". From then on, the nine-hour day applied in the printing works, also for the unskilled workers.

Union chairmen

Anniversary edition of the members' magazine "Solidarity" from April 10, 1915

She was also significantly involved in the unification of this women's workers ' organization into the cross-gender "Association of Book and Stone Printing Aid Workers in Germany" in 1898 with 1,279 members. In 1914 the association had more than ten times as many, namely 15,759 members, 8,438 of whom were women.

Paula Thiede started out as editor of the membership magazine “Solidarity”. The “Solidarity” had four pages and was published every fortnight. Only weekly from 1908. On March 4, 1892 she was elected to the board for the first time and from the merger on June 1, 1898 (with an interruption in 1901/02) until her death, she was the first chairman of the association, from 1902 full-time. In 1892 and 1896 the association took part in strikes. In this role, it is thanks to her that in 1906 it was possible for the first time to conclude central collective bargaining agreements for the unskilled workers in the printing works. The association's cash position was precarious and Paula Thiede repeatedly had to mediate in the dispute over the amount of contributions and the expenses for the union.

The unionization of women was rejected by many men at the time because they saw in them competition. Women therefore initially had to organize themselves in separate associations. The fact that a woman became the chairperson initially met with little approval, but the resistance was defeated by the successes achieved by Thiede.

For Paula Thiede, the international socialist women's conferences in Stuttgart (1907) and Copenhagen (1910) were further highlights of her political work. In Copenhagen, the motion of the German delegation (with Paula Thiede, Clara Zetkin and others) for an International Women's Day to “win universal suffrage ” was accepted.

Paula Thiede died of a serious illness. The “Solidarity” acknowledged her achievement in the obituary with the words: The association “was her creation, and its present form and strength was the deceased's life's work!” “Despite some hostility that all pioneers of workers' emancipation have experienced, it has To be able to take certainty to the grave that their work in the service of the labor movement has not only been successful, but has also received recognition and even admiration from friends and opponents. "

Honors

Private

Thiede was married twice. From her first marriage to typesetter Richard Fehlberg, she had a daughter and a son who died early. After the death of her first husband, she married Wilhelm Thiede in 1895.

Noteworthy are the two husbands who accepted their union work. In the patriarchal Prussian Empire, this was certainly the exception.

tomb

Tomb for Paula Thiede, Friedrichsfelde central cemetery

She was buried in the central cemetery in Berlin-Friedrichsfelde . The grave inscription reads: "Your leader - the graphic unskilled workers in Germany". The cemetery is also generally known as the “ socialist cemetery ” because, until 1933, many social democrats and trade unionists were buried here. A move to the special area “Memorial of the Socialists” from 1951 near the cemetery entrance did not take place because the descendants of Paula Thiede did not agree to a request of the SED . The original bronze relief by Paula Thiede in her grave slab based on a photograph was replaced by a glass plate engraved by the Berlin artist Erika Klagge after the photo was stolen. It was inaugurated on March 6, 2007.

Fonts (selection)

  • Establishment and organization of the social democratic women's conference . Socialist monthly books 15 = 17 (1911), vol. 18/20, pp. 1248–1250. Digitized
  • The professional training of the worker . Socialist monthly books 20 (1914), H. 12/13, pp. 824–828. Digitized
  • Employment, remuneration and organization of women . Socialist monthly books 23 (1917), no. 7, pp. 256–366. Digitized
  • Passive resistance in collective bargaining trades , in: Correspondence sheet of the General Commission of the German Trade Unions , 19th year, no. 52 (December 25th, 1909) pp. 815f.
  • The value of women's participation in the organization , in: Trade Union Women's Newspaper, 1st year, issue 1 (January 5, 1916), pp. 5-6.

See also

literature

  • Helga Zoller: The Association of Graphic Workers . In: Helga Zoller, Dieter Schuster: Yesterday and today become tomorrow . Ed .: Industriegewerkschaft Medien - Printing and Paper, Journalism and Art, on the occasion of its 125th anniversary, Stuttgart 1992, p. 103ff.
  • Claudia von Gélieu : The history of the women's movement in East Berlin , Berlin 1991, p. 64f.
  • Paula Thiede (obituary). In: trade union women's newspaper , No. 5, 1919. Reprinted in: Gisela Losseff-Tillmanns: Women and trade union . Frankfurt am Main 1982, pp. 267f.
  • Gisela Losseff-Tillmanns: Paula Thiede 1870-1919. In: From the printing association to the unified union. 150 years of verdi. Berlin 2016, pp. 54–57.
  • Uwe Fuhrmann: Frau Berlin - Paula Thiede (1870-1919) - From working-class child to union chairman , Konstanz 2019, ISBN 978-3-86764-905-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Uwe Fuhrmann: The controversial life of Paula Thiede 1870-1919, in ver.di - Publik No. 2-2019, supplement pp. 4–5.
  2. ↑ Uwe Fuhrmann: "Frau Berlin" - Paula Thiede (1870 - 1919) From working-class child to union chairman, Konstanz 2019, p. 30
  3. ↑ Uwe Fuhrmann: "Frau Berlin" - Paula Thiede (1870 - 1919) From working-class child to union chairman, Konstanz 2019, p. 41
  4. ↑ Uwe Fuhrmann: "Frau Berlin" - Paula Thiede (1870 - 1919) From working-class child to union chairman, Konstanz 2019, p. 47.
  5. ↑ Uwe Fuhrmann: Swords instead of jewelry - The unionist Paula Thiede was born on January 6th 150 years ago , Neues Deutschland, 4th / 5th. January 2020, p. 18, accessed January 8, 2020
  6. ↑ Uwe Fuhrmann: "Frau Berlin" - Paula Thiede (1870-1919) From working-class child to union chairman, Konstanz 2019, p. 132.
  7. ↑ Uwe Fuhrmann: The quarrelsome life of Paula Thiede 1870-1919 , in ver.di-Publik , No. 2-2019, supplement pp. 4–5
  8. ↑ quoted from Edition Luisenstadt, Street Name Lexicon 2005
  9. ↑ quoted from: website “Förderkreis Memorial Site of the German Labor Movement Berlin-Friedrichsfelde e. V. “ Sozialistenfriedhof.de
  10. ^ Paula-Thiede-Ufer. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
  11. ↑ reported at ver.di
personal data
SURNAME Thiede, Paula
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German trade unionist and women's rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH March 3, 1919
Place of death Berlin