Rosa Kempf
.jpg)
Rosa Kempf (born February 8, 1874 in Birnbach ; † February 3, 1948 in Wixhausen ) was a German teacher, social politician, women's rights activist, and a pioneer in welfare work.
Live and act
Young years
She was the third and youngest child of the medical doctor Jakob Kempf and his wife Emma, geb. Falciola.
After elementary school, she completed an education as a primary school teacher in Munich at the “Royal District Teacher Training Institute” there. At the time, the route through this training institution was the only way for women to gain education and social prestige, as long as the universities were closed to them. After her exams, Kempf worked for many years as a teacher in Lower Bavarian villages, from 1900 in Munich.
In the Bavarian royal seat, Rosa Kempf made up her degree as an external student and studied from 1905 a. a. Philosophy and Political Science at the University of Munich. During her studies she was actively involved in the “Association of Studying Women” as well as in the student “Social Science Association”. At the same time she maintained contacts with the “Institute for Social Work” and supported the planned establishment of a “Pedagogical-Psychological Institute” in Munich. She wrote about the purpose and aim of the planned facility:
- This new institute is intended to serve the educational-psychological training of the teaching staff and scientific work in the entire field of pedagogy, as well as providing the teachers who are on leave for university studies and other interested parties a work opportunity in addition to the university lectures. A connection between this institute and an experimental or training school is also essential. Finally, the expansion of this new facility in the direction of a public academy for pedagogy and its auxiliary sciences is sought .
She also supported Julie Kerschensteiner , who founded a secondary school for girls in Munich-Schwabing in 1905.
Promotion and social engagement
Rosa Kempf completed her studies in 1911 with a doctorate, which was supervised by Lujo Brentano , one of the so-called "Kathedersozialisten". The topic of her dissertation was: “The life of young factory girls in Munich. The social and economic situation of your family, your professional life and your personal circumstances. According to statistical surveys, shown on the position of 270 factory workers aged 14 to 18 ”. This scientific study was part of the research project “Selection and Adaptation of German Workers” of the “Association for Social Policy”. The doctoral thesis, an early work of empirical social research, was not received positively by the bourgeois women's movement. In this regard, Charlotte Engel-Reimers stated in the then renowned women's magazine “Die Frau” that the author was “too much a women's rights activist, too little objective scientist”:
- Miss Dr. Kempf is too much a women's rights activist, too little an objective scientist .
In contrast, her doctoral supervisor judged that the dissertation was “scientifically and authoritatively equally excellent” and that the author had “a healthy, warm, sensitive heart and at the same time a sober practical mind”. In her dissertation, Kempf showed, who herself worked for a week in a wood and a week in a textile factory for her scientific work. a. the prevailing prejudices of male colleagues against their female employees, which they do not accept as equal and socially equal colleagues, furthermore the preference for men in working life:
- A small example of this: the men working in the factories almost always speak of the female workers as 'women', while women and girls speak of their work colleagues as 'men'. The men alone are professionally educated, they alone become foremen and masters, hold the most important posts, distribute the work to the women and control them; Men alone earn wages so high that they can earn a living .
Towards the end of her academic work, she writes that the two main demands of the rising workforce for an increase in wages and a reduction in working hours for women should first be: first a sharp increase in wages, then a reduction in working hours. Her justification:
- Because even a young girl's work now consists of a domestic and a professional part; If the working hours in the company are now reduced without a simultaneous wage increase, the female worker is far from gaining time for rest and strengthening like her male employee, which then translates into greater professional performance and the reduction of working hours appears in the interests of a high-quality modern company leaves. Rather, if there has not been a significant wage increase, the reduced working hours will lead to the same amount of working hours being set up at home again, so that some of the things that the woman had to get up to now for money will now be done by herself again, the old ones Forms of domestic economic management are increasingly taking hold. The woman's professional activity then does not proceed forwards, but rather backwards; industry gains nothing, but the family remains at the same level of limited resources, because what the woman creates in economic goods at home must be lost to her in wages .
From 1914 onwards, Kempf, who had previously worked as a research assistant at the Frankfurt Institute for the Common Good , was in charge of the newly founded “Women's Seminar for Social Work” in Frankfurt / Main. This was brought into being in 1913 by the “Association of Women's Seminar for Social Professional Work” (founded on January 30, 1913) under its 1st chairman, the then Frankfurt Mayor Hermann Luppe . Under Kempf's leadership, the training facility advanced to “one of the most recognized social women's schools in Germany in a very short time”. The seminar, which went into operation on January 1, 1914, trained young girls and women "for voluntary and paid professional work" according to the school brochure, whereby Kempf, in contrast to other similar schools, preferred paid social professional work. With this view she stood, for example, contrary to that of Alice Salomon , who more favored voluntary social work. In this regard, Kempf countered:
- "We want to emphasize the inner suitability of the personality much more strongly here and this inner suitability is not mainly characterized by the fact that the working people are satisfied with lower salaries".
The Frankfurt educational institution was supported by the Association for Municipal Welfare and laid the foundation for today's Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, now the University of Applied Sciences. On January 24, 1917, Kempf took part in the “First Conference of the Heads of All Social Women's Schools in Germany”, which took place in Berlin at the Social Women's School. As the secretary of the conference noted, at the suggestion of “Dr. Kempf further recommended that the school management should draw up and sign the employment contract for the initial position of their students themselves. ”In 1917, Kempf's long-time friend, the doctorate academic teacher (German, history, geography) Berta Sachs , at that time senior teacher in Nuremberg and how Kempf is involved in the "Bavarian Teachers' Association", the head of the social women's school. Sachs was responsible for the social training facility until 1932.
In addition to her work as the school director, Kempf was involved in the "Association of Frankfurter Frauenvereine", a local branch of the "General German Women's Association". Together with Jenny Apolant , Rose von Mangoldt , Johanna Tesch , Meta Quarck-Hammerschlag , the social worker Else Wüst and Ministerialrat Hans Maier , to name just a few, she fought for socio-political issues of all directions at the municipal level. Kempf vigorously campaigned for the opening of professional opportunities for women who do not only want to focus on activities in the social and cultural field:
- Diversity of training as well as the possibilities of action ... It is important to say this in our time, in which the tendency towards uniforming women in the ranks of the women's movement itself overgrows, in which, as at the beginning of the women's movement, a uniformed education focused on housewife of all social classes should be supplemented by an equally uniformed social education of the educated women, because the civic tasks of the social auxiliary management are mistakenly equated .
Subsequently, in 1917, she switched to the "Social Academy for Women" in Düsseldorf as director of studies, which she built up together with the pediatrician and social hygienist Arthur Schloßmann . Kempf was the director of the women's academy only for a short time, as there were insurmountable difficulties, especially with Arthur Schloßmann, whom she no longer wanted to be “nagged” by.
During the First World War , she fought resolutely against the introduction of “female compulsory service”, “ because the war was no reason for her to abandon her demands on women’s policy. In addition, she did not share the conviction ... that the granting of women's rights must first be preceded by the fulfillment of duties "
In 1923 she moved back to Frankfurt / Main and taught again as a part-time lecturer at her former welfare school a. a. Social and Economic Policy and Citizenship. At the time, important women and men in welfare work such as Christian Jasper Klumker , Wilhelm Polligkeit , the psychologist Elisabeth Schmitt, the pediatrician and city doctor Charlotte Landé , Marie Bernays , Ella Schwarz and Hermine Albers lectured there (full-time, part-time) .
In addition to her professional activity, Kempf was involved in several bodies, committees, associations, parties, etc. She was z. B. Member of the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine , where from 1928 to 1933 she was chairwoman of the committee for nationality work. In this regard, she had lively correspondence with the Reichstag deputy Hermann Dietrich , at the time Reich Minister of Food, especially since she dealt with questions of the “physiology of nutrition” or “the position of women in agriculture”. She was active in the Bavarian Teachers' Association, where Helene Sumper and Bertha Kipfmüller were among her colleagues. Kempf was also a member of the Munich Association for Women's Interests . In this regard, she was in close contact with Luise Kiesselbach . After all, she was a member of the German Association for Public and Private Welfare . From 1917 she was a member of the Conference of Social Women's Schools and from 1929 to 1930 chairwoman of the Prussian curriculum conference for social professions. She was also an active member of the “General German Women's Association”. As such, she criticized the great women of the bourgeois women's movement such as Marianne Weber and, above all, her “ideological opponent within the German women's movement” Gertrud Bäumer , whose ideas about the connection between female employment and family she did not share. In this regard, she accused the two women of “inconsistency” and “half measures”. With the latter, Kempf had a tough discussion about the establishment of a training facility in Hamburg - “Social Women's School and Social Pedagogical Institute” - which was briefly led by Gertrud Bäumer in collaboration with Marie Baum . Kempf assumed the leading representative of the bourgeois women's movement as "the motive for founding a new educational institution 'the preference for [the] creation of her own educational institution'"
Kempf gave countless lectures and presentations all over Germany a. a. on invitations from the professional associations for welfare care at the time and some social training centers (in Mannheim, Berlin, Hanover, Munich, Thale am Harz etc.). For example, in October 1924 in Thale am Harz, at the instigation of the Ministry for People's Welfare , she spoke to leaders of social women's schools on the subject of the unification of teaching staff . And at the 14th General Assembly of the Federation of German Women's Associations (October 5th - 7th, 1925) in Dresden, she gave a highly acclaimed lecture about the lifestyle of working women . At the end of April 1914, at the 2nd General Assembly of the “Association for Craft and Technical Training of Women” in the town hall of Charlottenburg, she gave a lecture on “The interest of industry in the female working world” for a furore and hard disputes within the bourgeois women's movement. In this Kempf criticized the bourgeois family ideology and supported the concern of women to work despite having children. But in order to ensure a good upbringing of children, “ the people as a whole must endeavor not to let the work of women sink to the more humiliating and stupid activities, and where, as with us in Germany, it has partly sunk to lift it up again instead of trying in vain to contain it. The best maternity protection for those sections of the population who are dependent on work is an increase in the employment of women "
Political commitment
After leaving Düsseldorf, Kempf returned to Munich. There she got involved in the "Main Association of Bavarian Women's Associations". She welcomed the revolution and was immediately appointed to the "Provisional National Council" by Kurt Eisner's government, alongside Anita Augspurg , Aloisia Eberle , Hedwig Kämper , Luise Kiesselbach , Emilie Mauerer , Helene Sumper and Marie Sturm . On December 18, 1918, she was the first woman to speak in the plenum of the Bavarian State Parliament about the historical significance of the introduction of women's suffrage. Kempf demanded u. a. the right of women to active and passive voting rights:
- The fight against brutality is first and foremost important to us women. We fight for women's suffrage because we fight brutality everywhere. There is no greater brutality than the subjugation of the mind to the fist, the subjugation of the mind to physical violence. For centuries women have had to experience this brutalization painfully, not only in public, but also in private life, and if they now hope for something from the revolution, it is the victory of the spirit over brutality, then we are free .
In her speech she criticized and demanded:
- If we look around this room, you will look in vain for the equal participation of women. Where does the peasant council have its peasant women? But the farm cannot be run without a farmer's wife ... Where do the workers have their workers? During the war the women workers were in the factory and in all other factories ... We so-called bourgeois women are still most strongly represented ... So if the councils are really to remain the foundation of a new political organization, then women must also be there such a council organization was created and it must be given functions and rights .
Kempf did not unconditionally support the demand for general elections to a national assembly, but instead pleaded for the council system to be accepted for a longer period, since, as she said, most female voters were not yet ready for uninfluenced voting.
As a member of the "German Democratic Party", which she joined in 1919, she was then a member of the first ordinary state parliament of the Free State of Bavaria. Her first “parliamentary fight” was to remove the nonsensical regulations that prevented training as a fully qualified lawyer.
In June 1920, Kempf was no longer elected to the state parliament.
From the beginning, Kempf was one of the staunch opponents of the burgeoning National Socialism. When Adolf Hitler spoke on April 20, 1923 in the main building of the Krone Circus in Munich, she came specially for this event. As usual, Kempf made written notes during the lecture. This displeased some members of the NSDAP storm troop (including Heinrich Bennecke , Wilhelm Brückner and Christian Weber ) and forced Kempf to hand over the shorthand material using a body search. In court, the contentious woman justified her motives for vigorously resisting the release of her notes, namely out of “citizenship”. From then on, Kempf was on the "black list" of the NSDAP . For the Reichstag election on March 5, 1933, she ran in the constituency of Hessen-Nassau, u. a. alongside Theodor Heuss , for the German State Party (DStP). Immediately after taking power , she was stripped of all her offices. At her ugly discharge, u. a. Study director Hedwig Förster , who was canceled as head of the female training and education system in the NSLB as assistant for girls' education in the "Prussian Ministry for Science, Art and Popular Education". From then on, Kempf lived completely withdrawn, cut off from any journalistic or political work. To make matters worse, her mental confusion increased.
As a women's rights activist, Kempf campaigned for women's suffrage very early on, with the support of Anita Augspurg and Lida Gustava Heymann . She was a member of the Munich branch of the Bavarian German Association for Women's Suffrage . In 1913 she was elected to the board of the Association for Women's Suffrage and three years later to the board of the German Reich Association for Women's Suffrage. Her deepest conviction was that "the state of the world would improve and male politics would become more social, more humane and more peaceful if women were allowed to participate, govern and participate in decision-making".
Honors
- 2017: In the Freiham district of Munich, which is currently under construction, a street was named after her
Fonts (selection)
- The life of the young factory girls in Munich. Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1911. (New edition: Topos-Verlag, Vaduz 1991, ISBN 3-289-00533-X )
- The lower class city girl. In: German Center for Youth Care (Hrsg.): Handbook for Youth Care. Langensalza 1913, DNB 58090444X , pp. 26-34.
- The interest of industry in training the female workforce. Hautzsch near Leipzig 1914.
- Vocational training for socially working women. In: Documents of Progress. 1914, pp. 353-356.
- Training of teachers for social women's vocational schools. In: The woman. 1915/16, pp. 468-475.
- Women in local government. In: The Citizen. 1918 / H. 8, pp. 120-123.
- To the Mannheim Bundestag. In: The woman. 1923/24, pp. 270-272.
- Mass hardship and welfare work. In: Social professional work. 1925 / H. 5/6, pp. 1-2.
- The unification of the teaching staff. In: Prussian Ministry for People's Care (Hrsg.): Basic questions about the design of the state-recognized welfare schools. Berlin 1926, pp. 56-62.
- The welfare worker and the internal structure. In: The woman. 1925/26, pp. 19-25.
- The position of women in German agriculture. In: A. Schmidt-Beil (Ed.): The culture of women. A life symphony of the XX. Century. Berlin-Frohnau 1931, pp. 98-119.
- The German woman according to the population, occupation and company census of 1925. Mannheim / Berlin / Leipzig 1931, DNB 574283498 .
literature
- Manfred Berger : Who was ... Rosa Kempf? In: social magazine. 3/2000, pp. 6-8.
- Manfred Berger : Alice Salomon. Pioneer of social work and women's movement, Frankfurt / Main 2011
- Lore Conzelmann: The pedagogical ideas in the writings of the Verein für Socialpolitik. An investigation into the history of business education. Frankfurt am Main 1962, DNB 481898263 . (Dissertation)
- Theodora Fink: Rosa Kempf (1874–1948) - a forgotten pioneer of social work. A historical foundation for social work in Germany. Frankfurt am Main 1994.
- Marion Keller: Pioneers of empirical social research in the Wilhelminian Empire , Stuttgart: Franz Steiner 2018, ISBN 9783515119856 , pp. 238–284.
- Peter Reinicke : Kempf, Rosa , in: Hugo Maier (Ed.): Who is who of social work . Freiburg: Lambertus, 1998 ISBN 3-7841-1036-3 , p. 294f.
- Marita A. Panzer, Elisabeth Plößl: Bavarias daughters. Portraits of women from five centuries. Pustet, Regensburg 1997, ISBN 3-7917-1564-X , pp. 141-144.
- Elke Reining: Rosa Kempf (1874–1948). The fight for women's rights. In: Journal for Bavarian State History. 2001, pp. 149-164.
- Thomas Schroedter: Youth as a privilege and discrimination, Weinheim / Basel 2017, pp. 119–122.
- Irmgard Weyrather: The woman on the assembly line. The picture of the factory worker in social research 1870–1985. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-593-37254-1 .
- Corina Mengden: The “women's seminar for social professional work” in Frankfurt / Main. Research into a little-known but important training center for welfare work. A contribution to the historiography of social work / education in Germany. Munich 2004.
- Karin Sommer: ... seek equal participation for women. Rosa Kempf (1874–1948) - The victory of ghosts over brutality, in: House of Bavarian History (ed.): Rebellen - Visonäre - Demokrats, Augsburg 2013, pp. 104–106
- The Faculty of Social Work and Health at the Frankfurt am Main University of Applied Sciences (ed.): Why only women? . 100 years of training for social professions, Frankfurt 2014, pp. 109–157
- Adelheid Schmidt-Thomé: Social to Radical. Portrait of political Munich women. Munich 2018, pp. 163–169
Web links
- House of Bavarian History: Rosa Kempf (with picture)
- Bad Birnbach.de: Digitized version of Rosa Kempf
- http://www.karinsommer.de/werke/p_rosakempf.php
- https://www.ovb-online.de/bayern/frau-kempf-mischt-sich-3291665.html
- http://frankfurter-habenlexikon.de/node/9936
Individual evidence
- ↑ cit. n. Fink 1994, p. 30.
- ↑ cit. n. Fink 1994, p. 42.
- ↑ ibid.
- ↑ Kempf 1911, p. 93.
- ↑ Kempf 1911, p. 197.
- ↑ Mengden 2004, p. 35.
- ↑ cit. n. Mengden 2004, p. 56
- ↑ cf. Berger 2011, p. 57 ff.
- ↑ cf. Mengden 2004.
- ↑ cf. Mengden 2004.
- ↑ Kempf 1916, p. 120.
- ↑ Reining 2001, p. 153.
- ↑ cf. Mengden 2004, p. 12 ff.
- ↑ cf. Fink 1994, p. 18 f
- ↑ Fink 1994, p. 160.
- ↑ cf. Fink, p. 167 ff.
- ↑ Fink 1994, p. 162.
- ↑ In her diploma thesis, Corina Mengden listed well over 100 lectures / presentations
- ↑ Kempf 1914, p. 8.
- ↑ https://www.ovb-online.de/bayern/frau-kempf-mischt-sich-3291665.html
- ↑ cit. n. Mengden 2004, Appendix, p. XX
- ↑ ibid.
- ↑ cf. Fink 1994, p. 67.
- ↑ cf. Mengden 2004, p. 118
- ↑ cf. Mengden 2004, p. 117 ff.
- ↑ Mengden 2004, p. 178.
- ↑ https://stadtgeschichte-muenchen.de/strassen/d_strasse.php?strasse=Rosa-Kempf-Stra%C3%9Fe .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kempf, Rosa |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German teacher, social politician, women's rights activist, pioneer in welfare work |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 8, 1874 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Birnbach |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 3, 1948 |
| Place of death | Wixhausen |