Sigrid Fronius

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Sigrid Fronius (born January 23, 1942 in Kronstadt , Romania ) is a German author , journalist and feminist . In 1968 she was the first female chairman of the General Student Committee (AStA) at the Free University of Berlin and became involved in South America during the political upheavals in the 1970s .

Life

Childhood and youth

Sigrid Fronius was born in 1942 in Kronstadt, Romania, the youngest of four sisters. Her father owned a factory. After World War II , Romania got a communist government and the former owner became the employed director of the same factory. Her mother was a housewife. In 1955 the family was allowed to leave Romania legally , despite the Iron Curtain . They moved to live with relatives in Austria . From 1957 Fronius lived near Stuttgart and graduated from high school in spring 1962.

Study and student movement

From autumn 1962 Fronius studied history and French at the Free University of Berlin. From 1963 she took part in working groups of the Argument Club , whose members included Wolfgang Fritz Haug , Wolfgang Lefevre and Jürgen Werth. They wrote articles on fascism and sexuality, read and discussed texts by Max Horkheimer and Hannah Arendt , reviewed books and published them in the journal Das Argument . In 1965, Fronius joined the Socialist German Student Union (SDS), ran for a seat in the student parliament, was elected and in 1966 was appointed university advisor to the AStA. Together with other women like Sigrun Anselm and Ursel Henning, she was an important part of university policy. She provided information on issues such as emergency legislation . In 1967 the student Benno Ohnesorg was shot dead by a police officer during the demonstration against the Shah of Persia. In order to counter the false reports of the press, the AStA supported the work of those students who dealt with media reporting. Study-oriented working groups were formed at the faculties, which - with the active participation of Fronius - led to the foundation of the Critical University . On May 9, 1968, Fronius was elected the first female AStA chairman at the Free University of Berlin with 32 out of 60 valid votes. During her term of office she led protests, such as B. the appointments of the rectorate. In October 1968 she resigned from her position in the AStA.

Union and politics

At the invitation of IG Metall und Chemie, Fronius gave lectures on the ideas, goals and forms of struggle of the student movement . In 1969 she worked at Robert Bosch GmbH and Siemens as a sample auditor. As part of a conference in the Harz, she wrote the Harz paper , which thematizes experiences that were gained while working in the factory. At the end of 1971 she and others founded the Proletarian Left / Party Initiative (PL / PI) . Over time, the men began to speak more and more of their claim to leadership, which ultimately prompted Fronius to separate from the group and go back to university. She continued her studies at the Pedagogical University because she wanted to teach at secondary schools. When there was no free trainee position after completing his studies , Fronius decided to go to the Third World .

Work in south america

In August 1973 Fronius traveled to Santiago de Chile , where she stayed in the house of a socialist and on September 11th witnessed the coup of General Augusto Pinochet against President Salvador Allende . With her eyewitness reports, which she sent to journalists in Germany, she supported the reporting there as well as those groups that helped Chilean refugees with their solidarity committees.

Fronius describes their solidarity as

“Deep feeling of indignation when I witness injustice and I feel an urge to stand by people who are freeing themselves from dependency and oppression. The aim of my engagement is a vision of creative people. I long for a society without violence, in which people respect each other and work together freely "

- Weitbrecht : Breach to the Third World. The internationalism of the student movement of 1968 in the Federal Republic of Germany

Three months after the coup, Fronius went to Argentina , where she lived in Buenos Aires and Córdoba for a year and a half . In Argentina - after the end of the military dictatorship - there was a democratic spirit of optimism. When the repression set in, numerous people were murdered or disappeared. Fronius supported Amnesty International by sending out lists of those who had been murdered and disappeared and forwarded refugees from Chile, Brazil and Uruguay to solidarity organizations in Europe. She conducted interviews, collected documents and processed the material on Peronism collected during this time into the book Not defeated and not yet victorious: Argentina and the development of the Peronist labor movement , which was published in 1977 by Rotbuchverlag Berlin.

Return to Berlin

After her return to Berlin in 1975, Fronius became involved in the women's movement . In 1976 she helped found the feminist women's magazine Courage , where she was co-editor and editorial staff until 1978. Then she taught at the adult education center on women's issues. In 1978 Fronius was involved in organizing a campaign to raise awareness of the Argentine military dictatorship. From 1979 to 1982 Fronius was Pedagogical Director at the German Development Service (DED). During this time she belonged to a group of women who wanted to found a rural commune and emigrate.

Life after 1983 in Bolivia

In autumn 1983 Fronius moved into a house in Coroico , Bolivia . Soon she was renting out small houses to guests, and from 1988 the alternative hotel Sol y Luna Eco-Lodge was established . She paid special attention to the maintenance of her subtropical garden. In 2000 she traveled to Berlin to present her soul garden at a garden conference .

Journalistic and literary work

  • Foreign workers in the company, an investigation into the work situation and awareness of Turkish workers in large Berlin companies: Project; preliminary report , Internat. Labor Migration Project / Internat. Inst. For comp. Social research., Berlin 1976
  • Not defeated and not yet victorious: Argentina and the development of the Peronist labor movement. Rotbuch Verlag, Berlin 1977. ISBN 3-88022-165-0
    • Dutch edition: Never lost, never won: Argentini ︠en de ontwikkeling van de Peronistische arbeidersbeweging , Het Wereldvenster, Baarn 1978, ISBN 90-293-9651-2

Articles in collective works

  • From subsistence garden to soul garden: a story from subtropical Bolivia. In: Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen, Anne Holl (Hrsg.): The return of the gardens: Small farming in the age of globalization. Studies Verlag, Innsbruck 2002, ISBN 3-7065-1534-2 .
  • A garden project in the subtropical Andes. In: Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen, Renate Müller, Petra Becker (Hrsg.): The gardens of women: on the social significance of small-scale agriculture in urban and rural areas worldwide. Centaurus, Pfaffenweiler 2002, ISBN 3-8255-0338-0 .

Articles in the women's magazine Courage

  • Women's associations and feminists at one table. Berlin Women's Conference. In: Courage. Berlin women's newspaper. 2nd vol., No. 9, 1977, pp. 20-23. ( Online )
  • Women, fight back! In: Courage. Berlin women's newspaper. Volume 1, No. 2, 1976, p. 29. ( Online )
  • Pretty puny. In: Courage. Berlin women's newspaper. Volume 1, No. 1, 1976. ( Online )
  • Don't leave the one alone! In: Courage. Berlin women's newspaper. Volume 1, No. 4, 1977, p. 4. ( Online )
  • Summer university. In: Courage. Berlin women's newspaper. Volume 2, No. 11, p. 39. ( Online )

literature

  • Ute Kätzel: The women of 68. Portrait of a rebellious generation of women . Rowohlt, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-87134-447-8 , p. 21 ff.
  • Dorothee Weitbrecht: Departure into the Third World: the internationalism of the student movement of 1968 in the Federal Republic of Germany , V & R Unipress, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-89971-957-4 , p. 328 ff., Limited preview in Google - Book search

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ute Kätzel: The women of 68. Portrait of a rebellious generation of women. Rowohlt, Berlin 2002, p. 21f. ISBN 3-87134-447-8
  2. ↑ Kätzel 2002: pp. 22-24.
  3. ↑ Kätzel 2002: p. 25
  4. ↑ Bernd Rabehl (Internet journal attacks from April 3, 2010): Scenes of a revolt. ( Online )
  5. ↑ Ulrike Schulz: The revolt in the revolt. On the role of women in the student movement and their criticism , in: Falk Blask: Zweiausend8undsechzig , LIT Verlag, Münster 2008, ISBN 9783825819033 , p. 51 f .; limited preview in Google Book search
  6. ↑ Kätzel 2002: pp. 25-27.
  7. ^ Berliner Morgenpost May 10, 1968: She heads the AStA. SDS student elected chairperson ( online )
  8. ^ Rudolf Müller (Berliner Zeitung, May 10, 1968): SDS won the AStA election. Majority for Sigrid Fronius. ( Online )
  9. ↑ Eva-Maria Silies: Experiences of rupture? Generational use of the pill in the sixties and seventies. In: Julia Paulus u. a. (Ed.): Contemporary history as gender history. New perspectives on the Federal Republic. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2012, p. 216. ISBN 978-3-593-39742-9
  10. ↑ Hamburger Abendblatt July 11, 1968: Berlin students demolished the rectorate. Damage amounts to several tens of thousands of DM. ( Online )
  11. ^ Berliner Morgenpost October 10, 1968: Fronius resigned. ( Online )
  12. ↑ a b Kätzel 2002: p. 33.
  13. ^ Karl-Heinz Schubert: On the history of the West Berlin base groups. In: Karl-Heinz Schubert (Ed.): Departure to the Proletariat. Base group documents. Taifun-Verlag, Berlin 1988, o. S. ISBN 3-927371-00-9 ( online )
  14. ↑ Kätzel 2002: pp. 33-35.
  15. ↑ Kätzel 2002: p. 35
  16. ^ Dorothee Weitbrecht: Departure into the Third World. The internationalism of the student movement of 1968 in the Federal Republic of Germany . V & R Unipress 2012, p. 172. ISBN 978-3899719574 .
  17. ↑ Kätzel 2002: p. 36
  18. ↑ Kätzel 2002: p. 36
  19. ↑ Kristina Schulz: The long breath of provocation: the women's movement in the Federal Republic and in France, 1968-1976 , Campus, Frankfurt, New York 2002, ISBN 3-593-37110-3 , p. 79
  20. ↑ Kätzel 2002: p. 37
  21. ↑ Weitbrecht 2012: p. 352
  22. ↑ Kätzel 2002: p. 37
  23. ↑ Kätzel 2002: p. 37
  24. ↑ Ecolodge Sol y Luna, Coroico
  25. ↑ Kätzel 2002: p. 38
personal data
SURNAME Fronius, Sigrid
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH January 23, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Kronstadt