Sophie Kunert

Marie Luise Sophie Kunert (born March 1, 1895 in Berlin-Spandau , † January 18, 1960 in Göttingen ) was a German pastor.

Live and act

Kunert came from a middle-class family and managed to get the Abitur . She then studied Protestant theology , although women were not offered any professional activities in the Protestant church at that time. After taking her first exam, from 1921 she worked as a director's secretary and educator, and in 1925 was given the opportunity to work as a social worker in the Hamburg penal system . Here she was entrusted with pastoral care in the women's prison.

With the support of Heinz Beckmann , senior pastor at St. Nikolai Church , she was the first woman from the Hamburg regional church to take her second exam in 1925. She initiated a church law passed in 1927 that made it possible for women to work as pastors. In 1928 she received her blessing for service in Fuhlsbüttel and studied psychology while working . In 1933 she received her doctorate from William Stern with the thesis "Dependency, a personal structure of delinquent women".

In 1934 she gave up her job in the Hanseatic city and married Bruno Benfey , a pastor from Göttingen. Because her husband was persecuted for racist reasons, the couple emigrated to the Netherlands in 1939 . In 1946 both returned to Göttingen. From then on Kunert worked with her husband in his community.

Honors

Today the "Sophie-Kunert-Weg" in Göttingen's Geismar district commemorates Sophie Kunert .

literature

• Franklin Kopitzsch , Daniel Tilgner (Ed.): Hamburg Lexikon. 4th, updated and expanded special edition. Ellert & Richter, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8319-0373-3 , p. 419.