Viktorine von Butler-Haimhausen

Viktorine von Butler-Haimhausen

Countess Viktorine von Butler-Clonebough or Butler-Haimhausen (* December 8, 1811 in Munich ; † February 2, 1902 there ) was a German social reformer, philanthropist and writer of the 19th century. She founded Catholic Relief Societies and educational institutions.

Youth and family

Victoria Xaveria (also: Viktoria; called Victorine or Viktorine) was a born noble from Ruedorffer , a family of merchants and bankers. Her father Franz Xaver von Ruedorffer was raised to the noble class in 1808; her mother was Caroline, née Edle von Aindlinger. Viktorine went to the Salesian convent school in Markt Indersdorf , where she received a good and strictly Catholic education. Her parents did not allow her to become a nun. Instead, she married into the nobility and, as the wife of Count Theobald Butler-Clonebough von Haimhausen (1803-1867), she also received lifelong access to the Bavarian royal court.

His marriage to Theobald gave birth to ten children between 1830 and 1849, six daughters and four sons, five of whom married. By marrying a daughter, she was the mother-in-law of Carl von Washington . She outlived all of her children; The last - childless - male heir could not hold Haimhausen Castle due to lack of money and sold it shortly before his death in 1892 to Eduard James Haniel from the industrial family of the Haniels , who expanded it into a family seat after being raised to the nobility.

Social Commitment

During the industrialization in took Bayern the rural exodus and the social decline of factory workers in the cities. Countess Viktorine von Butler-Haimhausen perceived this as a devout Christian and, because of her high social position, was committed to women and the poor. It began in 1854 with the education of farmers' children in the Dachauer Moos and in the following years founded a large number of charitable foundations and associations, including the Upper Bavarian Marienverein with training centers in Markt Indersdorf and Neuhausen , and in 1861 today's Franziskuswerk Schönbrunn , which initially took place in the palace Haimhausen was housed and moved to Schönbrunn Palace in 1863 .

In 1869 their plan to create a workers' settlement in Georgenried failed . Other facilities she founded or supported were a homeless shelter in Munich, a home for old servants and the first workers' home in Germany, in which working women were offered further training, legal advice, accommodation and food. She was also a member of various associations and societies for poor relief.

She gave all her worldly possessions for her charitable work and received further generous donations, including from the former King Ludwig I.

Viktorine von Butler-Haimhausen hardly had any intellectual or personal contacts with the pioneers of the German women's movement . Only in old age, when she could hardly exert any other influence, did she increasingly write warning and polemic pamphlets. It says: “Help yourself, God will help you! If you do not help yourself, God will not help you, much less your protector, the man. "

She died in Munich at the age of 91 and was buried in the parish church of Haimhausen .

bibliography

• Warning words from the Reverend Countess Victorine Butler-Haimhausen , Munich 1894
• Anti-Semitism , Munich 1894

literature

• Genealogical paperback of the German count's houses for the year 1838 S.123f , 1876 ​​S.160f
• Viktorine von Butler-Haimhausen (1811–1902) . In: Adelheid Schmidt-Thomé: Forgotten Munich women. 30 Pictures of Life , Munich: Allitera 2017, ISBN 978-3-86906-923-4 , pp. 50–58.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Genealogy database geneall.net
2. ↑ ^{a b} Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures . Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 89.