Marie Juchacz

File:Marie Juchacz (timbre allemand).jpg

German stamp issued in 2003 in the Women in German history series

Marie Juchacz (15 March 1879 in Landsberg an der Warthe, Province of Brandenburg – 28 January 1956 in Düsseldorf; née Gohlke) was a German social reformer, social democrat and feminist.

Life and career

After finishing school in Landsberg an der Warthe (now Gorzów Wielkopolski, Poland), Juchacz, whose beliefs were Protestant, began work in 1893, first as a maid, and then for a short time as factory staff. From 1896 to 1898 she worked in nursing. She later completed an apprenticeship as a dressmaker. She worked at this profession until 1913. During the First World War, she worked together with Anna Maria Schulte, Elisabeth Röhl (Juchacz's sister) and Else Meerfeld at the Heimarbeitszentrale ("Home Work Centre") and was a member of the so-called Grocery Commission (Lebensmittelkommission).

Marie Juchacz founded the Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO; "Workers' Welfare") on 13 December 1919, and until 1933 was its chairwoman.

After the Nazis seized power, she moved to the Saarland. When Saarlanders voted to join the German Reich, she fled to Alsace, and after the Second World War broke out she fled from there by way of Paris to Marseille. In 1941, she reached the United States on an emergency visa.

In 1949, Juchacz returned to Germany from exile in the United States and was made the AWO's honorary chairwoman.

Several cities have honoured Marie Juchacz by naming streets "Marie-Juchacz-Straße" or "Marie-Juchacz-Weg". In 2003, she was also honoured by Deutsche Post in its Women in German history series of postage stamps.

Party

Juchacz was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In 1917, Friedrich Ebert made her the Women's Secretary in the Party's leadership.

Member of the National Assembly and the Reichstag

As one of 37 women, Juchacz was elected in 1919 to the Weimar National Assembly. On 19 February of that year, she became the first woman to make a speech before that body, or indeed any German parliament [1]. She was also the only woman who belonged to the National Assembly's Advisory Board for the Project to Draft a Constitution for the German Empire (Ausschuß zur Vorberatung des Entwurfs einer Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs; Germany was still officially the Reich, even after the Kaiser had been overthrown and the Weimar Republic had been founded). Juchacz's sister Elisabeth Röhl was likewise an SPD Member of the Weimar National Assembly.

From 1920 to 1933, when the Nazis put an end to the Weimar Republic, Marie Juchacz was a Member of the Reichstag (Reichstagsabgeordnete).

See also

• Feminism

External links

• Marie Juchacz in the German National Library catalogue
• Biography 1 Template:De icon
• Biography 2 Template:De icon
• Speech before the National Assembly Template:De icon