Protestant Women's Aid in Germany

The Evangelical Women's Aid (EFHiD) was a women's association within the Protestant Churches of Germany.

History

The association was founded on 1 January 1899 under the patronage of Empress Auguste Viktoria. It goes back to the "Frauenhülfe" founded in 1890 by Provost Hermann von der Goltz as part of the Berlin local association of the Evangelical Church Aid Association (EKH). From 1916 onwards, the Women's Aid "operated" independently of the EKH, albeit with the same chairman, as "Evangelische Frauenhilfe – Gesamtverein e. V." and was given an administrative building in Potsdam, Mirbachstraße 1, which was completed in 1918. From 1926, Gertrud Stoltenhoff (1878–1958) was the first woman to be chairwoman.

Under the pastor Hans Hermenau, the Women's Aid was renamed "Reich Women's Aid" in 1933. Hermenau saw himself as a National Socialist "German Christian" in church politics, but had to relinquish his office prematurely due to "irregularities in his office". His successor from 1935 until his sudden death in 1941 was Managing Pastor Adolf Brandmeyer, who was close to Pastor Friedrich von Bodelschwingh the Younger and the Confessing Church in his church-political direction rejecting the German Christians. The aim was to continue an independent church women's work, which was theologically strongly influenced by Karl Barth, also by means of an affiliated publishing house.

In 1945, the Soviet military administration in Germany confiscated the association's office building in Potsdam. It was now located in the Soviet "Military Town No. 7" next to the former boarding school of the Empress, now KGB headquarters in Germany, and served as a KGB prison.

The association itself was renamed "Evangelische Frauenhilfe in Germany" in 1949, divided into East and West and was only reunited as EFHiD in 1992. In 1994, the association received its Potsdam administration building back, which is currently a museum.

From 2005 to 2008, Women's Aid was organised in an umbrella organisation together with the Evangelical Women's Work in Germany (EFD). He looked after 12,000 women's groups in 12 Protestant regional churches. Since March 2008, Women's Aid, Women's Work and 40 other Protestant women's associations have been united in the new umbrella organisation of Protestant Women in Germany (EFiD).

Activity

When it was founded, the Women's Aid offered women in the church the opportunity to get involved in society and to come together socially, while they were otherwise still largely excluded from political and social life. The original social and diaconal orientation of the Relief Societies, which actually offered help to others (e.g. through involvement in mothers' convalescence works for women from poorer classes), has changed considerably today. The problem of today's women's aid movement is the ageing of its members and the lack of young people. Nevertheless, women's relief work remains a focus of Protestant congregational work in Germany.

Women's aid abroad, i.e. disaster relief and development aid, is provided by the non-profit and charitable organisation Frauenhilfe e. V.

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The German Evangelical Women's Federation (DEF), until 1969: German Evangelical Women's Federation (D.E.F.B.), is a Protestant women's organization. It was founded on 7 June 1899 in Kassel and was the only group within the Christian women's movement with an independent organisational structure and was the first to be entered in the register of associations as early as 18 September 1901. Since then, the headquarters have been in Hanover. The federal association has nine state associations with about 100 local associations and affiliated clubs and about 10,000 members.

The DEF is considered the only Protestant women's organization that consciously saw itself as part of the bourgeois women's movement and exerted socio-political influence and contributed to a modernization of the image of women in the Protestant church.

History

The association was founded during the period of industrialisation with its economic and social upheavals. While the proletarian movement was concerned with obtaining correspondingly high wages for men, which would enable them to feed their wives and children as heads of households – women should no longer have to work, but should be able to devote themselves entirely to the household and children according to the bourgeois model – the members of the German-Protestant Women's League, most of whom came from a middle-class background, campaigned for equal access to education and profession for girls and women. At that time, the education of girls was primarily aimed at preparing them for an existence as wives and mothers. The paths to a self-determined life and participation in public life remained practically closed to women. The German-Protestant Women's Federation, on the other hand, was committed to women's suffrage in the church and municipal community as early as 1903.

In 1908, the DEF joined the Federation of German Women's Associations (BDF). Some associations represented in the BDF are committed to universal women's suffrage. Accession was made on the condition that the BDF accepted the divergent position on the question of political suffrage, namely to behave neutrally. For the German-Protestant Women's Federation, other problems were more in focus. With practical help, attempts were made to alleviate the social hardship of large sections of the population. The D.E.F.B. initiated projects for delinquents, alcohol addicts and their families. With the establishment of a placement agency for young women working in the household, attempts were made to set minimum standards and reduce exploitation. Education for women, free choice of profession and its practice to secure a financial existence were further goals of the D.E.F.B. In the opinion of the D.E.F.B., the introduction of women's suffrage was only the introduction of universal, equal and secret political suffrage for both sexes. The political maturity of the potential voters was not yet assessed as a given due to the domestic political conditions. Other members of the Women's League saw it differently and demanded universal political voting rights for women. This was especially true for teachers and employees in the care of the poor and orphans, who advocated for a direct influence of women in the parliamentary decision-making process. Since no agreement could be reached, the German Protestant Women's Federation took a neutral position overall and spoke out against active advertising for women's suffrage in the BDF. The workforce of the Federation would be paralyzed internally and externally, Paula Mueller (1st chairwoman from 1901 to 1934) wrote to the secretary of the BDF, Alice Bensheimer, on the decision of the DEFB to withdraw from the BDF on March 14, 1918.

Weimar Republic and National Socialism

After women's suffrage was introduced in the Weimar Republic, leading members of the Women's League, who had already been politically active before the Weimar Republic, went into politics full-time. For example, the first chairwoman Paula Mueller sat as a member of the Reichstag for twelve years.

The German Protestant Women's Federation does not deal with social issues at the political level, but tries to achieve an improvement for women in special emergencies through committed social projects. Women in the DEFB took on numerous social hotspots that were often ignored by the social majority. For example, committed women set up so-called "rescue houses" in many places in Germany. Unmarried and pregnant – that was considered a disgrace until the early 1970s. Single girls and women "in other circumstances" were largely ostracized by society and often did not know where to take refuge. In the rescue houses, they were able to have their children under medical care and plan the time afterwards. The city of Hanover, for example, provided the Hanover local association with a plot of land and some money for the mothers' and infants' home, which could then be built thanks to further donations.

In 1905, the Federal Association founded the Christian Social Women's Seminar (CSF), the first training centre for welfare workers (social workers) in Germany in Hanover. In 1924, the training branch for church welfare workers (community helpers) was added. In the 1970s, in the course of the university reform, the Christian-Social Women's School was integrated with other works of the Protestant University of Applied Sciences Hanover, which today forms a faculty of the Hanover University of Applied Sciences.

After the National Socialists came to power, the DEFB joined the church's women's work in order to avoid integration into the N-zi Women's Association or its dissolution. After 1938, the "local groups" of the Women's League were no longer allowed to use this name, and in the course of deconfessionalization, the DEFB had to give up one practical field of work after another after 1939.

After 1945

In 1945, the German-Protestant Women's Federation was reconstituted as an independent association and resumed its focus on educational work and social tasks. In 1949, under state pressure, the local groups in the territory of the GDR renamed themselves the Working Group of Protestant Women of the GDR. In 1953, the Haus Eilenriede girls' dormitory in Hanover was inaugurated. It served as a dormitory for underage girls who had come to the city to complete an education.

With the name change in 1969, new committee functions, fields of work and main topics were added, including the Association of Protestant Housewives (AEH), media monitoring and membership in broadcasting councils, the Working Group of Christian Women of the DEF and the KDFB (Catholic German Women's Federation) for the promotion of the ecumenical process, the main areas of environmental and consumer policy as well as the thematic focus on demographic change. In addition, there are the respective focal points of work of the state and local associations, which take into account regional requirements.

The Protestant Women's Federation is a member of the German Home Economics Council