Although Germany's women rights activists weren't as radical as their sisters in Britain, they started their struggle for equal rights very early, and they persevered.
A Berlin protest for women's suffrage in 1912Image: akg-images/picture alliance
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Women across Europe started to fight for equal rights towards the end of the 18th century. They participated in revolutionary activities, especially in France, after the French Revolution of 1789 paved the way for human rights, equal representation and gender equality. It took half a century until the feminist spirit finally reached Germany as well.
Germany's pioneering activist: Louise Otto-Peters
In 1843, an outspoken woman named Louise Otto-Peters, aged 24, started advocating the idea that the participation of women in public matters "wasn't a right, but a duty." The young woman had started fending for herself as a teenager, after the death of her parents. Her inheritance allowed her to become a writer. She published poems, essays and socially critical novels. She also wrote news articles under the male pseudonym Otto Stern.
Women's movements in Germany — a long history
Women have been fighting for equal rights in Germany for over 170 years. Despite their extraordinary achievements, the #MeToo movement also shows that much still has to be done.
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'Songbird of the German women's movement'
Author Louise Otto-Peters (1819-1895) is a pioneer of Germany's women's movement. At the age of 24, she called for more female participation in decision-making and co-founded with other suffragists the General German Women's Association (Allgemeiner Deutscher Frauenverein) in 1865. The activist also wrote poetry and novels, earning her the "songbird" nickname.
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Helene Lange fought for equal opportunities
Girls didn't have easy access to education in Germany at the end of the 19th century. The women's movement of the late 1890s aimed to emancipate girls and women through schooling. Teacher and feminist Helene Lange (1948-1930) was a leading figure in this movement; she also founded different women's suffrage groups.
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Mother of the 'proletarian' women's movement
Activist Clara Zetkin (1857-1933) fought for stronger representation of women in trade unions, women's suffrage and abortion rights — already aiming to abolish the controversial Paragraph 218 of German criminal law, which remained an activists' issue well into the 1970s. She also contributed to establishing International Women's Day.
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Anita Augspurg and her women's group
Anita Augspurg (1857-1943) and her associates didn't care much about social conventions. Augspurg lived together with her girlfriend, and they both wore men's clothes and short hair. As a lawyer, she fought for women's suffrage — granted in Germany in 1918 — and the rights of prostitutes. Augspurg's association participated in forming international women's networks.
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Backlash during the Nazi era
The Nazis rejected emancipatory movements. Women were expected to stick to their traditional roles as wives and mothers. The Nazi party promoted an image of women that had previously been dispelled by activists. In the eyes of the Nazis, women's rights groups had been created by Jews or Communists and needed to be suppressed.
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'German woman! Help too'
For several years under Hitler, German women's fundamental role was to bear as many children as possible and raise them with Nazi values, in order to help maintain the "Aryan race." Women who were particularly successful in this regard were honored with the Cross of Honor of the German Mother ("Mutterkreuz"). However, this changed once the war started, as women were needed in the workforce.
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Post-war reconstruction
With the end of World War II in 1945, German women came to play an important role in the reconstruction of the war-torn country. They not only helped remove debris, but also made their voices heard in politics. New women's associations picked up the work that had been stalled in 1933, aiming to achieve equal rights for women.
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The pill: A new form of freedom
In 1961, birth control pills became available in Germany. At first, they were only prescribed to married women — officially against menstruation pains. But the pill quickly became widespread, and strongly contributed to the sexual emancipation of women in the late 1960s.
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Feminists from the student movement
The 1968 West German student movement fought not only to reform universities, but also against authoritarian structures and for sexual emancipation. However, the leadership of the movement was male-dominated; feminist activists went their own way. The banner on the right reads "Emancipation = Class conflict" — the influence of Marxist theory nevertheless remained strong for them too.
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1971: 'We've had abortions!'
In Germany, abortion was a criminal offence until the 1970s. Following the sexual revolution of the late 60s, activists demanded the abolition of Paragraph 218 that outlaws abortion. In 1971, the magazine Stern published the names of 374 women admitting they had an abortion. The ban was lifted in 1975, and the law has been ammended several times since, legalizing abortions under certain terms.
Image: Der Stern
An eloquent fighter: Alice Schwarzer
A pioneer of Germany's feminist movement, Alice Schwarzer founded the country's first feminist magazine, EMMA, in 1977 that avoided all glamour and tackled political issues. Schwarzer remains a controversial figure in the country, but she has also driven important debates that have led to necessary changes for women.
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Freedom in purple overalls
In the mid 1970s, the West German women's movement also took on a new symbol — purple overalls, usually worn by workmen. Today, it is hard to believe how many restrictions were still imposed on women at the time, especially married women. It was only in 1977 that wives in West Germany were entitled to be gainfully employed without their husbands' authorization.
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Indescribably feminine!
When "The Godmother of German Punk" — Nina Hagen — released her debut album in 1978, she attracted both criticism and enthusiasm. A woman fronting a punk rock band? Socially critical texts using plain vulgar language? A woman masturbating in front of a camera during a TV show? No other woman came to symbolize female freedom and liberty to that extent. Nina Hagen became a cult figure.
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A new awareness
"If men could become pregnant, abortion would be a fundamental right," says this banner from a 1993 protest. Women's voices grew stronger through associations for lesbians, women lawyers and peace activists. With the Green Party, feminism made it into Germany's parliament. Even the Christian Democrats followed suit, appointing a woman as a minister. But it took until 1997 to outlaw marital rape.
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No end in sight
Although women's movements have achieved some of their goals, a lot still remains to be done. Men still dominate Germany's parliament and big companies. Men still earn more money for doing the same job as women. And they still misuse their positions of power by sexually harassing or abusing women. Chances are that the #metoo movement founded in October 2017 will remain busy for some time to come.
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The government tried to muzzle her. But Otto-Peters refused to be intimidated by these attempts. In 1865, she founded an association called Leipziger Frauenbildungsverein (Leipzig's women's education association).
That same year, an important women's conference was held in Leipzig. It was derided by newspapers as "The battle of Leipzig's women," but the 120 participants of the conference didn't let that stop them. They went on to create the Allgemeiner Deutscher Frauenverein (General German Women's Association). Louise Otto-Peters was head of the association for almost 30 years. Numerous women's organizations were then founded all across Germany.
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The woman who fought for girls' education
Their top priority was education for women and girls. While schooling was considered standard for boys, the daughters of poor families had to work, while the daughters of bourgeois circles were prepared for their role as wives and mothers. Only few girls were able to read and write.
Teacher Helene Lange set out to change this by sending a petition to the Prussian minister of education. Lange demanded more education for girls, more influence from female teachers on the education of girls, as well as better training for female teachers.
The struggle of these women activists took a long time. But finally, women came to be admitted to German universities in 1899/1900, and the education of girls was declared a government priority in 1908.
German women voting for the first time in January 1919Image: dpa/picture alliance
A growing political awareness
Attending the seminar for women teachers in Leipzig, young Clara Eissner committed herself to the objectives of the Women's Association. She lived with a Russian named Ossip Zetkin, adopted his name, and had two sons with him — out of wedlock, which was a huge scandal back then.
As a teacher, Clara Zetkin became a member of the Socialist Workers' Party, the forerunner of the Social Democratic Party, where she fought for equal professional and social rights for women. She also founded the women's magazine "Die Gleichheit" (Equality).
Clara Zetkin initiated International Women's DayImage: dpa/picture alliance
Zetkin was a representative of the proletarian women's movement. In contrast to the bourgeois women's movement, it focused on obtaining more rights for female workers.
In 1910, Zetkin initiated International Women's Day as a day of struggle for equality, democracy, peace and socialism. The day was observed for the first time in 1911, under the slogan "Suffrage for women!"
Claiming political participation
Anita Augspurg and her partner, Lida Gustava Heymann, also played an important role in the struggle for women's suffrage in Germany. In 1902, they founded the Verein für Frauenstimmrecht (Association for women's suffrage).
Augspurg and Heymann were less pacifist than their companions. They wanted to achieve their goals through direct action, following the example of England's suffragettes, who had asserted themselves by means of hunger strikes, vandalism and huge demonstrations.
Augspurg studied law in Switzerland, as that wasn't possible yet in Germany in the late 19th century. After earning a doctorate, she fought for reforms in Germany's parliament.
Unconventional and courageous: Anita AugspurgImage: Bifab/dpa/picture alliance
The struggle finally bears fruit
Germany's feminists cooperated with women's movements in other countries, especially the suffragette movement in England.
While women in the Netherlands and Nordic countries had already gained the right to vote, women in Germany, Austria, Poland and the United Kingdom had to fight for this right until 1918. Women in other countries would have to wait several more years for that to happen.
On November 30, 1918, roughly three weeks after the end of World War I, the new German government declared that all men and women who were at least 20 years old were entitled to vote in equal, secret, direct and general elections. The new law was put into practice in January 1919.
This is an updated version of an article that was first published in 2018. It was originally written in German.
