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The Politics of Working—Class Women in the Weimar Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Brian Peterson
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Working—Class women in the Weimar Republic faced a complex and disorienting political situation. The revolutionary government granted women the right to vote in November 1918, but then ousted many women from their wartime jobs with the assistance of the trade unions and factory councils. The growing radicalism of working women during the latter phases of the First World War, marked especially by heavy female participation in the general strike of January 1918 in the munitions industry, was checked by the expulsion of women from exactly those sectors of employment which were most conducive to radicalism, the large plants in the metal industry. In other sectors, however, there was a large expansion of union membership among women during there volutionary period from November 1918 until May 1919, and many women in light industry and rural areas simultaneously joined unions and the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Urban women working in large plants who might have supported the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) or the Communist Party (KPD) were fired to make room for returning war veterans, and this led to an eclipse of female radicalism from 1919 until 1923. The inflation of 1923 again activated many women who were attracted to the Communist Party by its neighborhood price control committees, and women took an active part in pressuring food shops to keep prices down and joined in plundering shops or stealing from the fields of landlords and peasants when hunger left them no alternative. The economic chaos of 1923 pushed even women in light industry to the left, and textile workers in Berlin, Saxony, and Thuringia gave the Communists a majority in union elections.

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Articles
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Central European History , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , June 1977 , pp. 87 - 111
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Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1977

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References

The author wishes to thank the following individuals for their advice in the research and writing of this article: Joyce Peterson, Robert Koehl, Dieter Wuerth, Douglas Hibbs, Arthur Goldberger, Sam Shapiro, Jess Anderson, Robert Wheeler, Renate Bridenthal, Jim O'Brien, Ross Peterson, and Richard Hamilton. I am also grateful to the members of the history department of Florida International University who heard an earlier version of this article in our colloquium and who, by their criticisms, did much to improve it: Mark Szuchman, John Marino, Howard Rock, Darden Asbury Pyron, and Howard Kaminsky.

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2. Thönessen, pp. 56, 100, 102, 105. Even after the expulsion of women workers, radicalism among women remained much higher in localities where women had had wartime work experience in large munitions plants. In Spandau, near Berlin, the presence of a major military workshop accounts for the very high left vote by women in 1920. Some 47 percent of KPD and USPD votes there came from women and 50 percent of the SPD votes. Such high percentages were very rare in the rest of Germany. Die rote Fahne, June 13, 1920; von Oertzen, Peter, Betriebsräte in der Nouemberrevolution (Düsseldorf, 1963), pp. 175–76;Google ScholarMann, Willy, Berlin zur Zeit der Weitnarer Republik (Berlin, 1957). pp. 120–21;Google ScholarRückert, Otto, Zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung im Reichstagswahlkreis Potsdam-Spandau-Osthavelland (1871–1917) (Potsdam, 1965), pp. 13–19;Google ScholarSchlesinger, Rudolf, Central European Democracy and Its Background (London, 1953), p. 166.Google Scholar

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5. Rettig, Rudolf, “Die Gewerkschaftsarbeit der Kommunistischen Partei Deutschlands von 1918 bis 1925 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung Auseinandersetzungen mit den Freien Arbeitergewerkschaften” (Ph.D. diss., University of Hamburg, 1954), pp. 197, 205;Google ScholarFlechtheim, Ossip K., Die KPD in der Weimarer Republik (Frankfurt am Main, 1969), p. 208;Google ScholarComfort, Richard A., Revolutionary Hamburg: Labor Politics in the Early Weimar Republic (Stanford, 1966), p. 129;Google ScholarSozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, Zentralkomitee, Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus, Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, 8 vols. (Berlin, 1966), 4: 18.Google Scholar

6. In many districts during the Weimar period, voting was divided by sex for the purposes of analysis. These districts showed that in 1920 women formed 56 percent of the voters for the DNVP and 59 percent of the Zentrum voters, but only 43 percent of SPD voters, 41 percent of USPD voters, and 37 percent of KPD voters: Schauff, Johannes, Die Deutschen Katholiken und die Zentrumspartei: Eine politisch-statistische Untersuchung der Reichstagswahlen seit 1871 (Cologne, 1928), p. 65;Google ScholarTingsten, Herbert, Political Behavior: Studies in Election Statistics (Totowa, N.J., 1963), p. 41;Google ScholarBremme, Gabrielle, Die politische Rolle der Frau in Deutschland (Göttingen, 1956), pp. 70–71 and appendix.Google Scholar

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8. See the excellent class analysis of the bourgeois women's movement in Sauer, Elsa, “Die entwicklung der bürgerlichen Frauenbewegung von der Grundung des Bundes Deutscher Frauenvereine 1894 bis zum ersten Weltkrieg” (Inaug. diss., Franz-Mehring-Institut, Karl Marx University [Leipzig], 1969).Google Scholar Sauer shows that the more conservative women's movement leaders were mainly schoolteachers and favored higher education for women rather than the vote. The only group of bourgeois women who sought the vote was a left-liberal group around Minna Cauer in Berlin, composed principally of social workers. These women were not afraid to ally with socialist working-class women, but they were so weak that this alliance was attractive only to a few socialist women. See also Hackett, Amy, “The German Women's Movement and Suffrage, 1890–1914: A Study of National Feminism,” in Bezucha, Robert J., ed., Modern European Social History (Lexington, Mass., 1972).Google Scholar

9. See Thönessen, ; Strain, Jacqueline, “Feminism and Political Radicalism in the German Social Democratic Movement, 1890–1914” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1964).Google Scholar

10. Bremme, appendix.

11. Flechtheim, pp. 211–12; Weber, Hermann, Die Wandlung des deutschen Kommunismus: Die Stalinisierung der KPD in der Weimarer Republik, 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main, 1969), 1: 101;Google ScholarHalperin, S. William, Germany Tried Democracy: A Political History of the Reich from 1918 to 1933 (New York, 1965), pp. 308–9.Google Scholar

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13. Rettig, pp. 252–53; Dyakin, p. 32; Bry, Gerhard, Wages in Germany, 1917–1945 (Princeton, 1960), pp. 376–77;Google ScholarJahrbuch 1925 des Allgemeinen Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes (Berlin, 1926), p. 104.Google Scholar

14. Bremme, appendix.

15. Concentration was seen by Marx and Engels as a crucial factor in working-class politics as early as 1848: “But with the development of industry the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength more.” The Communist Manifesto (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1973), p. 89.Google Scholar A recent sociological study which documents the continuing importance of concentration in working-class radicalism is Linz, Juan, “The Social Bases of West German Politics” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1959), pp. 376–408.Google Scholar

16. The factor of commitment was recognized as early as 1845 by Friedrich Engels, without attaching a label to the concept: “There was now no possibility that the workers would ever improve their position and rise out of their social group. Craftsmanship was now replaced by factory production…. The disappearance of handicraft work and of the middle-class groups dependent upon it deprived the workers of the possibility of rising into this class of society. Hitherto there had always been a possibility that the craftsman might establish himself as an independent master and might eventually employ apprentices himself…. The proletariat now became a definite class in the population whereas formerly it had only been a transitional stage toward entering into the middle classes. Today [1845] he who is born a worker must remain a worker for the rest of his life. This is why it is only now possible for an organized working-class movement to spring up.” Engels, Friedrich, The Condition of the Working Class in England (Stanford, 1968), pp. 24–25.Google Scholar

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18. Baum, p. 216; Frauenarbeit in der Metallindustrie, p. 4.

19. Schmidt, Werner, “Die Erwerbstätigkeit der verheirateten Frau” (Ph.D. diss., University of Giessen, 1933).Google Scholar

20. Franzen-Hellersberg, pp. 92–94.

21. Franzen-Hellersberg, pp. 90–91.

22. Ibid.

23. Bredel, Willi, Maschinenfabrik N. & K. Rosenhofstrasse. Der Eigentumsparagraph (Berlin, 1975). pp. 381–586.Google Scholar

24. Schönlank, Bruno, “Kino,” in Heintz, Günter, ed., Deutsche Arbeiterdichtung 1910–1933 (Stuttgart, 1974), pp. 293–94. My translation.Google Scholar

25. Franzen-Hellersberg.

26. Bredel, Maschinenfabrik N. & K., pp. 40, 52,150; Rosenhofstrasse, p. 188; Der Eigentumsparagraph, pp. 490–91. Bredel disapproves of young male worker involvement in mass culture because it leads to mixing with non-working-class youth in amateur athletics and to selling out strikes in order to make the payments on motorcycles.

27. Franzen-Hellersberg, p. 91.

28. Franzen-Hellersberg, p. 29.

29. Weber, 2:57–353. This occupational information is included in the biographies of the 504 KPD leaders, including 34 women, compiled by Weber.

30. Schmidt, p. 43.

31. Schmidt, p. 40.

32. Reisner, Larissa, “Er—Kommunist, sie—Katholiken,” in Boehncke, Heiner, ed., “Vorwärts und nicht vergessen”: Ein Lesebuch: Klassenkampfe in der Weimarer Republik (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1973), p. 113.Google Scholar This material was first published in Reisner's Eine Reise durch die Deutsche Republik, 1926.

33. For the political influence of this contact with the petty bourgeoisie, see Bredel, Rosenhofstrasse, pp. 179, 188, 221, 310, 339. After bakery gossip caused a girl to be arrested for abortion and endangered a rent strike, the KPD block group denounced the bakery owner in a block newspaper. Although Bredel's portrait may be somewhat exaggerated, he shows clearly the existence of a working-class women's political subculture with much more petty bourgeois influence apparent than among working-class men.

34. Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, Band 402, Heft II.

35. See Table 2 above.

36. Marchwitza, Hans, Storm over the Ruhr (New York, 1932), pp. 7, 71, 74, 79.Google Scholar

37. Reisner, p. 115.

38. Tkaczyk, Wilhelm, “Oberschlesien im Zeichen der Krise,” in Heintz, Günter, ed., Texte der proletarisch-revolutionaren Literatur Deutschlands 1919–1933 (Stuttgart, 1974), p. 51.Google Scholar

39. In Hamburg in the 1890s, many working-class women resented the socialist movement because it took the men out of the house and encouraged them to spend their money on dues and drink. In revenge, they sent their children to church. This conflict made an impression on prewar socialist youth, and their youth groups rejected the drinking patterns and lack of family responsibility of the older male socialists. See Schult, Johannes, Die Hamburger Arbeiterbewegung als Kulturfaktor (Hamburg, 1954), pp. 47–48, 55.Google Scholar

40. Textilarbeiter-Verband, Deutscher, Jahrbuch 1925 (Berlin, 1926), p. 160.Google Scholar

41. Guillebaud, C. W., The Works Council: A German Experiment in Industrial Democracy (Cambridge, 1928), p. 130.Google Scholar

42. Bremme, p. 60; Duverger, pp. 36, 44.

43. Bebel's book went through 50 German editions between its publication in 1883 and the outbreak of the war in 1914, and it was easily the most popular socialist book in that period. Obviously, the woman question was important for the SPD, but Bebel's whole thrust was to channel women into trade union and parliamentary activity, rather than into questions dealing with the family and sexuality. On the popularity of Bebel's book, see Coser, Lewis, “Introduction,” in Bebel, August, Woman under Socialism (New York, 1971);Google Scholar Max Morganstern, “Auslese und Anpassung der industriellen Arbeiterschaft betrachtet bei den Offenbacher Lederwarenarbeitern,” Schriften des Vereins für Sozialpolitik, 135/3:76; Steinberg, Hans-Josef, “Workers’ Libraries in Germany before 1914,” History Workshop 1 (1976):166–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44. Deutscher Textilarbeiter-Verband, Jahrbuch 1925, pp. 160–61. The Free Trade Unions were stronger in the textile industry of Bavaria than in any other region of Germany in 1924 and 1925. In the predominantly Catholic city of Augsburg in 1929, there were 165 Free Trade Union representatives on textile factory councils and only 31 Catholic trade-union representatives. See Schwäbische Volkszeitung, no. 133, June 13, 1929, in the supplement, Schwäbische Gewerkschafts-Zeitung, no. 21, supplied by the kindness of Stadtarchiv of Augsburg, Archivrat Dr. Baer.

45. Spael, Wilhelm, Das Katholische Deutschland im 20 Jahrhundert: Seine Pionier- und Krisenzeit, 1890–1945 (Würzburg, 1964), pp. 35–37.Google Scholar

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49. Wheeler, Robert F., “The Independent Social Democratic Party and the Internationals: An Examination of Socialist Internationalism in Germany 1915 to 1923” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1970), p. 738.Google Scholar

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51. Textilarbeiter-Verband, Deutscher, Jahrbuch 1925, pp. 160–61.Google Scholar

52. Ireland, Waltraud, “The Lost Gamble: The Theory and Practice of the Communist Party of Germany between Social Democracy and National Socialism, 1929–1933” (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1971), p. 279.Google Scholar Between 1929 and 1930 in Saxony, the Nazi vote went up 240,000, the SPD vote went down 50,000, and the KPD vote went up 10,000. Did 40,000 SPD voters switch to the Nazis? It appears likely.