Elisabeth Schwartzhaupt was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union

Christian Democratic Union (Germany)

The Christian Democratic Union of Germany is a Christian democratic and conservative political party in Germany. It is regarded as on the centre-right of the German political spectrum...

. She was Federal Minister of Health from 1961 to 1966, the first woman to hold a Ministerial position in Germany.

Biography

Schwartzhaupt was the daughter of an upper school principal who belonged to the German People's Party of Prussia. Her mother came from a wealthy merchant family. She was engaged to a Jewish doctor who fled to Switzerland and then the United States because of Nazi persecution.

After finishing school in 1920 Schwartzhaupt studied law in Frankfurt am Main. In 1930 she received her doctorate in law. She was a legal adviser on women's issues until 1932 when she worked as a Beauftragter Richter ("Mandated Judge") in Dortmund

Dortmund

Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union....

 and Frankfurt am Main. She was dismissed in March 1933 in the wake of a judicial decree that women should no longer hold judicial office.

From 1935 she worked as a legal assistant at the Registry of the Evangelical Church in Berlin. In 1947 she returned to Frankfurt am Main, promoted by 1953 to Oberkirchenrätin ("Senior Church Adviser") and Geschäftsführerin der Evangelischen Frauenarbeit ("Director of Evangelical Women's Work").

On 10 December 1965 she was the first woman to be awarded the Großkreuz des Bundesverdienstkreuzes (loosely, "Grand Cross of the German Federal Cross of Merit"). From 1970 to 1972 she was the First Chairman of the German Women's Council. She was buried in the main cemetery in Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

.

During the Weimar Republic

Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

 Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt was a member of the German People's Party

German People's Party

The German People's Party was a national liberal party in Weimar Germany and a successor to the National Liberal Party of the German Empire.-Ideology:...

 .She belonged to the Christian Democratic Union from 1945 until her death.

Offices and Achievements

From 1953 to 1969 she was a member of the German Bundestag

Bundestag

The Bundestag is a federal legislative body in Germany. In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house. The Bundestag is established by the German Basic Law of 1949, as the successor to the earlier...

. From 1957 to 1961 she was Deputy Chairman of the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group. Unlike most women in the party, she was vehemently opposed to a ruling called the "Stitch" ruling (pertaining to the rights of the husband in marital disputes). Together with Margot Kalinke

Margot Kalinke

Margot Kalinke was a German politician of the German Party and later the Christian Democratic Union.-Biography:...

she orchestrated support for an opposition amendment to her own party's bill. The Gesetz über die Gleichstellung von Mann und Frau auf dem Gebiet des bürgerlichen Rechts ("Law of Equality between Man and Wife in Civil Law") was enacted on 18 June 1957 without the Stitch Clause.

Publications

Translator's note: These are in German.

• Die Frau in Regierungs- und Oppositionsparteien, in: Neue Evangelische Frauenzeitung, 1965, Heft 2, Seiten 34 bis 38.
• Aufzeichnungen und Erinnerungen, in: Abgeordnete des Deutschen Bundestages. Aufzeichnungen und Erinnerungen, Band 2, Boppard am Rhein, 1983, Seiten 235 bis 283.

Sources

Translator's note: These are in German.

• Hessische Landesregierung (Hrsg): Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt – Portrait einer streitbaren Politikerin und Christin (1901–1986). Herder Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3-451-20139-9

External links

Translator's note: These are in German.