Marie Juchacz (15 March 1879 in Landsberg an der Warthe

Gorzów Wielkopolski

Gorzów Wielkopolski is a city in western Poland, on the Warta river. It is the biggest city in the Lubusz Voivodeship with 125,149 inhabitants...

, Province of Brandenburg

Province of Brandenburg

The Province of Brandenburg was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1815 to 1946.-History:The first people who are known to have inhabited Brandenburg were the Suevi. They were succeeded by the Slavonians, whom Henry II conquered and converted to Christianity in...

 – 28 January 1956 in Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

; née Gohlke) was a German social reformer

Reform movement

A reform movement is a kind of social movement that aims to make gradual change, or change in certain aspects of society, rather than rapid or fundamental changes...

, social democrat

Social democracy

Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...

 and feminist

Feminism

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...

.

Life and career

After finishing school in Landsberg an der Warthe (now Gorzów Wielkopolski

Gorzów Wielkopolski

Gorzów Wielkopolski is a city in western Poland, on the Warta river. It is the biggest city in the Lubusz Voivodeship with 125,149 inhabitants...

, Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

), Juchacz, whose beliefs were Protestant

Evangelical Church in Germany

The Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 Lutheran, Unified and Reformed Protestant regional church bodies in Germany. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding because of the denominational differences. However, the member churches share full pulpit and altar...

, 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

Nursing

Nursing is a healthcare profession focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life from conception to death....

. 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

Saarland

Saarland is one of the sixteen states of Germany. The capital is Saarbrücken. It has an area of 2570 km² and 1,045,000 inhabitants. In both area and population, it is the smallest state in Germany other than the city-states...

. When Saarlanders voted to join the German Reich

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

, she fled to Alsace

Alsace

Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

, and after the Second World War broke out she fled from there by way of Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 to Marseille

Marseille

Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

. In 1941, she reached the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 on an emergency visa.

In 1949, Juchacz returned to Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 from exile

Exile

Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...

 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

Deutsche Post

Deutsche Post AG, operating under the trade name Deutsche Post DHL, is the world's largest logistics group. With its headquarters in Bonn, the corporation has 467,088 employees in more than 220 countries and territories worldwide and generated revenue of € 51.48 billion in 2010...

 in its Women in German history series

Women in German history series

Women in German history is a definitive stamp series issued in the Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin from 1986 to 1990, and in reunited Germany since 1990.-Description:...

 of postage stamps.

Party

Juchacz was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany

Social Democratic Party of Germany

The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...

 (SPD). In 1917, Friedrich Ebert

Friedrich Ebert

Friedrich Ebert was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany .When Ebert was elected as the leader of the SPD after the death of August Bebel, the party members of the SPD were deeply divided because of the party's support for World War I. Ebert supported the Burgfrieden and...

 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 parliamenthttp://www.awo.org/pub/archiv/juchacz/portrait_juchacz/view. 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

William II, German Emperor

Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. He was a grandson of the British Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe...

 had been overthrown and 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...

 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

Reichstag (Weimar Republic)

The Reichstag was the parliament of Weimar Republic .German constitution commentators consider only the Reichstag and now the Bundestag the German parliament. Another organ deals with legislation too: in 1867-1918 the Bundesrat, in 1919–1933 the Reichsrat and from 1949 on the Bundesrat...

(Reichstagsabgeordnete).

External links

• Biography 1 (German)
• Biography 2 (German)
• Speech before the National Assembly (German)