BURIED TOGETHER
Partner Lida Gustava Heymann,
buried together
Queer Places:
Kaulbachstraße 12, 80539 München, Germany
Friedhof Fluntern, 8044 Zürich, Switzerland
Anita
Augspurg (22 September 1857 Verden an der Aller – 20 December 1943 Zürich) was
a German jurist, actress, writer, activist of the radical feminist movement
and a pacifist. A particularly evocative photograph, taken at the Zürich WILPF
Congress in 1919, gives us Charlotte
Despard, always eccentrically dressed in a black lace mantilla, standing
between the German feminist Lida Heymann,
who wears a masculine hat, and her lover, the radical lawyer and Germany’s
first woman judge, Anita Augspurg, whose
attire is even more manly. Heymann always recalled her first sight of the
woman who would become her lover for 40 years, a figure in brown velvet with a
powerful voice and sparkling, clear-sighted eyes standing at a lectern.
The daughter of a lawyer, during her adolescence Augspurg worked in her
father's law office until she reached the age of majority. In Berlin she
completed a teachers training course for teaching at Women's colleges and also
took acting classes in parallel. From 1881 to 1882 she was an apprentice to
the Meiningen Ensemble, and took part in concert tours across Germany, the
Netherlands and Lithuania. Her maternal grandmother, who died in 1887, left
her a considerable inheritance, which made her financially independent.
fter a five-year career as an actress, she went with her friend
Sophia Goudstikker to Munich,
where in 1887 they jointly opened a photography studio, the Hofatelier Elvira.
The two women wore short hair, unconventional clothing, and frequently made
public their support for the struggle for the liberation of women and their
free lifestyle. Because of that unusual lifestyle, Augspurg was exposed to
personal attacks by anti-feminists far more than were other personalities of
the women's movement. Nonetheless, her contacts made through the stage and the
studio quickly made her well-known, and she eventually had the Bavarian royal
family as a customer.
Anita Augspurg (left), Charlotte Despard (centre) and Lida Heymann (right) at
the WILPF Congress in Zürich, 1919
.jpg)
Augspurg and her feminist
associates "Verein für Frauenstimmrecht": Anita Augspurg, Marie
Stritt, Lily von Gizycki, Minna Cauer
and friend Sophia Goudstikker, Photographed at the Elvira
Studio, Munich in 1896
.jpg)
International Congress of Women in 1915. left to right:1. Lucy Thoumaian - Armenia, 2. Leopoldine Kulka, 3. Laura Hughes - Canada, 4. Rosika Schwimmer - Hungary, 5. Anika Augspurg - Germany, 6. Jane Addams - USA, 7. Eugenie Hanner, 8. Aletta Jacobs - Netherlands, 9. Chrystal Macmillan - UK, 10. Rosa Genoni - Italy, 11. Anna Kleman - Sweden, 12. Thora Daugaard - Denmark, 13. Louise Keilhau - Norway
By 1890 Augspurg was deeply involved in the German women's movement and
practised as a public speaker. Her commitment to women's rights led her to
decide, after several years of successful work, to study for a law degree. She
went to the University of Zurich, Switzerland, because women in Germany still
did not have equal access to universities. Alongside Rosa Luxemburg, with whom
she had a turbulent relationship, she was one of the founders of the
International Female Students Association (Internationaler
Studentinnenverein). She completed her studies with a doctorate in 1897,
the first doctor of law of the German Empire. However, she could not practise
as a lawyer, since women were not yet allowed to do so.
Meanwhile, in 1895 Augspurg had begun to collaborate with the newspaper
Die Frauenbewegung ("The Women's Movement"), writing articles denouncing
the discrimination to which she was subjected in social legislation,
describing in particular marriage as a form of legalised prostitution. In 1896
she participated in the International Conference of Women held in Berlin,
where she met the radical feminist Lida Gustava Heymann,
who became her companion for the remainder of her life.
At the turn of the century, Augspurg campaigned for women's rights in the
German Civil Code: she brought together her political friends, Minna Cauer and
Marie Raschke, producing petitions on the new marriage and family law, which
was only partially effective. Augspurg published a sensational "Open Letter"
in 1905, in which she appealed for change to the then prevailing patriarchal
marriage law to enable entry into "free marriage", in defiance of
state-approved marriage. This was interpreted as a call to boycott marriage
and brought a storm of indignation. During this time, following the radical
split from the conservative women's organisations, many women considered
radical women's suffrage as a priority. Augspurg and her partner Lida Gustava
Heymann worked together on the board of the Association of Progressive Women's
Organizations. They formed an association for women's suffrage in Hamburg
(1902) and in Bavaria (1913). From 1907 Augspurg contributed to Zeitschrift
für Frauenstimmrecht, and was represented in 1919 in the magazine Die
Frau im Staat, in which feminist, radical democratic and pacifist
positions were published.
During the First World War Augspurg and Heymann held illegal gatherings in
their Munich apartment. They participated in the International Congress of
Women in The Hague, Netherlands, in April 1915, which led to the founding in
1919 of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (IFFF), of
which Heymann was Vice President. They found a common anti-war ground with the
Independent Social Democrats, which had split off from the Social Democratic
Party. In this context, their former differences with Socialist women such as
Clara Zetkin became less important. Augspurg collaborated with Kurt Eisner,
and after the proclamation of the Weimar Republic in 1918, became a member of
the provisional Landtag of Bavaria. In following elections they soon ran on
the list of Independent Social Democrats, but gained no mandate.
Until 1922 a JD did not enable women to practise law in Germany, but new
equality legislation under the Weimar Constitution finally allowed Augspurg to
practise. Since other women had obtained a JD before her, especially in
Zürich, Freiburg, Munich, or Leipzig (Johanna von Evreinov), references to her
as Germany's first woman lawyer are erroneous.[1]
Opposed to war, she proposed forms of active boycott. In addition to
supporting the policy of ending capitalism and organising a matriarchy as a
future society, she continued to fight against all forms of discrimination by
gender and nationality, for general disarmament, and for the independence of
all nations oppressed by colonialism. She was opposed to antisemitism and the
nascent Nazism.
In 1933, due to the takeover of the Nazi Party, Augspurg and Heymann did
not return to Germany from a winter trip; they feared reprisals. A crucial
factor was that she and Heymann had in 1923 appealed to the Bavarian Interior
Minister for expulsion of the Austrian Adolf Hitler, on grounds of sedition.
The Nazis in power did indeed confiscate their property, and all written
material in their home was lost. She went to live in exile in Switzerland,
together with Heymann.
They went on to deeper exile in South America, but later returned to Europe
to settle in Zürich. There Augspurg died in 1943, a few months after her
partner. Like Heymann, she is buried in the Fluntern Cemetery in Zürich,
Switzerland.
My published books:
BACK TO HOME PAGE
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Augspurg
- Oakley, Ann. Women, Peace and Welfare . Policy Press. Edizione del
Kindle.
- Rupp, Leila J.. Sapphistries (Intersections) (p.156). NYU Press.
Edizione del Kindle.