Democratic Women's League of Germany

Last updated
Democratic Women's Federation of Germany
Demokratischer Frauenbund Deutschlands
FormationMarch 1947;78 years ago (1947-03)
Dissolved1990
Type Mass organization
Purpose Women's rights
Membership1.5 million (1988)
Parent organization
 National Front

The Democratic Women's League of Germany [1] [2] [3] (German : Demokratischer Frauenbund Deutschlands, or DFD) was the mass women's organisation in East Germany. It was one of the constituent members of the National Front and sent representatives to the Volkskammer. In 1988, membership was 1.5 million. [4] [1]

Contents

The DFD did not have much independence from the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED). Käte Selbmann, a member of the DFD's executive board, complained that it was "a pre-school for women, neither as central as the FDGB nor even more important than any other mass organization to women's work, and absolutely subordinate to the SED", [5] while historian Valerie Dubslaff writes that "the role of the department was therefore neither to represent the interests of women nor to promote them within the party, but to execute the political will of its leaders". [6]

Organization

Representatives at the 12th DFD Congress in East Berlin, 1987 Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1987-0305-102, Berlin, XII. DFD-Kongress.jpg
Representatives at the 12th DFD Congress in East Berlin, 1987

The DFD was established in March 1947 and had the following official aims:

Chairwomen of the Democratic Women's Federation of Germany

NameEntered OfficeLeft Office
Anne-Marie Durand-Wever 19471948
Emmy Damerius-Koenen 19481949
Elli Schmidt 1949September 1953
Ilse Thiele September 1953November 1989
Eva Rohmann 19891990
Gisela Steineckert 19901990

References

  1. 1 2 Shreir, Sally, ed. (1988). Women's Movements of the World : an international directory and reference guide. Longman Group UK. pp. 99–100. ISBN   978-0-89774-508-6.
  2. ↑ Guenther, Katja (2010). Making Their Place: Feminism After Socialism in Eastern Germany. Stanford: Stanford University Press. p. 31. ISBN   978-0-8047-7072-9. The official women's group of the SED, the Democratic Women's League of Germany dominated women's organizational efforts in the GDR [...]
  3. ↑ McCauley, Martin (1983). The German Democratic Republic since 1945. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 38. ISBN   978-1-349-18403-3. [...] the Democratic Women's Association of Germany (DFD) was founded in March 1947.
  4. ↑ Dirk Jurich, Staatssozialismus und gesellschaftliche Differenzierung: eine empirische Studie, p.32. LIT Verlag Münster, 2006, ISBN   3825898938
  5. ↑ Harsch, Donna (2000). "Approach/Avoidance: Communists and Women in East Germany, 1945–9" . Social History . 25 (2): 176–178, 180. doi:10.1080/030710200363186. ISSN   0307-1022. JSTOR   4286643.
  6. ↑ Dubslaff, Valérie (2014). "Les femmes en quête de pouvoir ? Le défi de la participation politique en République démocratique allemande (1949-1990)" [Women in Search of Power? The Challenge of Political Participation in the German Democratic Republic (1949-1990)]. Allemagne d'aujourd'hui (in French). 207 (1): 37. doi:10.3917/all.207.0033. ISBN   9782757406915 – via Cairn.info.
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