Postage stamp: Women of German History - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1988 - 240 Pfennig

With »Women of German History« the Deutsche Bundespost replaces the series »Industry and Technology« begun in 1975/76. The new series is intended to help raise awareness of women's achievements in society. Up to the 60 Pf value (Dorothea Erxleben) - it now appears in the issue »Deutsche Bundespost Berlin« - the other postage stamps are issued on the same day in the issues »Deutsche Bundespost« and »Deutsche Bundespost Berlin«. Mathilde Franziska Anneke was born on April 3, 1817 at Gut Ober-Lerringhausen near Blankenstein as the first of twelve children of the landowner Karl Giesler and Elisabeth, b. Hülswitt, born. After a carefree youth, they forced their father's financial ruin in 1836 to a purposeful marriage with the ten years older wine merchant Alfred von Tabouillot. When Tabouillot turned out to be a ruthless, irascible alcoholic, Mathilde Franziska separated from him in less than a year. The marriage was divorced in 1843 after years of arguments over the custody of her daughter Johanna ("Fanny"), born in 1837. "After the outcome of my unfortunate divorce," Mathilde Anneke said in retrospect, "in which I became a victim of the Prussian judiciary, I had come to the realization that the situation of women was an absurd and equal to the degradation of humanity." First, Mathilde Franziska earned a living for herself and her daughter as a writer of religious edifices. The experience of being ostracized by the middle-class Münster society (she had moved to Münster in 1839) alienated Mathilde increasingly from the church. She joined the liberal-minded "Democratic Association" and got to know Fritz Anneke and Ferdinand Freiligrath. Their commitment to the goals of "true socialism," especially with regard to the situation of women, led to their political emancipation. She began writing for the Kölnische Zeitung and the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, two of the most important liberal papers of the period. After the former officer Fritz Anneke had found a firm position in Cologne with an insurance company, he and Mathilde Franziska married in 1847. They soon became the center of revolutionary-minded men and women in Cologne; her circle of friends included Karl Marx. The Annekes were also among the co-founders of the "Communist-Aesthetic Klübchens," which later became the Cologne Workers' Association. When her husband was arrested in 1848, the "New Cologne Gazette for Citizens, Peasants and Soldiers," co-founded by him, appeared under her editorial board. After the ban on the newspaper Mathilde Anneke gave as a substitute the "women's newspaper", which then also fell victim to censorship. In 1848 Fritz Anneke fled again threatened arrest and joined the Baden-Palatinate rebellion. Mathilde Anneke supported him as a commanding officer and later described the survey in her »Memoirs of a Woman from the Baden-Palatinate Campaign«. After the failure of the revolution, the Annekes first fled to Switzerland then to America, where Mathilde resumed her fight for the rights of women. She founded in 1852 in Newark (New Jersey), the "German Women's Newspaper", the first three editions of women were set. Above all, Mathilde Anneke was in favor of women's suffrage and, at the invitation of American women's rights activists, undertook a seven-month lecture tour through the major cities of the East of the USA. In America Mathilde Anneke got another son and four daughters, two of whom and son Fritz, born in 1848, died of the pups. The different points of view u. a. In the question of raising children led to a deep alienation between Fritz and Mathilde Anneke, who rarely lived together since 1860. In 1860, Mathilde Anneke and her children traveled to Switzerland, where they stayed until 1865. She wrote a number of stories during this period and reported for European and American newspapers. In addition, she had contact with Emma and Georg Herwegh, Ferdinand Lassalle and Sophie Countess Hatzfeld, with the Mathilde finally a close friendship. Returning to the United States, Mathilde Anneke founded the Milwaukee Daughters Institute in 1866, which she ran until the end of her life. The focus of her work, however, was until her death on 25 November 1884, the fight for women's equal rights. Through her tireless commitment, she has taken a firm, albeit unobserved place in the history of the German and American women's movement.