postage stamps: Women of German History - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1997 - 220 Pfennig

Marie-Elisabeth Lüders is one of the most outstanding German politicians of the 20th century. Born on June 25, 1878, she came from a Berlin civil servants family. She herself grew up in an educated middle class atmosphere, the very limited educational and career opportunities for girls in the late 19th century. Of self-confident intelligence, after a few years of voluntary social work, she continued to catch up and study political science. In 1912 she was the first woman in Germany to become a doctor. rer. pole. graduated and then took over as a caretaker in Charlottenburg her first public office. In the First World War she was entrusted as a proven social expert in various places with socio-political tasks. Previously, she had already joined the bourgeois women's movement and (left) liberalism. Since 1919 she sat for the German Democratic Party in the Reichstag, where she was mainly concerned with social and women's issues. As a vehement opponent of National Socialism, in 1933 she received publication and speech bans; 1937 were followed by interrogations and a Gestapohaft several months. After the war, she led first the American military school in Oberammergau and from 1948 to 1950, the Berlin Office of Social Affairs. From 1953 to 1961, she represented the FDP in the Bundestag, as its senior president repeatedly acted. She caused a sensation above all as a champion of equality policy. As a pioneer of women's emancipation and many social achievements honored, u.a. with the honorary citizenship of Berlin and the honorary chairmanship of the FDP, Marie-Elisabeth Lüders died on March 23, 1966 in Berlin. (Text: Archive of German Liberalism, Gummersbach)