Anna Emilie Strohsahl, born ''Franze'' (2 October 1885 – 1 January 1953) was a German politician (

SPD The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the ...

) and the first female city councillor ("Ratsmann") in

Cuxhaven Cuxhaven (; ) is an independent town and seat of the Cuxhaven district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town includes the northernmost point of Lower Saxony. It is situated on the shore of the North Sea at the mouth of the Elbe River. Cuxhaven has ...

City Parliament. Protesting the Nazi seizure of power, she left Cuxhaven Council in May 1933, together with the whole SPD group.

Life

Anna Franze was born 2 October 1885 in

Seifhennersdorf Seifhennersdorf ( hsb, Wodowe Hendrichecy) is a town in the district Görlitz, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the border with the Czech Republic, and the Czech towns of Rumburk and Varnsdorf lie across the border to the no ...

Upper Lusatia Upper Lusatia (german: Oberlausitz ; hsb, Hornja Łužica ; dsb, Górna Łužyca; szl, Gōrnŏ Łużyca; pl, Łużyce Górne or ''Milsko''; cz, Horní Lužice) is a historical region in Germany and Poland. Along with Lower Lusatia to the ...

as a daughter of brick mason Ernst Wilhelm Franze and weaver Christiane Auguste Franze. Lacking a higher school education or professional training, she started to work as a housemaid in Zittau, Bavaria, and

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

. In 1907, she came to Cuxhaven.Stadt Cuxhaven, Der Oberstadtdirektor, Frauenbeauftragte (Ed.): ''Powerfrauen Frauenpower. Ratsfrauen in der Stadt Cuxhaven seit 1919.'' Cuxhaven 2000, p. 33. On 3 July 1914, she married typographer John Eduard Strohsahl. The Strohsahls had daughters Ruth (1915), Erika (1917) and Sonja (1927, died shortly after birth).

Political beginnings

Anna Strohsahl's political commitment started after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Her husband was an editor with the social democratic newspaper ''Alter Liebe'', for which she later also wrote articles. Together with other social democrats, she founded the SPD Cuxhaven Women's Group on 23 April 1920, and became its president on 2 June 1921.

Citizen Parliament and Council

Strohsahl was elected into Cuxhaven Citizen Parliament on 2 March 1924. She and Olga Geerken ( DDP) were the only women in Parliament.Stadt Cuxhaven, Der Oberstadtdirektor, Frauenbeauftragte (Ed.): ''Powerfrauen Frauenpower. Ratsfrauen in der Stadt Cuxhaven seit 1919.'' Cuxhaven 2000, p. 11. Strohsahl was elected into the school board, the board of further education and the welfare centre. She got involved with school education of workers' children and the support for pensioners, unemployed and homeless. The same year, she became delegate in the District Welfare Union ("Bezirksfürsorgeverband"). I 1925, she was elected into housing office. In spring 1927, she left Citizen Parliament but was elected again on 23 October 1927 as the only woman.Stadt Cuxhaven, Der Oberstadtdirektor, Frauenbeauftragte (Ed.): ''Powerfrauen Frauenpower. Ratsfrauen in der Stadt Cuxhaven seit 1919.'' Cuxhaven 2000, p. 37. She was elected into the District Welfare Union again. Strohsahl called for more political commitment of women. She wrote in an article: "Also female voters must get used to following their representative's activities in Parliament." After the elections on 19 October 1930, she was the only woman in Citizen Parliament again. On 31 October 1930, she became the first and only female city councillor ("Ratsmann") in the history of Cuxhaven City Parliament. There, she was elected into the youth welfare office. When Council dismissed the school's cleaning women whose husbands had a sufficient income as "double earners" in 1931, Strohsahl was the only councillor to vote against the lay off. On 3 September 1931, she left the Evangelical-Lutheran Church.

Political work after 30 January 1933

After the Nazi seizure of power work became harder for the Social Democrats in Cuxhaven. The NSDAP put the elected mayor Werner Grube (

DVP DVP may refer to: * ''decessit vita patris'', "died in the lifetime of his father", term used by genealogists to denote a child who pre-deceased his or her father and did not live long enough to inherit the father's title or estate. * Delivery versu ...

) on leave, claiming that the composition of Council and City Parliament did no longer fit "the people's will". Grube was now temporarily deputised by government building officer Schätzler (

NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...

). On 9 May 1933 the SPD councillors were removed from all boardp. Strohsahl thereupon claimed that "it cannot be the sense of the

Gleichschaltung The Nazi term () or "coordination" was the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party successively established a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society and societies occupied b ...

to completely exclude the Left from cooperation, which is representing 4000 voters." 19 May 1933 the Council decided to pay the 50 Reichsmark expense allowance only to councillors heading a board in future. In a City Parliament session councillor Morisse declared to no longer setting value on the Social Democrats' work: "You don't have anything else to do than to be ashamed and to keep silent." After this, Strohsahl and the complete SPD group left the City Parliament. Following the prohibition of SPD on 22 June 1933 her political work ended for the time being. During this time, the personal situation of the Strohsahl family worsened, harassing controls by the National Socialists increased. The supervisory school authority retroactively changed the passed high school diploma of her daughter Ruth from "good" to "poor/fail" which made her flee to the UK. With the prohibition of the newspaper ''Alter Liebe'' on 16 March 1933 John Strohsahl was unemployed. Anna Strohsahl supported her family during World War II as a house maid and a seamstress.

Postwar period and death

On 22 November 1945, the British military government mandated Strohsahl and 29 other unencumbered city delegates to manage Cuxhaven until the free elections on 13 October 1946. Again, she was active in the welfare centre, the school board, and, starting June 1946 in the building board. On 29 October 1948 Anna Strohsahl was officially

denazified Denazification (german: link=yes, Entnazifizierung) was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War. It was carried out by removi ...

.Der öffentliche Kläger bei dem Entnazifizierungs-Hauptausschuß der Stadt Cuxhaven: Bescheid VE 1320/48 C, 29. Oktober 1948. Due to a long illness, political work after 1946 was no longer possible. Strohsahl died on 1 January 1953.

References

External links

* Cuxhavener Nachrichten
''Der Anfang war schwer''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strohsahl, Anna 1885 births 1953 deaths German politicians People from Seifhennersdorf