Helene Stöcker (13 November 1869 – 24 February 1943) was a German feminist, pacifist and gender activist. She successfully campaigned keep same sex relationships between women legal, but she was unsuccessful in her campaign to legalise abortion. She was a pacifist in Germany. As war emerged she fled to Norway and as that was invaded she moved to Japan and emigrated to America in 1942.

Life

Born in

Wuppertal Wuppertal (; "''Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and tow ...

, Stöcker was raised in a

Calvinist Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Ca ...

household and attended a school for girls which emphasised rationality and morality. She moved to Berlin to continue her education and then she studied at the University of Bern, where she became one of the first German women to receive her doctorate. In 1905 she helped found the League for the Protection of Mothers (''Bund für Mutterschutz'', BfM), and she became the editor of the organisation's magazine ''Mutterschutz'' (1905–1908) and then ''Die Neue Generation'' (1906–1932). Helene Stoecker on street

In 1909, she joined

Magnus Hirschfeld Magnus Hirschfeld (14 May 1868 – 14 May 1935) was a German physician and sexologist. Hirschfeld was educated in philosophy, philology and medicine. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Com ...

in successfully lobbying German parliament from including lesbian women in the law criminalising

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to pe ...

. Stöcker's influential new philosophy, called the New Ethic, advocated the equality of illegitimate children, legalisation of abortion, and sexual education, all in the service of creating deeper relationships between men and women which would eventually achieve women's political and social equality. This was received with dismay from more conservative women's organisations in Imperial Germany. Gedenktafel Münchowstr1 (Zehl) Helene Stöcker

Gedenktafel Münchowstr1 (Zehl) Helene Stöcker

During

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 ...

and the Weimar period, Stöcker's interest shifted to activities in the

peace movement A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals, such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world peac ...

. In 1921 in Bilthoven, together with Kees Boeke and

Wilfred Wellock Wilfred Wellock (2 January 1879 – 22 July 1972) was a socialist Gandhian and sometime Labour politician and MP. Life He was imprisoned as a conscientious objector in the First World War. He was elected at Member of Parliament (MP) for Member ...

, she founded an organisation with the name ''Paco'' (the Esperanto word for "peace") and later known as

War Resisters' International War Resisters' International (WRI), headquartered in London, is an international anti-war organisation with members and affiliates in over 30 countries. History ''War Resisters' International'' was founded in Bilthoven, Netherlands in 1921 unde ...

(''Internationale der Kriegsdienstgegner'', WRI). She was also very active in the Weimar sexual reform movement. The ''Bund für Mutterschutz'' sponsored a number of sexual health clinics, which employed both lay and medical personnel, where women and men could go for contraception, marriage advice, and sometimes abortions and sterilisation. From 1929 to 1932, she took one last stand for abortion rights. After a papal encyclical, the '' Casti connubii'', issued on 31 December 1930 denounced sex without the intent to procreate, the radical sexual reform movement collaborated with the

Socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

and Communist parties to launch one final campaign against paragraph 218, which prohibited abortion. Stöcker added her iconic voice to a campaign that ultimately failed. When the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

s came to power in Germany, Stöcker fled first to Switzerland and then to England when the Nazis invaded Austria. Stöcker was attending a

PEN A pen is a common writing instrument that applies ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Early pens such as reed pens, quill pens, dip pens and ruling pens held a small amount of ink on a nib or in a small void or cavity wh ...

writers conference in Sweden when war broke out and remained there until the

s invaded Norway, at which point she took the

Trans-Siberian Railway The Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR; , , ) connects European Russia to the Russian Far East. Spanning a length of over , it is the longest railway line in the world. It runs from the city of Moscow in the west to the city of Vladivostok in the ea ...

to Japan and finally ended up in the United States in 1942. She moved into an apartment on Riverside Drive in NYC and died there of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

in 1943.

Published works

Books

* 1906 – ''Die Liebe und die Frauen. Ein Manifest der Emanzipation von Frau und Mann im deutschen Kaiserreich.'' * 1928 – ''Verkünder und Verwirklicher. Beiträge zum Gewaltproblem.''

Papers

* ''Frauen-Rundschau'', 1903–1922 * ''Mutterschutz'', newspaper of the ''Bund für Mutterschutz'', published from 1905 to 1907. * ''Die Neue Generation'', 1908–1932.

References

;Other sources * Atina Grossmann: ''Reforming Sex: The German Movement for Birth Control and Abortion Reform, 1920–1950.'' Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995. * Christl Wickert: ''Helene Stöcker 1869–1943. Frauenrechtlerin, Sexualreformerin und Pazifistin.'' Dietz Verlag, Bonn, 1991. * Gudrun Hamelmann: ''Helene Stöcker, der 'Bund für Mutterschutz' und 'Die Neue Generation'.'' Haag Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1998. * Rolf von Bockel: ''Philosophin einer 'neuen Ethik': Helene Stöcker (1869–1943).'' 1991. * Annegret Stopczyk-Pfundstein: ''Philosophin der Liebe. Helene Stöcker.'' BoD Norderstedt, 2003.

Life

Published works

Books

Papers

References

Further reading