Agnes Heineken

Sara Agnes Heineken (13 July 1872 – 5 July 1954) was a secondary school teacher who became a prominent women's rights advocate. Deemed politically unreliable in 1933, she was deprived of her public appointments in the education sector, but after 1945 she returned to the public stage, taking a lead in restoring the education system. An obituary described her as a great organiser and an impressive personality, and a woman who, driven by her powerful sense of social responsibility, fought tirelessly for the education of girls and women, and for equal rights for women in society.

Biography Provenance and early years Sara Agnes Heineken was born in Bremen, which was also the city in which she would live and, 82 years later, die. Friedrich Heineken (1835–1918) , her father, was employed as a city buildings officer: he later became head of the harbour buildings inspectorate. Her mother's pre-marriage name was Agneta Tholen (1844–1912), indicating Scandinavian – probably Swedish – familial connections. Agnes was the second of her parents’ five recorded children. Her experience of childhood was a lively one, growing up in the family home set beside the “Schlachte” promenade alongside the right bank of the Weser where it passes through the city centre. Her parents shared the house with their children and at least two supplementary aunts. The deputy head, Mathilde Lammers (1837–1905) is better known to posterity as a women's right activist-author than as a school teacher: she was both. Her influence over the infant Agnes Heineken was very considerable. The normal arrangement at the school was for girls to enter it when they were six and complete their schooling when they were fourteen. Sources give Heineken's year of graduating from the school as 1890, by which time she was nearly 18. Her final years were spent studying at the training college for women teachers that Johann August Martin Janson had already created alongside the school when setting it up back in the 1860s. Heineken then remained at the “Höhere Töchterschule Janson” for nearly a further two years, till 1892 She was employed as a teacher, having in October 1890 passed the exams necessary to qualify for work at the junior and middle levels.

Heineken was for many years a member of the executive board of the “Verein Bremischer Lehrerinnen” (VBL / “Association of Bremen women teachers”). and chair of the Bremen section for higher and middle schools for the Allgemeiner Deutscher Lehrerinnenverein, a national umbrella organisation of women teachers. Beyond feminist campaigning she was, in addition, an active member of the free-thinking Deutscher Monistenbund. The ideals and objectives of the Monistenbund are hard to pin down in a couple of lines: it was internationalist and pacifist in outlook, with an all-encompassing science-based world view. But in terms of the more specific issues of the day, there was seldom a fixed consensus to be discerned among the – by 1912 – approximately 6,000 members.

The German republic Military defeat in 1918 was followed by the enforced elimination of the monarchy. During 1918/19 a wave of revolutions swept across the country, much of it regional in its focus and involving brief transfers of power in city halls to self-defined workers’ and soldiers’ “soviet” councils, while national politicians struggled to find a new way ahead that did not involve further bloodshed on the scale unfolding in Russia. By the end of 1918, women aged 20 and above had been given the same voting rights as men in Germany, as one of a number of moves to try and counter the influence of “Bolshevism”. That left a generation of feminist activists with one important issue on which they no longer found it necessary to campaign. When it came to gender equality in respect of the education system, however, there was still much to be done. In 1918 Agnes Heineken became the Director for Schools at the Bremen-based “Frauen-Erwerbs- und Ausbildungsverein” (”Women's Employment and Training Association”). She successfully concentrated support on the further development of professional and vocational schooling for girls. With others, she was involved in founding the “Soziale Frauenschule ” in 1918, the “Allgemeine Frauenschule” in 1919 and in 1920 the “Sozialpädagogische Seminar für Kindergärtnerinnen und Hortnerinnen ” (”Socio-pedagogical Training Institute for Kindergarten workers and Afterschool Supervisors”). That was followed by a “Höhere Handelsschule ” (”Senior Business School”) in 1921, a “Kinderpflegerinnenschule” (”school for Kindergarten carers”) in 1923, a “Seminar zur Ausbildung von Gewerbelehrerinnen” (”Training Institute for Business School Women Teachers”) in 1926 and, in 1929, “höhere Fachschule für Frauenberufe” (”Senior Schools for Women in the Professions”) in various parts of the city.

After just over three weeks, on 4 February 1919 the Bremen Soviet Republic was crushed on the orders of the central government, by military force. On 9 March 1919 elections were held for a Bremen National Assembly, mandated to agree a new constitution for the state of Bremen. It was agreed between the competing groups to follow an ordinance dated whereby the state should be divided into four separate electoral districts, of which Bremen-city, allocated 166 of the 200 seats, was by far the largest in terms of population. Candidates had to be at least 20 years old, and were permitted, for the first time in history, to be women. When the results came in, 18 of the 200 seats had been won by women. Agnes Heineken was one of the successful female candidates, elected as a list candidate of the DDP (… Liberal Party). The new constitution having been agreed, the Bremen National Assembly gave way to a reconstituted "Bürgerschaft"(state parliament) by means of a state election in June 1920. Heineken was re-elected, remaining a member of the ”Bürgerschaft” till February 1921 and then again, following further re-election, between November 1923 and November 1930. She used her parliamentary position to campaign effectively for undifferentiated comprehensive schools, bursaries for children staying on at secondary school beyond the statutory minimum school leaving age, and provision of further adult education for war widows and for other women and girls affected by unemployment.

An achievement as a parliamentarian of which Agnes Heineken was particularly proud came quite early on, in April 1920, when she persuaded the assembly to legislate for a “Bremer Jahre” (”Bremen Year”). This was an obligatory extra year of schooling for girls after year 8, which was devoted to “home economics”. The scheme was implemented in Bremen through the creation for the purpose of a separate college: Heineken herself took official responsibility for its operation. The development caught the attention of education planners in other cities, both within and beyond the borders of Germany, and several copied it. However, priorities and fashions in respect of girls’ education moved on, and 1959 the “Bremen Year” component of the school curriculum - at least in the terms in which Agnes Heineken had promoted and implemented the concept – was ended.

During 1945/46 Heineken teamed up with others, including Anna Klara Fischer, Anna Stiegler, Käthe Popall and Irmgard Enderle to establish the ”Bremer Frauenausschuss” (BFA / ”Bremen Women's Committee”), intended as a non-denominational non-party umbrella grouping of women's organisations across the state of Bremen, from every part of society. Heineken was a leading figure within the BFA for many years, serving as its president during 1949/50.

Even during her final years, Agnes Heineken continued to serve the senate as an advisor on girls' education. "Agnes-Heineken-Straße", a street in Bremen-Obervieland, was named to honour Heineken.