Albertine Badenberg

Albertine Badenberg (29 December 1865 – 20 April 1958) was a teacher and a feminist activist. She later became involved with mainstream politics (Centre Party), sitting as a member of the Prussian parliament ("Landtag") between 1924 and its abolition in 1933.

Life Provenance and early years Albertine Badenberg was born in Steele, at that time a manufacturing town outside Essen (into which it has subsequently been subsumed), at the heart of the rapidly industrialising Ruhr region. Albert Badenberg (1831–1888), her father, was an architect and land surveyor. In 1894 she set up a job placement service and in 1896 a legal advice service for members. She campaigned for legal and financial equality with male teachers. She joined the VkdL executive committee in 1898. Her proposal as to how the association could acquire a more prominent public profile resulted in the launch in 1900 of "Christliche Frau" ("Christian Woman"), a news-magazine and a mouth-piece of the Catholic women's movement.

In the teeth of opposition from other parts of the catholic mainstream, in 1906 Badenberg played an important part in the founding of the German Catholic Women's Association. She became a member of its national executive and in 1909 founded a branch association in her home town, Steele. In 1910 she took over national responsibility for the KDFB's treasury function. In 1917 she absented herself from her teaching work in order to work full time for the KDFB as its General Secretary till 1921. Another organisation with close connections to the Catholic Church in Germany was the Centre Party, within which there were strong opinions on both side of the enfranchisement argument: formally the party tended to remain silent on the topic.

Later years There are suggestions that during the Hitler years Badenberg was in touch with opposition circles as the outreach of the Catholic associations became ever more constrained by the authorities. The Association of Catholic Women Teachers (VkdL) closed down in 1937 after the Gestapo confiscated its head office premises in Berlin-Steglitz. After 1945 she involved herself in helping to refound the VkdL, and remained engaged when in 1949 it was able to establish itself in a new head office in Essen. 1949 was also the year in which she undertook a pilgrimage to Assisi.

Awards and honours 1955 Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany on the occasion of her ninetieth birthday

A street in Essen has been named in her honour.