Anna Vietor

Anna Vietor (18 April 1860 – 10 February 1929) was a German education pioneer and women's rights activist.

Biography Anna Magdalena Antoinette Vietor was born in Bremen, the eldest of the children of the theologian-pastor Cornelius Rudolph Vietor (1814–1897) born through his marriage to Adelheid Luce (1831-1865). The Vietor's were a well-established part of the Bremen business community. Her mother's father was a physician. Anna was slightly more than 5 when her mother died. Her mother had been the second of her father's three wives. She grew up in a large family, surrounded by siblings and half-siblings. Of these her brother, Karl Vietor (1861–1934) would achieve a measure of notability on his own account as a leading businessman. The family was committed to Protestant Christianity, with a well instilled sense of social obligation and family connections to the missionary movement, but this did not crowd out all the fun of growing up as part of a well-connected middle-class family in a booming city during an era of optimism. On leaving school she enrolled at the "Diakonissenanstalt" (‘’”Deaconess Institute”’’) at Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth where she trained for teaching work, passing exams in 1879 which qualified her to teach at middle and higher level schools for girls.

Arrangements were set in hand for the school to move to larger premises along the street now known as “Carl-Schurz-Straße” in Bremen- Schwachhausen in the north-eastern quartile of the city centre. The architects August Abbehusen and Otto Blendermann were mandated to design a purpose built school according to specifications provided by Vietor. There was an emphasis on large bright classrooms, lit through large south-facing windows. The new school building was ready for a formal opening in 1913.

The school, like other private schools in the city-state, was nationalised in 1922. Vietor remained in place as head teacher, but now that meant she was working for the public schools service, subject the constraints imposed on all civil servants. There are indications that she did not take easily to the reduction in her control over her own school. As she later confirmed in a letter to the schools inspectorate, “after 20 years in post [she was] no longer in a position … to keep her life’s work in her own hands”. Three years after the schools nationalisation she took the opportunity presented by her 65th birthday to retire with effect from 30 April 1925. She continued to apply her energies to the schools service, however, on a consultancy basis, serving on various committees concerned with education in and around Bremen.

She died at Bremen on 10 February 1929.