Margarete Zuelzer

Margarete Hedwig Zuelzer (7 February 1877 – 29 August 1943) was a German biologist and zoologist specializing in the study of protozoa.

Biography

Margarete Zuelzer was the daughter of Jewish textile manufacturer Julius Zuelzer (1838–1889) and Henriette née Friedlaender (1852–1931). She studied natural sciences at the Humboldt University of Berlin and at the University of Heidelberg. She was among the first generation of women to officially attend university in Germany. Studying science in particular was so unusual for a woman at the time that Zuelzer had to get special permission from each of her professors to attend their classes. She earned her doctorate in 1904 with a dissertation on Difflugia urceolata Carter, a protozoan. This made her the 37th woman to have earned a doctorate at the University of Heidelberg and the sixth to have earned one from its faculty of natural sciences.

In 1907, she became the assistant at the water treatment center in Berlin. In 1916, she took a position at the Imperial Ministry of Health (Kaiserliches Gesundheitsamt), later the Reich's Ministry of Health (Reichsgesundheitsamt). After 1919, she led the Protozoa Laboratory in Berlin-Dahlem and continually served as one of the few women on the advisory board, sometimes the only one.

In April 1943, Margarete Zuelzer was forced to move into a Jewish ghetto in Amsterdam. On 21 May, she was sent to the Westerbork Transit Camp. Before her deportation, her friend and colleague Wilhelm Schüffner had attempted in vain to procure a special position for her.