Marie Zettler

Marie Zettler (13 November 1885 – 5 February 1950) was a German politician and commentator/journalist. A member of the Catholic-centrist Bavarian People's Party ("Bayerische Volkspartei" / BVP), and with women now permitted to stand for election, in 1919 she became one of a number of women elected to what became known as the Weimar National Assembly, mandated to draw up a republican constitution for a newly post-imperial Germany. She also served, for more than forty years, as Secretary for Bavaria of the German Catholic Women's Association ("Katholischer Deutscher Frauenbund" / KDFB). In 1889 she was enrolled at an Educational Establishment in Pasing (Munich) which was unusual in that it was headed up by English women. After three years she returned home to her family where she helped look after the household, educate her younger siblings and support her father's business on the administrative side. Typical of women's rights activists during this period was her intense appetite for education. In 1911 she teamed up with her long standing life partner Marie Buczkowska to attend a two-month further education teaching course in Mönchen-Gladbach on Popular Economics for Catholic Germany. She subsequently undertook a training in social work at the (Catholic Social-Charity Women's Academy Munich) that had been set up by Ellen Ammann of the BVP.

Zettler was elected Secretary for Bavaria of the German Catholic Women's Association on 1 January 1912. Marie Zettler worked within this "Societas Religiosa" as a schooling head. Alongside these tasks and her KDFB responsibilities she served on the executive committee of the "Association of German Catholic Women Social Administrators" ("Verein katholischer deutscher Sozialbeamtinnen e.V. ").

German ("Weimar") Republic 1919–1933 In February 1919, Marie Zettler was one of six women from the Catholic Centre Party and its Bavarian affiliate to become a member of the Weimar National Assembly. Zettler represented the "Upper Bavaria and Schwabing"

Dictatorship 1933–1945 During the Hitler years Marie Zettler is described as "extremely reserved" ("äußerst zurückhaltend") in at least one source. On the other hand, when war broke out six years after the National Socialist take-over, she used the magazine to urge women to make use of the weapons available to them: "Weapons of the spirit, soul and heart are women's weapons. They are unconquerable! These are the weapons that women must take up in the present wartime conditions. Their renown will bloom today as in days of old. The obligation of loyalty is the first weapon. The obligations of war are obligations of honour that fall upon women no less than the fall on men. They are hard obligations, to see husbands and sons ready to make the ultimate sacrifice on the battlefield, that can be borne with courage only by raising our eyes to God, without whose will nothing can happen. He mysteriously prepares the path for each of us, whether in war or in peace." The National Socialists took a close interest in anyone who had been a member of the national parliament during the "Weimar" years: both as a former member of the Weimar National Assembly and on account of her expressly Catholic Christian work, Zettler was kept under surveillance by the authorities. Marie Buczkowska wrote a biography in which she recalled that her partner's mail was monitored and that they were subjected to house searches. Zettler was often called in to the Gestapo main office in Munich to discuss articles in "Bayerisches Frauenland". In a biographical contribution published in 2004 Johann Weber contextualised Buczkowska's reports for a new generation: "You can look as much as you want, but the National Socialists did not have much against her. So there is not conclusive evidence of reprisals such as apartment searches or monitoring of mail. An interrogation session at the Gestapo main office in the Wittelsbach Palace does seem likely, however."

In June 1941 production of the "Bayerisches Frauenland" came to an end, on the flimsy reasoning that "people and raw materials needed to be freed up for important war objectives". Marie Zettler provided readers with the following message of valediction: "This edition of "Bayerisches Frauenland" comes to you with a heartfelt 'farewell' to all our dear readers. The paper supplies section of the has informed us that the war economy demands fullest concentration of resources. Circumstances have come together that make it necessary for our magazine to be withdrawn from now until further notice so that people and raw materials can be freed up for important war objectives."

In December 1944 Marie Zettler and her partner Marie Buczkowska, together with the latter's sister Valentine, relocated back to Mering after their Munich apartment was bombed out.