Mathilde Planck

Mathilde Planck (29 November 1861 - 31 July 1955) was a teacher who became the first female member of the regional parliament ("Landtag") of Württemberg. She championed education for girls and is considered to be one of the most important women in the feminist and peace movements in southwest Germany.

Life Family provenance and early years

Johanna Friederike Mathilde Planck was born in Ulm, the fourth of her parents' seven children. It was in Ulm that she spent her early childhood, after which the family moved, as her father changed jobs, to nearby Blaubeuren, and then to Maulbronn. Her father died in 1880 and after she reached adulthood she helped her mother to look after her parents' younger children: the siblings would retain close interdependencies throughout their lives till 1936 when her younger brother, the theologian Dr. Reinhold Planck, died, leaving Mathilde the only survivor of them all. She then joined her sister Marie in taking a position with the "1st Württemberg Girls' Secondary school" ("1. württembergischen Mädchengymnasium") opened that year by Baroness Gertrud von Üxküll-Gyllenband with royal backing. It was the first girls' school in the kingdom which educated girls up to the school final exam (Abitur) level. The exam was necessary to open the way to a university education, and indeed in 1904 the school sent its first cohort of pupils through to a course of "ordinary" study at the University of Tübingen. She later mused ruefully that she had reached a point in her life at which there was not so much else to do. "I always rejected Hitler, but was not in a position to do much about it. I was so bereft of ideas that the Stuttgart daily newspapers no longer printed anything I submitted". The "triumph of the base, the ugly and the mean" often drive her to the edge of melancholy because she had to experience how "self reliance, and fighting for what is good and beautiful" became increasingly difficult with her advancing years. In 1947 she celebrated the collapse of the "horror regiment" ("Schreckensregiment") with two small written contributions, intended to demonstrate "the great importance of a system of law that matches up to the real simple realities of human rights". In his accompanying "Greeting address" the West German president expressed appreciation for her "truly patriotic and humanitarian work to which [she] as daughter and spiritual heir of a remarkable father had dedicated her life". Unlike Adenauer she failed to secure a seat in the Bundestag (national parliament), however. This was not her first attempt to secure election to the national parliament: she had been an unsuccessful DDP candidate in the Reichstag elections of 1919 and 1920.