Antonie Pfülf

Born on 14 December 1877 in Metz, Antonie Pfülf was the daughter of the army officer Emil Pfülf and Justine Stroehlein. Against the wishes of her parents, after spending her childhood in Metz, she attended a teacher training establishment in Munich. On receiving her diploma, she taught in Upper Bavaria and from 1910 to 1919 in Munich.[1] While working as a teacher, she undertook volunteer work for orphaned children while calling for educational support for working-class children. As a result, she became a well-known figure in Bavaria.[1][3]

Pfülf was born on 14 December 1877 in Metz. Her father was an officer in the Imperial military and her mother was daughter of a lawyer. Her family was wealthy, conservative, and Catholic, and in childhood she and her siblings were attended by a governess and servants. While attending the Higher School for Girls in Metz, Pfülf developed an interest in social justice and the then-illegal socialist movement. After graduating, she trained as a teacher and left home when her parents refused to support her. She taught in rural southern Bavaria from 1902 to 1908, then in Milbertshofen in Munich. Shortly after moving to Munich, she contracted tuberculosis and was treated at a sanitarium. She later moved to a cabin in the mountains to recover further, though the disease occasionally relapsed, forcing her to take a year of leave in 1915.[4]^: 145

Pfülf joined the SPD in 1902 after hearing Clara Zetkin speak on women's equality at a conference of SPD women. Though it was illegal at the time for women to engage in political activity, she began attending party meetings while dressed as a man and promoted women's rights. After the ban was lifted in 1908, Pfülf was elected to the executive of the local SPD.[4]^: 146

Within the SPD, Pfülf held reformist positions close to the moderate wing, accepting Marxist principles but focusing on concrete political work rather than theory. She was known as a fiery and decisive activist with strong convictions. Her experience as a teacher, during which time she had often loaned money to and bought essentials for impoverished students' families, drove her dedication to political work.[4]^: 146 However, she was also relentlessly devoted to the party and remained with it throughout the First World War despite her pacifist beliefs. At the beginning of the war, she opposed the party's move to approve war credits, but advocated abstention rather than opposition to avoid accusations of disloyalty.[4]^: 147

During the November Revolution, Pfülf involved herself in the discussions and activities of the revolutionaries. Toward the end of the month, she showed up uninvited to a meeting of the all-male Munich workers' and soldiers council. Chairman Erich Mühsam ordered her to leave, but Pfülf refused, declaring: "You'll have to use force to throw me out, because I'm here to represent women's interests." She raised proposals for women's and other social issues, such as unemployment, housing, the spread of illness, and healthcare for women, children, prisoners of war, and wounded soldiers. She also requested that the new provisional government release workers who had been arrested for striking and protesting against the war. Nonetheless, the council narrowly voted to expel her from the meeting.[4]^: 147

She was undeterred, however, and soon helped organise the Munich League of Socialist Women, of which she was elected chairwoman. She was largely unsuccessful in bringing working- and middle-class women together, and Lida Gustava Heymann wrote that socialist men were uncomfortable with Pfülf's organising, which "they felt went right to the heart of things and threatened their sense of authority".[4]^{: 147–148}

Despite opposition from Erhard Auer, chairman of the SPD's Bavarian branch and interior minister of the state government, Pfülf was nominated as an SPD candidate for the Weimar National Assembly in the 1919 election. She had sharply criticised Auer for refusing to guarantee women's representation on the provisional council, and he resented her association with the temperance movement. Despite this, her nomination was supported by culture minister Johannes Hoffmann. She stood in the district of Upper Bavaria–Swabia and successfully became the first Bavarian woman ever elected to parliament. In the National Assembly, she was one of 37 women, of which 18 were from the SPD and 3 from the USPD.[4]^: 148

Pfülf focused chiefly on women's equality during the drafting of the new constitution. She achieved only limited success, however, since the non-socialist majority had little interest in the proposals of the left-wing women. Article 109 included a vague clause declaring "fundamental equality" a goal of the republic, which dissatisfied Pfülf. She proposed an amendment to explicitly declare that "men and women have the same rights", which was not adopted. Proposals to abolish capital punishment and establish protections for illegitimate mothers and children were also defeated. Protections for female officials and public employees, however, passed.[4]^{: 148–149}

Pfülf came into further conflict with Erhard Auer over his actions in the aftermath of Kurt Eisner's assassination, and struggled to secure re-nomination for the 1920 election. She retained the support of Hoffmann, however, and successfully won re-election in Upper Bavaria–Swabia.[4]^: 150

Pfülf's teaching career effectively ended when she left the Catholic Church in 1919, at which time teachers were legally required to be affiliated with either the Catholic or Evangelical churches. The passage of the new Weimar constitution ended this practice, but the Bavarian government continued regardless. They refused to allow Pfülf to teach again, even after she raised the issue and received the backing of the Reichstag. She continued to argue for over a decade but was unable to overturn the policy. She thus worked as a politician full-time.[4]^: 151

During the 1920s, Pfülf became one of the SPD's most well-known members thanks to her activism and speaking ability. At the 1920 SPD conference, she was appointed to a commission tasked with drafting a new party program, and was deputy chair of the women's conference.[4]^: 151 During her time in the Reichstag, she earned respect even from prejudiced colleagues such as Wilhelm Hoegner, who described her as "one of the few intellectually significant women" in parliament and noted the "energy and staying power" she demonstrated in her constituency work.[4]^: 150

Pfülf responded emphatically to the sudden rise of the Nazi Party in the 1930 election, championing the social safety net and labour rights which she saw as key to protecting workers from the economic crisis. She spoke often and passionately in defence of the republic and social-democratic policies, but was bitterly disappointed by the SPD's decision to tolerate the Brüning government. She grew weary as the Reichstag's work, to which she had long been dedicated, became irrelevant due to obstruction by extremists and increasing use of presidential decrees.[4]^{: 155–156}

Losing faith in the ability of the SPD to defend the republic via political means, she placed her hope in the Iron Front. This was dashed in June 1932 when the SPD and union leaders refused to mobilise it in response to the Prussian coup. However, she continued to speak loudly and defiantly in public, even after Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor in January 1933. She was arrested in Weiden in February after giving a speech in which she condemned Nazi violence and censorship, ending by reminding the crowd that a recent Iron Front rally in Berlin had brought together 200,000 people to defy the regime.[4]^: 156

Pfülf was re-elected to the Reichstag in March despite harsh repression against the democratic opposition. She was disgusted as the Reichstag turned into little more than a spectacle of Nazi power, but was persuaded to attend on 23 March and vote against the Enabling Act of 1933 as a show of defiance. As the situation deteriorated over the following weeks, she helped secure passage out of the country for comrades including Rudolf Breitscheid and his wife Tony, but refused to consider fleeing herself. In her view, this would be tantamount to admitting defeat. She advocated for the party to remain in Germany and resist. Refusing any proposal to accommodate the regime, she opposed a decision by the SPD Reichstag group to back a "peace resolution" put to parliament by Hitler, reportedly "shaking with nervous cramps" while speaking at the party meeting on 17 May.[4]^{: 156–158}

In private, Pfülf despaired deeply about the situation. Already a week before her speech in Weiden, she wrote out her will and named her sister as executor.[4]^: 156 As a pacifist she refused to consider violent resistance to the Nazis, and as a democrat refused to placate them as she believed the SPD had begun to do. With political avenues exhausted, she believed that suicide was the only remaining option.[4]^: 144 Instead of attending the Reichstag on 17 May, she spent the day writing farewell letters to friends and comrades. She attempted suicide via drug overdose on the train to Munich the next day, but failed and was sent to hospital.[4]^: 158

Pfülf returned to her home a few days later and received visits from comrades over the following weeks, including Paul Löbe, Louise Schroeder, and Josef Felder. They implored her to join the brewing underground resistance – Löbe told her that "suicide was no different than abandoning the comrades by going into exile" – but she could not be dissuaded. In her final conversation with Felder, she expressed her dismay: "that a great party like the SPD, along with millions of trade unionists, doesn't even try to defend itself — this is what I can't bear." Pfülf committed suicide on 8 June.[4]^: 158

Her funeral was held on 12 June. In order to protect others from persecution, she had arranged for the mourners to stand silently for only a few minutes before dispersing, and for only a single short statement to be read: "Antonie Pfülf, born on December 14, 1877 in Metz, died on June 8, 1933 in Munich."[4]^: 144

She also asked her sister to publish the following death notice in Vorwärts and the Münchener Post: "On _____, Toni Pfülf returned home. She enjoyed her life and her friends and is grateful to them. She departs confident in the victory of the great power of the proletariat, which she had the privilege to serve." By the time of her death, however, both papers had been banned. Her family submitted the statement to the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, which refused to print it. Her mother Justine and sister Emma instead published the following notice: "My faithful daughter and my good sister, Frau Toni Pfülf, teacher and member of the Reichstag, died on Thursday, 8 June, and was cremated on 12 June."[4]^: 161