Toni Sender: First Female Politician/Rebel in Germany

The Early Years

Toni Sender is also known as “a German rebel,” and is even more known as Germany’s first female Politician. Sender was born on November 11, 1888 to her parents Moritz and Marie Sender. She was born in the Rhineland, a Western area of Germany, that boarders France. Her family was a middle-class family, with strict Orthodox religious practices. Her father instilled and stressed the Orthodox Jewish education in his children. According to Sender, there was nothing her mother would not do for her family. Education was important to the Sender family. She attended a Girls’ school in Germany. A Girls’ School would be most equitable to an all-girls high school by today’s standards. From an extremely early age, Sender had a deep longing for independence from her strict family. Once she completed Girls’ school, Sender attended a boarding school, with her parents’ blessing. Thinking that this may be her first chance at freedom, Sender is quickly proven wrong. The people she lives with at the boarding school she attends follows her parents’ strict rules. Seeing that getting a job is her only route to achieve the independence she desperately wanted, Sender lied about her age, and got a job at a real-estate agency. At this point in her life, she was fifteen years old, and she finally had achieved some of the independence she wanted. (Sender p. 17)

College Education

At this time in Germany, women typically did not attain any higher education aside from the Girls’ School. There was a clear division in the roles of women and men. Men were supposed to continue on with school, or get a job to support their family. It was acceptable for women to work, so long as they had no husband at the time. Sender however, refused to adhere to the strict role that was assigned to her. Against her fathers’ wishes, she made the decision to get a higher university education. This caused a strain in Sender’s family, to the point where she was told that if she kept up her drive for an education, she would be responsible for the deterioration of her fathers’ health (Sender p. 25). Not wanting to be the cause of problems for her father, Sender put her goal of receiving a university degree on hold. Sender was not the type of woman that could sit in one place for very long. Deciding that she needed to do something with her life, Sender decided she wanted to get involved with politics. She joined the up-and-coming Labor Movement, and Labor Union in Germany. She had finally found a cause she wanted to fight for. Attending her first demonstration, which protested the labor laws of Prussia, Sender was deemed aggressive by the German police, and was beat up. She had to flee the police in order to ensure the consequences of her attending the rally were not more severe. At this point in Germany, it would have been unheard of for a woman to risk her safety and well-being for the sake of Politics. This first taste of political action is all it took for Sender to want more. Immediately after the rally, she joined the Socialist Party, where she is quoted as saying: “…it (joining the party) was a decisive moment in my life.” (Sender p. 29) Young Adult Years Sender knew she wanted a more active role in politics. However, she realized that she also still had a strong desire for independence. The opportunity comes for Sender to move to Paris, and work as a court stenographer. She immediately jumps on the chance to take this job, and finally free herself from Germanys’ and her parents’ strict rule. She moves shortly thereafter. Upon arriving in Paris, Sender did not adjust as easily as she thought she would. She had spoken German her entire life, and only knew a little bit of French. Being as determined as she was, Sender decided to study English and French shorthand. Eventually, Sender was able to communicate fully with the French. Once she was able to do this, she felt it was her duty to step up the Socialist movement that was occurring in France. Like in Germany, Sender joined the fight for the labor rights of the French, and for the women’s labor movement. The goal of the women’s labor movement was to get a stronger voice in politics for the women of France.

World War I Years

Throughout 1914, tensions erupted around the world. In June, the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary, caused a chain reaction of alliances to be created. France and Germany ended up on different sides of the alliances, and the world just waited until “The Great War” broke out. Tensions came to an all-time high, and in August of 1914, war was just days away. Sender found herself in a predicament. She knew that a German woman in France meant trouble. If she, a German, were found in France, she would immediately be sent to a concentration camp for political prisoners. She only had a few options that she could take: marry a French man to obtain French citizenship, or return home to her serve Germany in the imminent war. After considering marriage, Sender decided she did not want to give up the freedom that she had worked so hard to get. Days after World War I officially broke out, Sender was on her way home to Germany. During World War I in Germany, all those that could serve, did. While visiting her family doctor, he informs Sender that the German military is looking for women, who were deemed the “more caring and nurturing sex” (Chickering p. 114). Sender went on to work for the military, tending to men who were wounded on the front line. Women in this position say the horrible ravages of war. Sender desperately sought out a job where she did not have to deal with the brutalities of war on a constant basis. With some luck, Sender was offered a Government job. Germany was not very accommodating to Socialists at the time, and Sender was adamant about her Socialist beliefs. She tells this job that she will work for them, as long as it is known and accepted that she is Socialist. At this point, Sender was almost leading a double life. By day, she would work for the Office of Metal Concerns, while at night, she would go out into communities promoting the benefits of Socialism, and advocating change for Europe. The people in Germany listened to what Sender had to say, and eventually she started receiving followers. It got to the point that government officials would come to listen to Sender speak, risking persecution from their own government and employment. Seeing that Sender had such an influence on the German people, the German military began to investigate Sender to determine if she was illegally spreading anti-war propaganda. The German military was never able to come up with evidence to prove that she was distributing these materials, but she was. She had a network of people that joined her cause, which would help her hide the illegal materials. All throughout her house, pamphlets and flyers were hidden, advocating an end to what is now known as World War I. Although Socialism and the actions of Sender scared some in the government, Socialism became more popular with the German people in this time period. Sender continued her fight for Socialism until the near end of World War I.

Post-World War I Years

World War I did not work out as the German government had expected. Germany officially surrendered with the signing of The Treaty of Versailles in June, 1919. Now Sender no longer had to spread anti-war materials throughout Germany. However, all was not well in Germany. After the war, and Germany’s surrender, there was a complete collapse of government. With no strong government to keep the country together, Germany fell into a dark revolution. Different groups of people were trying to grab the newly-vacant government, the Socialists included. The Socialists, and Sender were able to get some power to attempt to get Germany back on its’ feet. The socialists were able to set up councils in certain parts of the country to establish some sort of control over the government-less people. However, like during the war, there were people who were not happy that the Socialists were establishing themselves as the ruling power of the land. One of these groups in particular was the Kapp Putsch. The Kapp Putsch consisted of World War I German army generals, who still felt they should be in power after the war and government were over. The actions of the Kapp Putsch, which were often violent, kept Sender and her fellow Socialist on the move. She knew they were looking for her, and did not want to be imprisoned for trying to spread her values. The Kapp Putsch however, were too violent for a nation that had just lost a war. The next election, the Socialist had received seventy-nine seats on the German Reichstag, Sender included. Sender holds the honor of being the first official female politician in Germany.

The Rise of Nazism

Tuberculosis ran rampant throughout Europe during this era. Sender devoted so much of herself to the rise of Socialism, that her health began to suffer. Tuberculosis has the potential to become a very deadly disease. Sender decides to go to Switzerland to recover from her bout with the illness. By the time she recovered, and decided to return to Germany, she found that her country was completely different from how she left it. Still without a strong central government, and in the thick of the Great Depression, people in Germany were starving. There was no work, no food, and no one to help the German people out. Once again, many political parties form to try to get that coveted position of power as the ruling party of the country. The newly founded Nazi party, led by a determined Adolf Hitler, would stop at nothing to achieve power. In the 1931 elections in Germany, the Socialists had taken a dramatic loss of half of their votes in the Reichstag. The votes that the Socialists lost went to the Nazi and Communist parties. After this election, the Nazi’s took power. The Nazi’s ran on a platform of terror and anti-Semitism. Just as before, Sender was pegged as an enemy to the Nazi party. She was on a list of people to be arrested, however, she was able to escape just before she would have been arrested, and took up solace in Czechoslovakia. While in Czechoslovakia, Sender tries to set up a group of people that would be willing to fight for the overthrow of the Nazi Government, however, she does not have much success.

Life in The United States

Once the Nazis took power, and her quest to overthrow the Fascist Party was quashed, Sender was offered a job in the United States. She was to lecture across the United States about her fight for Socialism across Europe. When Sender got to the United States, she was amazed at the freedom Americans had. This was the freedom that she had searched for since her youth. However, when she arrived in America, she also realized that she would need money. She decided to write her story entitled An Autobiography of a German Rebel. Although this autobiography was a best seller shortly after release, and it does tell her story about her fight for freedom, her original purpose for writing this book was to make money to live in America. The New York Times went on to call her book: “Energetic and Well-known.” (New York Times October 1939) Death Toni Sender went on to continue the rest of her life in New York City. She did not have much of a political life once she stopped giving lectures around the United States, but her articles and other pieces of work continue to be used in academics today. Toni Sender died in New York City on June 24, 1964, as a result of a stroke.

Aftermath of the Life of Toni Sender

Many different times in her life, Sender risked her life to fight for the cause she believed in. She pushed for Socialism in Europe, to the point where the Nazis and Communists made her out to be public enemy number one. For her fight, Sender will always be remembered in Germany for being a rebel, and Germany’s first female politician, paving the way for Germany’s first female Chancellor, Angela Merkel.

Bibliography

Chickering, Roger. Imperial Germany and the Great War: 1914 Cambridge University Press. 1988 Sender, Toni. Autobiography of a German Rebel The Vanguard Press. New York. 1939 Woods, Katherine. “A German Rebel” New York Times Section: Book Reviews p. 8 Oct. 1939