1 The Life and Works of Clementine Krämer (1873-1942) Corinne Jayne Painter Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Leeds School of Languages, Cultures and Societies December 2015 2 3 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement © 2015 The University of Leeds and Corinne Jayne Painter The right of Corinne Jayne Painter to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. 4 Acknowledgements I would firstly like to thank my two supervisors, Ingrid Sharp and Stuart Taberner, for all their help and guidance over the course of this project. It has been an incredible journey and they have both been there for me, patiently checking my drafts, guiding me with tricky questions, and celebrating my successes with me. I would not have made it this far without them. I would also like to thank Helen Finch for her help and advice with teaching. The German department as a whole has been very supportive. It is a great department with dedicated staff and inspirational students. Next I would like to thank my wonderful husband, Ben. His unwavering faith in me gave me the confidence to keep going. Thank you for patiently understanding all the times when I forgot that I had promised to do the washing up because inspiration had struck! I would also like to thank my parents and my sister for their financial contributions to this project and for listening to my occasional woes. The Student Advice Centre has played an important role over the last few years. Thank you for providing me with a job and teaching me some unbelievably valuably life skills (Council Tax regulations and housing regulations spring to mind, but also how to negotiate with distressed people and remain calm in the midst of chaos). All of you are superheroes because you never stop fighting for justice for students. In particular I would also like to thank my managers, past and present: Jess Hawker Meadley, Jenna Isherwood, Natalie Wells Russell, and Katie MacGregor Hughes. Thank you for sharing in the excitement when I was making progress and turning a blind eye to me doing PhD work when I probably should have been doing something else! Finally thanks to my fellow PhD students. Thanks to Luke Postlethwaite and Jo Gilbert for the cups of tea/gin and tonics and afternoon catch ups over cake. Thanks to Ben Docherty for sharing in the triumphs and pitfalls of teaching, and for always having an amusing story to tell. And thanks to Emma Pickering for demonstrating that part time students rule. Some people say that a PhD is a lonely process; with friends like these, I have never found that to be the case. 5 Abstract Although a prolific writer and leader in the women’s movement, Clementine Krämer (1873- 1942) is relatively unknown today. Despite recent research interest into women’s history, much of the research centred on the German Jewish community focusses on the experiences of men. Clementine Krämer’s life and works offer a fascinating insight into a challenging period for this community. She was a prolific writer of fiction, non-fiction and reportage from about 1893 until about 1933 and, as this thesis will show, she wrote on many topics to chronicle her time, but she also played a significant role in shaping the response of her community to the difficulties they encountered. The analysis in this thesis will expand the current knowledge about the German Jewish community at the end of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth, and offer an insight into the complexity and range of German Jewish responses to the changes they experienced. This thesis uses close reading of the wealth of Krämer’s work, both published and unpublished, and including her private correspondence, to create a “thick description” of who she was and how she interacted with the world. Her writings reveal her sustained concerns about her identities and this thesis will explore the ways in which she tried to reconcile her identities as a woman, as a German and as a Jew during a life in which she experienced social and political upheaval on a dramatic scale. She struggled to balance her identities and her engagement with the women’s movement, and to retain a coherent sense of self in the face of changes which threatened to fragment the integral parts of her identity. This reading, which is the first to engage with the full range of her work, reaches conclusions about Krämer that challenge statements made by her contemporaries, revealing her as a complex, intelligent and insightful individual, deeply rooted in both German and Jewish culture, who was both representative and atypical of her community. A comprehensive study of Krämer’s life and work, her influences and motivations, will therefore nuance and complicate the current scholarly understanding about the German Jewish community during a key period in German history. 6 Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... 4 Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... 5 List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................................. 7 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 8 Krämer’s Biography ............................................................................................................... 8 Methods, Sources and Approaches ..................................................................................... 11 Existing Research ................................................................................................................. 15 Key Concepts ....................................................................................................................... 22 Historical Context ................................................................................................................ 31 Thesis structure ................................................................................................................... 36 Chapter One: Articles & Letters ............................................................................................... 40 Articles ................................................................................................................................. 41 Letters .................................................................................................................................. 69 Chapter Two Women in the Public Sphere ............................................................................. 94 Wenn man eine Frau ist (Münchner illus. Zeitung , 1913) .................................................. 103 Die Groteske (Jugend , 1916) .............................................................................................. 111 Spaziergang durch den Englischen Garten (Der Gerade Weg , 1933) ................................ 124 Chapter Three: Spiritual Motherhood ................................................................................... 132 Getauft (Ost und West , 1913)............................................................................................ 135 Märchen (published, undated) .......................................................................................... 143 Die gestohlene Taschenuhr (Welt und Leben , undated).................................................... 148 Chapter Four: Responses to War ........................................................................................... 155 Königin-Mutter (1915?) ..................................................................................................... 161 Jugend (1917?) .................................................................................................................. 167 Das Wunder (1920s?) ........................................................................................................ 173 Chapter Five: Die Rauferei (1927).......................................................................................... 180 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 205 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 213 Works by Clementine Krämer ........................................................................................... 224 7 List of Abbreviations ADF Allgemeiner deutscher Frauenverein BIG Bayrische israelitische Gemeindezeitung BJFB Blätter des jüdischen Frauenbundes BDF Bund deutscher Frauenvereine CV Central-Verein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischer Glaubens JFB Jüdischer Frauenbund NSDAP Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei 8 Introduction This thesis will examine the works of Clementine Krämer in order to address the following question: how did she, as a German Jewish woman, reconcile and balance these potentially conflicting aspects of her identity at a time of great social and political