Lina Morgenstern

"In the heart of the city of Wroclaw, with the old, beautiful Gothic town hall at my side, I saw the light of day," recapitulated Lina Morgenstern in a self-portrait in the Münchener Stadtzeitung. Born on November 25, 1830, she was the third of six children and grew up in a five-room residence at Blücherplatz 2. 

Mother Fanny came from a middle-class Jewish family, father Albert established himself as a furniture and antiques dealer. Lina's grandfather, head of the Jewish community in Krakow, had a great influence. Lina learned the prayers in Hebrew and Aramaic without fully understanding the sentences. The older she got, the more she tended towards a free view of philanthropy. Every now and then, on major holidays, she visited the Synagogue zum Weißen Storch, which was located just a few minutes' walk from his parents' home in a large courtyard and had a magnificent Torah shrine.

Lina was particularly impressed by her religious teacher Abraham Geiger, who encouraged her to think independently about ethical regulations. He advocated bringing the service closer to the people through music and choir as well as praying in the local language.

For Lina's 18th birthday, her father organized a party. Lina was bored - and spontaneously presented an idea: everyone present should donate a penny a month for school materials and clothes for poor working-class children. Some guests tried to get out of the affair elegantly: Who would guarantee that the donations would go to the right people? Should only Jewish children receive the donations? Lina eloquently dispelled the doubts. She began collecting money while still at the party. She managed to convince almost all the guests to subscribe to the donation. The Pfennigverein existed for thirty years, supported 16,000 children and was Lina's first successful charitable enterprise.

In June 1866, the conflict between Prussia and Austria escalated - war was imminent. Husbands had to join the army and leave their families. Hunger was everywhere in Berlin. Lina recognized the need and had an idea: she wanted to found a people's kitchen. In a new way. The business was to be self-sustaining, without state aid. However, she had neither initial capital nor premises and staff. So how to implement the idea?

A sleepless night. At dawn Heureka, Lina had a plan: donations as initial capital, volunteers in the kitchen and a cheap room. But the authorities wouldn't provide her with a room, and she couldn't find anyone to lend her the initial capital. Lina persuaded women from the middle classes to help cook and distribute food free of charge - the "ladies of honor". She planned to open the first kitchen before the war began. She urgently needed money for this. Her idea: an appeal for donations in a renowned newspaper. 

How, however, to the editor-in-chief of the prestigious Vossische Zeitung how to convince him? Despite the headwinds, Lina managed to collect a considerable sum with a sophisticated maneuver by appealing for donations. 

She wanted to use it to buy dishes and rent a room. But Lina couldn't get hold of the money she had organized because the men from the Volksküche-Verein prevented this - only men were legally allowed to found an association or a company and manage money at that time. But these men suddenly doubted Lina's ability to open a kitchen so quickly. After tough discussions, the board approved a partial sum for her. Lina got started immediately. Lina's cooking skills, the aroma of the soups and her concept attracted guests, the Volksküche quickly became a success and sixteen more followed. 

Numerous European cities have adopted Lina's "business concept" without state funding, such as Stockholm, Budapest, Vienna and 25 other major cities.

In order to free herself from her domineering parental home in Wroclaw, Lina went to Berlin with Theodor Morgenstern. There, the newlyweds moved into an apartment at 139 Potsdamer Strasse. When Lina became pregnant, Theodor pursued a business idea: he wanted to open an establishment the likes of which Berlin had never seen before - an exclusive, international fashion house in the posh Friedrichstrasse! Theodor bought the finest collections from Paris, London and Istanbul and presented silk, gold and silver-knitted dresses on two floors. The Leipzig llustrirte Zeitung rejoiced: "Thanks to the refined needs of civilization, which now fulfills Theodor Morgenstern, Berlin will finally become a cosmopolitan city." 

Theodor lavishly advertised in expensive newspapers to attract customers with high purchasing power, while Lina became pregnant for the second time. At night, she studied the educational methods of the pedagogue Friedrich Fröbel; for him, women had the future of humanity in their hands. They shaped the first years of life, the decisive period. As soon as the children were asleep, Lina transcribed a readable article from Fröbel's complicated nested-sentence writings. At the same time, she worried because although many ladies visited Theodor's store, they bought very little. In truth, the family was getting worse and worse. A third child exacerbated the situation. Suddenly the couple could no longer pay the rent and Theodor slipped into bankruptcy. The couple were plagued by severe existential fears: How to feed the ever-growing family? 

Then Lina managed to convince the editor-in-chief of the successful fashion magazine BAZAR of her book idea about Friedrich Fröbel. Lina wrote "The Paradise of Childhood" in just four weeks. Over 280 pages! The handbook of Fröbel's teachings went through seven editions, was translated into several languages and sparked a public debate on the subject of non-violent education. Above all, Lina concluded that she could make a living from writing books in order to provide for her family. And she succeeded. Further bestsellers followed. 

1870. The Germans defeated the French, the government celebrated, Berlin rejoiced. The officers had not thought to provide the returning soldiers with food at the Berlin train stations. Lina Morgenstern was now supposed to do this. Within a few hours!

Lina fetched her volunteer helpers from the people's kitchens, who immediately started cooking. But what did the Minister of War expect from Lina? A victory celebration? 

Shortly afterwards, the first train rolled into the Ostbahn station. Many Berliners rushed to the platform to greet it, singing patriotic songs, dancing, drinking and celebrating their victorious fighters. 

As the first heroes left the wagons, the cheering suddenly fell silent. A strange silence spread. Most of the soldiers could barely move under their own power, many had lost an arm or a leg, others were disfigured by injuries. The "victorious heroes" looked like "doomed losers".

At the station, Lina found no doctor, no paramedic, no medicine. Those in power were celebrating the victory, they had forgotten about the wounded.

Spontaneously, Lina improvised a military hospital in the station shed. With her volunteer helpers, she cleaned and dressed wounds. Day and night. Until they were completely exhausted. No state help came. Not even after weeks. But new trains every day. Including injured French prisoners, who nobody cared about. Lina and her seven helpers bought bandages on their own account and also cared for the French, in the end there were around 300,000 soldiers and over 6,000 injured, friend and foe. 

After months, a military doctor visited the hospital. Instead of helping, he accused Lina of not sending malingerers back to the front and of treating seriously injured people incorrectly. He would have her court-martialed - for "negligent assistance resulting in death"! 

At home, Theodor took stock of the family's finances: "We don't even have enough money for a lawyer." Lina and her family of seven were on the brink. 

Lina Morgenstern wanted to found a newspaper. Exclusively by women for women. Without fashion, gossip and gossip. But with legal, medical and food technology advice as well as fighting for women's rights. As she couldn't find an investor, she risked all the income from her book sales. 

The censorship authorities under Bismarck already made it difficult for men to run a newspaper. It was even more impossible for women to start one! Bismarck had increased surveillance and censorship, over 6,000 civil servants ensured peace and order in Berlin, supported by a host of secret agents in plain clothes, who constantly checked flyers and newspapers. The people of Berlin said: "Instead of gas and electricity, there's a security guard on every corner!" 

In order to get around the censorship, Lina used a clever trick: She didn't found a newspaper, but merely published an "information sheet" of her Berliner Hausfrauenverein. No office could have anything against that. In truth, the "Informationsblatt" had all the characteristics of a critical newspaper that campaigned for welfare and women's rights. In this context, Lina founded associations that fought for single parents, unemployed women and prostitutes. Lina's motto: "We women do not demand mercy, but justice!" 

Immediately, the anti-Semite Dr. Bachler immediately railed against it in his Staatsbürgerzeitung, making fun of the "Damenblättchen der Frau Lina". However, Lina's Hausfrauenzeitungwas soon more successful without gossip than Dr. Bachler's Gazette. Lina gained subscribers as far away as Australia. 

In her early years, Lina Morgenstern followed the motto: "First the need must be alleviated, there is still time for political visions." That changed as she got older. Now she wanted to make a bigger difference, because she realized that The plight of over a million single women without work was getting worse. She decided to become more political. Her idea: the 1st International Women's Congress on German soil, organized together with other smart women. But some doubted: How was this supposed to work without money, where the congress was taking place? How to get around the strict censorship and where could the many visitors even spend the night? Lina struggled to reconcile class fighters, workers' associations and bourgeois women, as the congress was supposed to be about demands that affected all women. Which wasn't easy.

Despite fierce resistance, Lina and her colleagues received over 1700 visitors from all over the world in the Red City Hall in the fall of 1896. 65 international newspapers reported on the event for nine days. The delegates demanded the right to vote for women, access to education and universities and legal equality in business matters. The congress made political waves, the skillful selection of speakers and the "exemplary course of the meetings" were praised by the majority. Reluctantly, a reporter from the conservative Kreuzzeitung stated: "From the point of view of the friends of the women's movement, the mood was excellent!" Even the harshest critics had to admit: "The chairmen Lina Morgenstern and Rosalie Schönflies succeeded in ensuring that the newspapers carried column-length reports on the congress for eight days." The Berliner Tageblatt praised: "Lina Morgenstern succeeded in building new bridges in a time of political division". 

Soon afterwards, even conservative politicians admitted that more needed to be done for women. In the following years, access to A-levels and universities was made easier for women, and further improvements followed. Slowly. Very slowly.