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A Feminized Church? The Campaign for Women's Suffrage in Alsace-Lorraine's Protestant Churches, 1907–1914
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2008
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By 1850, a major shift in how Europeans participated in the Christian religion was well underway. On Sundays, most members of a church's or chapel's congregation were women. Women received communion more assiduously than their male counterparts. Catholic religious congregations for women were founded and joined at rates well above those for men. In Protestant lands, women became deaconesses. From Italy to Scotland, women contributed greatly to churches' social and charitable missions through their active involvement in voluntary associations and parish committees. Moreover, mothers now had the primary obligation to nourish religious sentiments in the home. Even the representation of angels had changed, the powerful, free masculine figure replaced by one who was restrained, domesticated, and feminine.
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References
I had the opportunity to present previous versions of this paper at the German Historical Institute's Young Scholars' Forum on “Gender, Power, and Religion” in 2001 and as part of the History Department's “Brown-Bag Series” at Vanderbilt University. My thanks to all those in attendance for their helpful suggestions. I am also grateful to Derek Hastings, Margaret Menninger, and Jeff Zalar for their constructive criticisms of earlier drafts of this article.
1 On the feminization of angels, see Brown, Callum G., The Death of Christian Britain (London: Routledge, 2001), 58.Google Scholar
2 Langlois, Claude, Le Catholicism au féminin (Paris: Cerf, 1984).Google Scholar See also Gibson, Ralph, A Social History of French Catholicism, 1789–1914 (London: Routledge, 1989), 152–54 and 180–90Google Scholar; and McLeod, Hugh, “Weibliche Frömmigkeit—männlicher Unglaube? Religion und Kirchen im bürgerlichen 19. Jahrhundert,” in Bürgerinnen und Bürger: Geschlechterverhältnisse im 19. Jahrhundert, ed. Frevert, Ute, 134–56 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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6 The most comprehensive account of these developments is now McLeod, Hugh, Secularisation in Western Europe, 1848–1914 (New York: St. Martin's, 2000), esp. 52–85.Google Scholar
7 Until recently, this was particularly true in studies of German Europe; Sperber, Jonathan, “Kirchengeschichte als Sozialgeschichte—Sozialgeschichte als Kirchengeschichte,” Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 5 (1992): 11–17.Google Scholar See also McLeod, Secularisation, 1–12.
8 This is an ongoing theme, particularly in works on late nineteenth-century France and Germany. On the former, a useful starting point is Remond, René, L'anticléricalisme en France de 1815 à nos jours (Brussels: Éditions complexes, 1985).Google Scholar More expressly, Gross, Michael B., The War against Catholicism: Liberalism and the Anti-Catholic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2004), especially 185–239CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argues that the rhetorical construction of Catholicism as feminine figured centrally in late nineteenth-century German anti-Catholic discourse.
9 Boxer, Marilyn and Quataert, Jean, Connecting Spheres: European Women in a Globalizing World, 1500 to the Present, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 225–29.Google Scholar A succinct overview of the place of women in Imperial German society appears in the still useful Evans, Richard J., The Feminist Movement in Germany 1894–1933 (London and Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE Publications, 1976), 1–33.Google Scholar See also Allen, Ann Taylor, Feminism and Motherhood in Germany, 1800–1914 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; and Frevert, Ute, Women in German History: From Bourgeois Emancipation to Sexual Liberation (Oxford: Berg, 1989), 61–147.Google Scholar
10 In 1898, the Free Evangelical Church of the Canton of Vaud (Switzerland) became the first major Protestant church in Europe to enfranchise women. Pfister, Rudolf, Kirchengeschichte der Schweiz, 3 vols. (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1984), 3: 255.Google Scholar
11 Amtliche Sammlung der Akten des Oberkonsistoriums und des Direktoriums der Kirche Augsburgischer Konfession (hereafter AS) 64 (1909): 66; Protocol of the June 14, 1909 Synodal session, Archives Départementales du Bas-Rhin (hereafter ADBR) 174 AL, packet 4.
12 Compare Baumann, Ursula, Protestantismus und Frauenemanzipation in Deutschland 1850 bis 1920 (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1992), 190–201Google Scholar; and Hübinger, Gangolf, Kulturprotestantismus und Politik (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1994), 230–33.Google Scholar Neither Baumann nor Hübinger, however, accurately describe the developments in Alsace-Lorraine.
13 Recueil officiel de l'Eglise de la Confession d'Augsbourg en Alsace-Lorraine 106 (1961): 9 ff.; Feuille Synodale, supplement to Number 1 of Volume 7, p. 5; Roth, Charles, Le régime legal du culte protestant en Alsace et Moselle (Strasbourg: Éditions Oberlin, 1971), 14.Google Scholar
14 On the issue of Entkirchlichung and German Protestantism, see Nipperdey, Thomas, Religion im Umbruch: Deutschland 1870–1918 (Munich: Beck, 1988), 118–23Google Scholar; and Hölscher, Lucian, “Die Religion des Bürgers: Bürgerliche Frömmigkeit und protestantische Kirche im 19. Jahrhundert,” Historische Zeitschrift 250 (1990): 595–630.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15 See especially von Reeken, Dietmar, Kirchen im Umbruch zur Moderne: Milieubildungsprozesse im nordwestdeutschen Protestantismus 1849–1914 (Gütersloh: Chr. Kaiser/Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1999), 177–86.Google Scholar Hugh McLeod offers a more European perspective on this phenomenon in Secularisation, 124–36.
16 The Lutheran Landeskirche of Alsace-Lorraine was by far the larger of the two churches. According to the records of the two churches, the Lutheran community numbered roughly 275,000 souls and 241 pastors in 1911, the Reformed community only 88,000 souls and 61 pastors. Kirchenordnung für die Kirche Augsburgischer Konfession in Elsaβ-Lothringen (Strasbourg: J. H. Ed. Heitz, 1912), 35–43; “Resolution of the Strassburger Pastoral-Gesellschaft requesting the creation of a Stadt-Consistorium” of January 30, 1911, Archives ECAAL, p. 10; Letter from Synod President Kuntz to the Ministry of Alsace Lorraine, August 1, 1913, ADBR W 1125, No. 2, II B 649.
17 In 1871, Alsace-Lorraine was 79.67 percent Catholic. The second-most Catholic state was Bavaria, with 71.2 percent; Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich 1 (1871): 13.
18 I was able to find seating plans or specific references to seating arrangements for five of Strasbourg's seven Lutheran parishes: St. Thomas, the New Church, Young St. Peter, Old St. Peter, and St. William; Archives of St. Thomas, Archives of Young St. Peter, and Archives of St. William, Municipal Archives of Strasbourg (hereafter AMS), holdings for the New Church and Old St. Peter. See also Steinhoff, Anthony J., “Protestants in Strasbourg 1870–1914: Religion and Society in Late Nineteenth-Century Europe” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1996), 479–84.Google Scholar The old New Church (the former Dominican Church) went up in flames during the August 23–24,1870 bombardment of Strasbourg and was replaced in 1877 with a completely new structure.
19 AMS TN (New Church) 135 and 103 (Protocol Book of the New Church Consistory), Session of May 28, 1877.
20 It is not clear when these rates were first established, but they remained in effect until the parish council approved a new fee schedule in 1895; Archives of Old St. Peter, Parish Council Minutes, 3:52–54 (session of February 19, 1895).
21 Archives of Young St. Peter (Lutheran); AMS, SPVP (Old St. Peter, Lutheran) 56; Protocol Book of St. William, vol. 1, 307–8.
22 Steinhoff, “Protestants in Strasbourg,” 587–93.
23 Hölscher, Lucien, ed., Datenatlas zur religiösen Geographie im protestantischen Deutschland, von der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg, 4 vols. (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2001), vol. 3, 463, 471.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
24 One major problem stems from the reporting of the data themselves. Usually the figures represent the total number of annual communions in a parish; only rarely did pastors record (and report) rates for individual communion services. Moreover, there was no uniformity in Strasbourg as to the number of communion services annually; some parishes held only four, others held at least one per month. The variability in the number of communion services reflects a second factor that scholars have often overlooked. Pastors held different views on the importance of the communion rite itself, which affected how the rite was “liturgized.” Indeed, at no time after 1802 was receiving communion obligatory for Alsatian Protestants, although it was customary at least on Good Friday and Steinhoff, Christmas., “Protestants in Strasbourg,” 585–86.Google Scholar An alternative approach to interpreting communion statistics appears in Hölscher, Lucian, “Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der statistischen Erfassung kirchlicher Bindungen,” in Seelsorge und Diakonie in Berlin. Beiträge zum Verhältnis von Kirche und Groβstadt im 19. und beginnenden 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Elm, Kaspar and Loock, Hans-Dietrich, 39–62 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990).Google Scholar
25 Structurally, the Lutheran Church of Alsace-Lorraine was divided into six inspections (seven after 1877), each of which consisted of either five or six consistories. Until 1852, the consistory was the basic unit of Lutheran (and for that matter Reformed) church government; thereafter, the parish gained a legal existence, but remained under the authority of the consistory. The religious inspector was akin to the Superintendant in many German state churches. He was an agent of the central church government, visited the parishes and consistories of his territory, ordained ministers, and provided annual reports on the religious and ecclesiastical state of the inspection to the Directory, the Lutheran church's central administrative body. Along with the two laymen selected by the inspectoral assembly, the religious inspector also sat in the Superior Consistory, the highest organ of Lutheran church government in Alsace-Lorraine. After the creation of the St. William Inspection in 1877, three of the seven inspections were based in Strasbourg (the others being New Church and St. Thomas).
26 Ungerer, Annual Report of the New Church Inspection, 1877, Archives of the Église de la Confession d'Augsbourg en Alsace et Lorraine (hereafter Archives ECAAL). Note: Since the research for this article was completed, the Archives ECAAL were transferred to the ADBR and recataloged.
27 Knittel, Annual Report for the St. Thomas Inspection, 1894, Archives ECAAL.
28 Grünberg, Paul, ed., Handbuch für die Innere Mission in Elsass-Lothringen (Strasbourg: Evangelischen Gesellschaft in Strassburg zur Förderung der Inneren Mission, 1899), 100–1Google Scholar; Albecker, Christian, L'Evangile dans la cité: Histoire de la Mission Urbaine de Strasbourg de 1890 à 1939 (Strasbourg: Association des publications de la Faculté de théologie protestante, 1992), 61–63.Google Scholar
29 Archives of St. Thomas, Correspondence for 1897 and 1902.
30 Reeken, Von, Kirchen im Umbruch, 177–86Google Scholar; McLeod, “Weibliche Frömmigkeit”; and for Britain, Cox, Jeffrey, English Churches in a Secular Society: Lambeth 1870–1930 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 48–73.Google Scholar
31 Albecker, Mission Urbaine, 63 and 70; von Reeken, Kirchen im Umbruch, 177–86. This type of activity also figured prominently in the work of the German Evangelical Women's Alliance (Deutsch-Evangelischer Frauenbund, or DEF); Kaufmann, Doris, Frauen zwischen Aufbruch und Reaktion: Protestantische Frauenbewegung in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Piper, 1988), esp. 23–36.Google Scholar
32 Wegweiser in die Kirche und die Innere Mission in Strassburg für neu zugezogene evangelische Glaubensgenossen (Strasbourg, n.d., but after 1908); Albecker, , Mission Urbaine, 30, 173–74.Google Scholar
33 Berg, Christa, ed., Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte, 6 vols. in 7 (1987–1998), vol. 4Google Scholar: Von der Reichsgründung bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1991), 203–10, 220–27, discusses the general status of religious education in the primary and secondary schools of Imperial Germany (with particular emphasis on Prussia).Google Scholar
34 The present discussion of the primary school curricula draws on the following corpus of documents: Normal-Lehrplan für die deutschen Elementar-Schulen in Elsass-Lothringen (Strasbourg: C. F. Schmidts Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1872)Google Scholar; Prass, Hermann, Lehrplan für die Knabenschulen der Stadt Strassburg (Strasbourg: Strassburger Druckerei und Verlagsanstalt, 1889)Google Scholar; Prass, , Lehrplan für die Mädchenschulen der Stadt Strassburg (Strasbourg: Strassburger Druckerei und Verlagsanstalt, 1889)Google Scholar; Prass, , Der Religionsunterricht in der Volksschule in Hinsicht auf das neue preussische Volksschulgesetz. Eine Stimme aus dem Reichsland (Strasbourg: C. F. Schmidts Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1892)Google Scholar; Motz, Th., Provisorischer Lehrplan für die Elementarschulen der Stadt Strassburg (Strasbourg: Strassburger Druckerei und Verlagsanstalt, 1904).Google Scholar
35 The Superior Education Council (Oberschulrat) for Alsace-Lorraine first permitted girls to attend public secondary schools in 1906; very few did so prior to 1918 (for example in 1910, only twenty-five girls were enrolled in Strasbourg's schools). Verwaltungsbericht der Stadt Strassburg i. E. für die Zeit vom 1. April 1900 bis 31. März 1910 (Strasbourg: Elsässische Druckerei und Verlagsanstalt, 1916), 467.
36 The general context of secondary education in Strasbourg appears in Baumeister, “Die Organisation des höheren Unterrichts”; and Die Verwaltung des höheren Unterrichts in Elsass-Lothringen von 1871 bis Ende 1878 (Strasbourg: C.F. Schmidts Universitäts-Buchhandlung, 1879). To this should be appended the “Ordnung der Lehraufgaben der höheren Schulen und der Verteilung der Lehrstunden” of June 20, 1883, ADBR 105 AL 1592.
37 On the consequences of defining religiosity solely in terms of “official religion,” see Brown, Death of Christian Britain, 11–15.
38 Sulze, Emil, Die evangelische Gemeinde (Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Berthes, 1891).Google Scholar On Sulze's larger contributions to the contemporary debates on parish reform, see also von Reeken, Kirchen im Umbruch, 47–51; and Graf, Friedrich Wilhelm, “Volkskirche als Gemeindekirche: Die kommunitäre Gemeindetheologie Eduard Simons,” in Der deutsche Protestantismus um 1900, ed. Graf, F. W. and Müller, Hans Martin (Gütersloh: Chr. Kaiser/Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1996), 150–72 esp. 163–67.Google Scholar
39 See Redslob, Julius (Lutheran pastor at St. William), “Sulze's Vorschläge über Organisation der evangelischen Gemeinden,” Archiv der Strassburger Pastoral-Conferenz (hereafter ASPC) 9 (1891): 553–66Google Scholar; Hackenschmidt, Karl (Strasbourg-Young St. Peter), “Was kann auf dem Weg von Verfassungsreformen für die Erneuerung unserer evangelischen Kirche gewonnen werden?,” ASPC 10 (1893): 109–43Google Scholar; and the published proposals of O. F. M. Mülhäuser (of Saverne), Vergangenheit, Gegenwart u. Zukunft der protestantischen Kirche Augsburgischer Konfession in Elsass-Lothringen (Saverne: A. Fuchs, 1897).
40 From 1899–1901, Gérold was president of the Alsatian Pastoral Conference, an annual gathering of the Protestant ministers and theologians in Alsace-Lorraine, in which position he encouraged the conference's extensive discussions of Lutheran church reform. ASPC 11, reports on the sessions of 1899 and 1900.
41 Fabri, “Einiges über Kirche und Schule in Elsass-Lothringen,” in Staat und Kirche: Betrachtungen zur Lage Deutschlands in der Gegenwart, ed. idem, 139–58 (Gotha: Friedrich Andreas Perthes, 1872); and Steinhoff, “Protestants in Strasbourg,” 165–208.
42 There were, in fact, distinct advantages to leaving the French laws in effect. First, the Organic Articles gave Bismarck important leverage against the Catholic Church in Alsace-Lorraine, a matter of great importance on the eve of the Kulturkampf. Secondly, the Decree-Law of 1852, which affected only the two Protestant Churches, gave the government considerable influence to legislate by means of regulation, thereby avoiding the need to amend the basic laws themselves. On Bismark's “promise” to the Protestant Churches, see Michaelis, Otto, Grenzlandkirche: Eine evangelische Kirchengeschichte Elsass-Lothringens 1870–1918 (Strasbourg: Heitz, 1934), 90.Google Scholar
43 Until 1877, the Reichstag and the Bundesrat passed laws for Alsace-Lorraine, subject to the signature of the Emperor. In 1877, the Landesausschuss took the place of the Reichstag, although it was still possible for the latter body (with the cooperation of the Bundesrat) to legislate on behalf of the Reichsland. When the new constitution for Alsace-Lorraine took effect in 1911, both the Bundesrat and the Reichstag lost their legislative prerogatives with respect to the Reichsland. Hiery, Hermann, Reichstagswahlen im Reichsland: Ein Beitrag zur Landesgeschichte von Elsass-Lothringen und zur Wahlgeschichte des Deutschen Reiches 1871–1918 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1986), 72–73, 80.Google Scholar On the role of confessional factors in Reichsland politics, see especially, Wahl, Alfred and Richez, Jean-Claude, L'Alsace entre France et Allemagne, 1850–1950 (Paris: Hachette, 1994), 176–200Google Scholar; and Vogler, Bernard, Histoire politique de l'Alsace (Strasbourg: La nuée bleue, 1995), 186–98.Google Scholar Gerhard Besier presents a good overview of the strength of Protestant conservativism, especially in the Prussian Landeskirchen, in Religion Nation Kultur: Die Geschichte der christlichen Kirchen in den gesellschaftlichen Umbrüchen des 19. Jahrhunderts (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1992), 85–96, 111–24.
44 On the situation in the Reformed Church after 1871, see Strohl, Henri, Le Protestantisme en Alsace, reprint edition (Strasbourg: Oberlin, 2000), 340Google Scholar; Witz, Charles A., Projet de réorganisation des églises réformées d'Alsace-Lorraine (Strasbourg: Vomhoff, 1872).Google Scholar
45 However, the Ministry finally authorized meetings of a regional synod, according to the provisions of the Organic Articles, beginning in 1895. I have discussed the campaign to create a Reformed synod at length in Steinhoff, “Protestants in Strasbourg,” 436–52.
46 Knittel, opening address to the Alsatian Pastoral Conference, ASPC 11 (1901): 302–3.
47 See note 25, above. Until 1903, the inspectoral assemblies met once every three years to elect one of their delegates to the Superior Consistory (each of the two delegates served a six-year term).
48 Wolf, Georg, Die Reform der Verfassung der Kirche Augsburgischer Konfession (Strasbourg: Strassburger Druckerei u. Verlagsanstalt, 1907).Google Scholar Wolf was a former pastor, journalist, and member of both the Superior Consistory and the Landesausschuss.
49 AS 62 (1907–1908): 46–51.
50 “Strassburger Stadtnachrichten,” Strassburger Post (hereafter SP), no. 1301, November 28, 1907.
51 Letter from Mueller to Curtius, December 2, 1907, Archives ECAAL.
52 Baumann, Protestantismus, 190–91.
53 Thus, only small religious communities, such as the Reformed Church in Hamburg, or state churches without a formal constitution, such as Bremen, managed to extend voting rights to women in Imperial Germany before 1918. On Hamburg, see the editorial comment of Martha Zietz to Dr. Müller's comments on women's suffrage in Zietz, Martha, ed., Wie urteilen Theologen über das kirchliche Stimmrecht der Frauen? Gesammelte Antworten auf eine Umfrage des Deutschen Verbandes für Frauenstimmrecht (Hamburg: Otto Meißners Verlag, 1905), 63.Google Scholar Baumannn discusses the situation in Bremen in Protestantismus, 201.
54 Baumann, Protestantismus, 193–95; and more generally, Evans, Feminist Movement, 145–74.
55 “Frauen III: Ihre Rechte in der Kirche” in Schiele, Friedrich Michael, Gunkel, Hermann, Scheel, Otto, and Zscharnack, Leopold, eds., Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 5 vols. (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1910), 2Google Scholar: columns 1014–16; Baumann, Protestantismus, 190. The best study of the League remains Evans, Feminist Movement, especially 71–114. Evans, however, makes no mention of the League's involvement in this church political issue.
56 Zietz, Wie urteilen Theologen.
57 In this respect, the debates over suffrage echoed an important theme in discussions of women's labor, namely the recognition of women's work as work. Compare the arguments on this point in Joan W. Scott, “A Statistical Representation of Work,” in idem., Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 113–38.Google ScholarPubMed
58 Ibid., 190–91.
59 “Der geregelte Frauendienst wird der Gemeinde wertvolle Arbeitskräfte zuführen und sie in den Stand setzen, den mannigfachen Anforderungen der Zeit gerecht zu werden.” Mueller, , Die Frauen im kirchlichen Gemeindeleben: Beitrag zur Frage des kirchlichen Stimmrechts (Hanover: Verlag von Heinr. Feesche, 1904), 22.Google Scholar
60 Zietz, Wie urteilen Theologen.
61 Ibid., 30.
62 Cited (and interpreted) by Müller, Frauen im kirchlichen Gemeindeleben, 18. Müller relies here on arguments presented in Zscharnack, Leopold, Der Dienst der Frau in den ersten Jahrhunderten der christlichen Kirche (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1902).Google Scholar
63 Zietz, Wie urteilen Theologen, 17–20.
64 Baumann, Protestantismus, 190–91. The widely held belief that men derived the right to vote from their liability for military service was an almost insurmountable obstacle for the secular suffrage movement. Suffragettes sought to establish an alternative justification for women's right to vote, emphasizing how politics and public life would benefit from women's particular insights and experiences. But in the context of a profound masculine identity crisis in prewar Germany, this line of argumentation troubled more than it convinced. On masculine views of women's place in German society, see Evans, Feminist Movement, 22–23. The moralizing, feminizing arguments on behalf of women's political emancipation were strongest among the more radical supporters of suffrage. Ibid., 75–79 and Frevert, Women in German History, 28–29. On the fin-de-siècle crisis in male identity, see especially Mosse, Image of Man, 77–80, 102–6.
65 zu Münster, Mathilde Gräfin, “Die Stellung des Deutsch-Evangelischen Frauenbundes zu dem kirchlichen, kommunalen und politischen Wahlrecht der Frau,” in Handbuch der Frauenfrage, ed. Mueller, Paula (Berlin: E. Runge, 1908), 123Google Scholar, cited in Kaufmann, Frauen, 29–30.
66 Mueller, Frauen im kirchlichen Gemeindeleben, 22–23.
67 Stoecker surprised many of his colleagues by seconding Mueller's pro-suffrage position at the April 1903 “Freie kirchlich-sozialen Konferenz”; Baumann, Protestantismus, 190. A good account of Stoecker and his contributions to the ecclesiastical concerns (and politics) of his day appears in Besier, Gerhard, Religion Nation Kultur, 106–9.Google Scholar
68 Baumann, Protestantismus, 191–93.
69 Satzungen der Ortsgruppe Strassburg i. Elsass-Lothringen des deutsch-evangelischen Frauenbund (Strasbourg: R. Schultz, 1906).
70 Zietz, Wie urteilen Theologen, 29–30, 58–59. The theology professors were the liberal Heinrich Holtzmann and Paul Lobstein; the inspectors Mauler (Colmar); Krencker (Lützelstein); Knittel (Strasbourg-St. Thomas); and Teutsch (Buchsweiler). Zietz, Wie urteilen Theologen, 29–31, 58–59. Zietz labels “Tutsch” as “geistlicher Inspektor, Strassburg,” but this is inaccurate. Daniel Teutsch was the religious inspector for the Inspection of Buchsweiler. The other two inspectors for Strasbourg were Höpffner (New Church) and Metzger (St. William).
71 Minutes of the Constitution Commission of December 5, 1907, Archives ECAAL.
72 Curtius, , “Die neuesten kirchlichen Verfassungsarbeiten in Elsass-Lothringen und der Schweiz,” in Grundfragen der evangelischen Kirchenverfassung. Drei Vorträge gehalten in Darmstadt auf Veranlassung der Freien Landeskirchlichen Vereinigung für das Grossherzogtum Hessen (Darmstadt: A. Bergsträßers Hofbuchhandlung, 1911), 26–46, here 32–33.Google Scholar
73 Compare Groeber, Fritz, “Zur Frage des kirchlichen Wahlrechts für Frauen,” SP, no. 1413, December 23, 1907Google Scholar; and Curtius, , Für das Recht der Frauen in der Kirche (Berlin: Verlag von Karl Curtius, 1910), 17.Google Scholar
74 AS 63 (1908): 35–44; Curtius' remarks fall on 35–38.
75 Ibid., 43.
76 Specifically, the Synod resolved that in principle (grundsätzlich), it favored both an active and passive suffrage for women. It then named a commission to prepare the appropriate legislation, which, after approval by the Synod, would be presented to the Ministry for Alsace-Lorraine for ratification. MSV, no. 16 (1909). Only in 1911, however, did the Reformed Church actually produce a draft of a new constitution.
77 This notion of limiting women's presence on church councils was not entirely new. Ernst Troeltsch, in his response to the survey on women's suffrage back in 1903, also indicated such a constraint might be necessary: “Doch wäre hier durch eine einfache Preisgebung des Stimmrechtes an die Frauen überhaupt ohne alle Einschränkung und Kautelen in ihre Wirkung meines Erachtens eine sehr bedenkliche Entmännlichung [emphasis added] der Kirche. Vielleicht wäre ein Ausweg, dass die Mitglieder kirchlicher Vereine wählen dürfen, dass eine Zahl weiblicher Abgeordneter festgesetzt würde, die nicht überschritten werden darf.” Zietz, Wie urteilen Theologen, 22.
78 AS 64 (1909): 17–20.
79 The lone negative vote came from Inspector Wagner, from the rural inspection of Wissembourg. In explaining his decision, he proclaimed that he could not accept any ordinance that granted the vote to women. Ibid., 66.
80 Hence, it was the orthodox Lutherans, having lost the vote within the Church, who tried to derail the reform by mixing religion and politics. “Eingabe von Geistlichen und Mitgliedern von Presbyterialräten an den Statthalter in Elsass-Lothringen betr. den Entwurf einer neuen Kirchenverfassung der Kirche A. K. in Elsass-Lothringen,” 1910 (Bibliotheque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg, M 33726).
81 Here conservatives alluded to the fact that the active franchise was given to all, instead of only to independent (i.e., unmarried or widowed) adult women. As Gustav Lasch reported for the April 24, 1913, special edition (no. 95) of the Braunschweiger Neueste Nachrichten about the debates in Alsace, “[Opponents feel] that it would be offensive if Christian women had the opportunity to vote down their husbands or fathers.”
82 Evangelisch-protestantischer Kirchenboten, 39/13 (March 26, 1910). 109; Für die neue Kirchenordnung der elsass-lothringischen Kirche A. K. (Strasbourg: Elsass-Lothringische Druckerei, 1910).
83 The Darmstadt speech was later published as “Die neuesten kirchlichen Verfassungsarbeiten in Elsass.”
84 Ibid., 33.
85 Private letter, Curtius to Undersecretary Petri, July 6, 1912, ADBR 136 AL packet 47.
86 Compare Curtius, , Die Kirchengemeinde als Fundament des kirchlichen Neubaus (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrich'schen Buchhandlung 1920)Google Scholar; and idem, Die Kirche als Genossenschaft der Gemeinden (Tübingen:J. C. B. Mohr, 1919).Google Scholar
87 “Äusserung des Ministeriums zu dem Entwurf einer Kirchenordung für die Kirche A. K.,” printed in AS 65 (1910). Because the Reformed Synod had voted on June 21, 1910 to study the Lutheran constitutional proposal to see how it could be adopted for the Reformed Church, Petri later sent the Reformed Synod a copy of this “Äusserung.” MSV 19 (October 1910): 140–41. The Synod approved an “Entwurf einer Kirchenordung für die reformierte Kirche in Elsass-Lothringen” at its 1911 meeting; MSV 20 (July 1911): 154–73.
88 Resolutions passed by public meetings in Strasbourg and Colmar on April 26 and 27, 1911; Archives ECAAL.
89 There were actually three Strasbourg-based inspections. The third, however, included the most conservative of Strasbourg's Lutheran parishes (New Church and Young St. Peter) as well as many rural orthodox Lutheran and pietist parishes. Thus, as Curtius later pointed out to the Ministry, the strong support for women's suffrage in the cities was obscured in the voting, for every inspection was dominated by rural consistories. “Die Inspektionsversammlungen der Kirche A. K.,” SB 47/20 (May 14, 1911): 159–60. See also Curtius' memo for the members of the Church's constitution commission, “Ueber das Ergebnis der Besprechung der Kirchenordnung in den Inspektionsversammlungen,” Archives ECAAL.
90 Letter from the DEF to the Superior Consistory, September 1911; Letter from the Strasbourg Chapter of the DEF to the Superior Consistory, October 1911; Archives ECAAL.
91 Synod President Piepenbring (who was also a pastor at Strasbourg's Reformed parish) to the Ministry for Alsace-Lorraine, July 22, 1911. ADBR 1125 W 2. Interestingly, the more pietist-conservative Reformed church was much more united in its support of women's suffrage than its Lutheran counterpart ever was.
92 AS 66 (1911): 18–20, 250–51.
93 Memorandum from the Ministry for Alsace-Lorraine to the Directory, printed in AS 67 (1913): 149–79; Memorandum from the Ministry for Alsace-Lorraine to Synod President Piepenbring, MSV 24 (January 1914): 249–51.
94 Still useful on this subject is Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, “Elsass-Lothringen von 1870 bis 1918: Das ‘Reichsland’ als politisch-staatsrechtliche Problem des zweiten deutschen Kaiserreichs,” Zeitschrift die Geschichte des Oberrheins 109 (1961); 133–99.Google Scholar
95 Alsace-Lorraine had just received a new constitution in 1911, which transformed the former Landesausschuss (provincial delegation) into a bicameral Landtag. On both sides of the Rhine, dissatisfaction with Alsace's legal position within the German Empire remained, inflamed in large part by the revival of autonomist and francophile sentiment in Alsace after 1900. See Mayeur, Jean-Marie, Autonomie et politique en Alsace. La constitution de 1911 (Paris: Librarie Armand Colin, 1970)Google Scholar; Morrison, Jack Gaylord, “The Intransigents. Alsace-Lorrainers Against the Annexation, 1900–1914,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 1970)Google Scholar; and Vogler, Bernard, Histoire politique de l'Alsace (Strasbourg: La nuée bleue, 1995), 206–14.Google Scholar
96 Mayer was also considered a likely candidate for the presidency of the Alsatian Lutheran Church; however, he accepted the position in Leipzig (1902) before Friedrich Petri announced his decision to retire in 1903. Heyen, Erk Volkmar, “Otto Mayers Kirchenrecht und die Verfassungsreform der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche in Elsass-Lothringen und Polen,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonische Abteilung 96 (1979): 239–65, here 243.Google Scholar
97 ADBR 136 AL 15/47.
98 “Die Frau hat einmal ihren besonderen, ihr an der Natur angewiesenen Beruf, der in der Worte ‘Mutterschaft’ seinen prägnantesten Ausdruck findet. Die Frau lässt sich in ihren Handlungen unbewusst mehr von persönlichen Instinkten, wie von objektiven Erwägungen leiten.” ADBR 136 AL 15/47.
99 AS 67 (1913): 10, 191.
100 “Einladung zur Synodaltagung die am 29. Juni d. Js, um halb drei Uhr nachmittags, im Betsaal der reformierten Kirche zu Strassburg eröffnet werden wird,” Archives of the Reformed Church in Strasbourg (Temple Bouclier).
101 In November 1913, German officers overstepped the bounds of appropriate behavior in an encounter with civilian youths in the Alsatian town of Zabern (Saverne). Although the Reichstag censured the military court's decision to exonerate the officers, the Emperor's government refused to revisit the verdict. This affair wildly inflamed public passions in the Reichsland. Statthalter Wedel and his government in Strasbourg read Berlin's action as a vote of no confidence in their administration and, hence, submitted their resignations in January 1914. Silverman, Dan P., Reluctant Union: Alsace-Lorraine and Imperial Germany, 1871–1918 (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1972), 190–207Google Scholar. On the wider meaning of the Zabern affair, see Schoenbaum, David, Zabern 1913: Consensus Politics in Imperial Germany (London and Boston: George Allen & Unwin, 1982).Google Scholar
102 Dienst, Karl, “Synode-Konsistorium-Demokratie: Zu Problemen des ‘demokratischen Charakters’ der neuen Kirchenverfassungen der Weimarerer Zeit,” in Die Kirchen und die Weimarer Republik, ed. Ziegert, Richard, 105–28 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1994).Google Scholar
103 In France, as in much of Catholic Europe, the resistance to women's emancipation owed much to the fear that giving women the vote would strengthen the hand of the Catholic party. See Offen, Karen, European Feminisms, 1700–1920 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 272–76, 296–304Google Scholar; and Hause, Stephen and Kenney, Anne, “The Development of the Catholic Women's Suffrage Movement in France, 1896–1922,” Catholic Historical Review 67 (1981): 11–30.Google Scholar
104 Loth, “Einleitung,” in Deutscher Katholizismus im Umbruch zur Moderne, idem, ed. (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1991), 9–19, 11. This notion is particularly prominent in studies of German Catholicism. See also Nipperdey, Kirchen in Umbruch, 24–31. On the notion of “modernization” and religious history in Germany, see also the remarks in Sperber, Jonathan, “Kirchengeschichte or the Social and Cultural History of Religion,” Neue Politische Literatur 43 (1998): 13–35, especially 13–16.Google Scholar
105 On the confessional situation in Imperial Germany, see especially Smith, Helmut Walser, German Nationalism and Religious Conflict: Culture, Ideology, Politics, 1870–1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ed., Protestants, Catholics, and Jews in Germany, 1800–1914 (Oxford: Berg, 2002)Google Scholar; and Blaschke, Olaf, ed., Konfessionen im Konflikt (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002).Google Scholar
106 Gross, The War Against Catholicism, 185–239. I am grateful to Michael Gross for letting me read this chapter while his book was still in production.