About Erstes Frauenhaus Berlin (1976-2001)
The First Independent Women’s Shelter Berlin (Erstes autonomes Frauenhaus Berlin) provided refuge for women who suffered domestic violence. It was initiated and planned by women from the new women’s movement(s). Across Germany, more women’s shelters followed.
First Independent Women’s Shelter Berlin (1976–2001)
On August 13, 1976, members of the nonprofit Alliance for the Protection of Battered Women spelled out their motives in their grant application for a women’s shelter in Berlin: “The general discrimination against women in all areas of society finds its most brutal expression in the humiliating and life-threatening mistreatment by men to which they are exposed in their private lives. … Very few cases reach the public eye, and often only when it is too late—when the women have been beaten to death.”1
Violence Against Women: A Central Issue of the New Women’s Movement
In the early 1970s, violence against women, in particular domestic violence, was not an issue discussed in public. Battered women who sought help were told that they were “incapable of finding a ‘normal’ man, or that it was their own individual misfortune.”2 Violence against women was not seen as a social or political issue. This was true although women from all social classes were affected.
Domestic violence became a central focus of the new women’s movement(s) in the 1970s. Through conversations in women’s consciousness-raising groups, self-help groups, and political coalitions, women realized how common (their) experiences of violence were. They began a systematic examination of their individual experiences—the private became political. From the mid-1970s, groups founded for that purpose worked on the issues of violence against women and rape.
In 1976, about 1,500 women attended the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women in Brussels.3 At the conference, women from numerous countries spoke on different forms of violence against women and used the opportunity for networking. There participants learned more about the world’s first women’s shelter: the Chiswick Women’s Aid in London, founded by Erin Pizzey in 1971.
The tribunal proved a decisive impetus for the German women’s shelter movement. Debates on the issue led to a variety of actions and reactions among the women in the movement(s). Activists and other women who identified as part of the new women’s movement founded emergency hotlines for women, they took back the night (the time of day when women feel particularly threatened by men, especially in public spaces) at loud, spirited—sometimes militant—demonstrations on Walpurgis Night, and they fought against the sexualization and pornographization of women’s bodies. In addition, women associated with the new women’s movements founded women’s shelter initiatives across Germany, including the one that in the end opened the shelter in Berlin.
A Response to the Violence: Founding the First Independent Women’s Shelter
The women of the Berlin alliance who came together to open a women’s shelter were social scientists, social workers, educators, and housewives who saw themselves as part of the new women’s movement. The model for their fight to open a women’s shelter in Berlin was the Chiswick Women’s Aid in London, which supported the Berlin initiative.
For two years, this group of women created a concept and focused on publicity and education, informing the general public about violence by men against women.4 To obtain public money for their project, the group worked closely with the working group on emancipation within the liberal Free Democratic Party, which brought an interpellation before the Berlin Senate to raise awareness about the issue.5 After hard work and negotiations with both the Federal Ministry for Youth, Family, and Health in Bonn and the Senate in Berlin, the alliance received a promise of pilot-project funding for three years for a Berlin women’s shelter (450,000 marks annually from November 1, 1976 to December 31, 1979), to cover the costs of personnel and material.6 As an organizing body and to manage these payments, a nonprofit was founded, the Association for the Protection of Battered Women, whose members included women from the founding group, women living at the shelter, representatives of shelter workers, and public figures.7 The city provided a villa previously used by the German Red Cross to house the shelter.
Daily Life in the Shelter
Despite the villa’s size, capacity was limited. Within the villa’s 660 square meters were thirteen living rooms or bedrooms, with up to ten beds each. After the shelter was opened, the number of women seeking shelter—some with children—rose continually. When many women sought shelter at the same time, about fifteen people had to live together in a twenty-square-meter space.8 There was no room for wardrobes, so that residents sometimes had to live out of a suitcase for months. For the children there was a playroom, a homework room, and a kindergarten.9 Many of the women met during the day in the common room. There they organized their daily life together, answered the telephone during the day and at night, talked with one another, and cared for the children of working residents.10 Counseling also had to take place in the day room, since the circa twenty women who worked at the shelter shared only two offices.11
The founders of the women’s shelter had determined that they would follow the principles of self-management. It was important to them that workers and residents cooperate on equal footing, without hierarchies. Residents took care of all daily tasks themselves, from shopping, cooking, and laundry to cleaning.12 Once a week, all the women met for a house plenary meeting.13
The intake capacity of the women’s shelter quickly reached its limits and was already overfilled by fall 1978, with 160 women and children living there.14 The association was forced to start a public campaign to call attention to their situation. Finally, in September 1979, a second shelter was opened in Berlin-Spandau.
As a rule, men were not allowed to enter the women’s shelter. Women could bring their underage sons to live with them, and tradesmen occasionally entered the house, but there were no male workers or visitors allowed. These measures were installed to help women who had endured violence at the hands of men to feel safer.15 Both the residents of the women’s shelter and their children as well as the women who worked there were continually subject to threats by their former husbands and partners. While today it is common practice for the location of a women shelter’s to be kept secret, back then the address was public knowledge and was even published in the newspaper. It was therefore not uncommon for violent husbands to gain access to the site and harass both women and children. There were even multiple arson attacks.16 The neighbors also felt threatened by these intruders. Additionally, they often complained about the noise made by children at play, leading to conflicts with the shelter’s workers and residents
Conflict moderation with the neighbors and among the residents was an important element of the shelter’s work in the first two and a half decades, as was political lobbying. Grant applications had to be regularly written to continue to receive funding. Often it was unclear whether enough money would be available to continue working efficiently. The shelter was also faced with rent hikes.17 Workers and residents held loud and creative demonstrations in protest, where, for example they sang songs they had written themselves to call attention to the shelter’s precarious situation.
The End and Legacy of the Berlin Women’s Shelter
In 2000, Berlin’s First Independent Women’s Shelter closed its doors forever. The operating nonprofit disbanded on December 31 of that year. One former worker believes key reasons were a generational conflict and conflicting visions among workers.18 What is more, “no constructive solutions were developed for the women’s shelter in the following years.”.19 Also, “no constructive solutions for the women's refuge have been developed for the coming years.“20 By then, the house was also in need of major renovations21 and the Senate was pushing to not extend the lease.22
Yet long before Berlin’s First Independent Women’s Shelter closed, many other shelters had opened across Germany. Today, there are around 350 women’s shelters in Germany that offer refuge to women escaping domestic violence.23 Just like the founders of the first women’s shelter, today’s administrators also struggle with problems such as overcrowding, threats from (ex-)partners, lack of personnel, and chronic underfunding. While the 2002 Act on Protection Against Violence, which states that the perpetrator must leave a shared apartment, has provided some relief for women’s shelters, demand for refuge remains consistent. According to 2014 statistics from the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth, every fourth women in Germany between the ages of 16 and 85 has experienced violence at the hands of a partner at least once in her life.24
Network of Erstes Frauenhaus Berlin (1976-2001)
Footnotes
- 1 FFBIZ: A Rep 400 Berlin 20.22.5 – 1,1.
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2
Bundesministerium für Jugend, Familie und Gesundheit (Ed.): Hilfen für mißhandelte Frauen. Abschlußbericht der wissenschaftlichen Begleitung des Modellprojekts Frauenhaus Berlin, Stuttgart 1981, 20.
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3
Frauenmediaturm (no author), 1976, https://frauenmediaturm.de/neue-frauenbewegung/lesbenbewegung-1976/, accessed December 2nd, 2024.
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4
Haffner, Sarah (Ed.): Frauenhäuser. Gewalt in der Ehe und was Frauen dagegen tun, Berlin 1976, 142.
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5
Ibid, 144–45.
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6
Bundesministerium für Jugend, Familie und Gesundheit: Hilfen für mißhandelte Frauen, 14–15.
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7
Ibid., 15.
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8
Ibid., 198.
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9
Ibid., 199.
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10
Ibid., 199.
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11
Ibid., 200.
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12
Frauen gegen Männergewalt: Berliner Frauenhaus für mißhandelte Frauen. Erster Erfahrungsbericht, Berlin 1978, 20.
- 13 FFBIZ: A Rep. 400 Berlin 20.22.5 – 32,222.
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14
Bundesministerium für Jugend, Familie und Gesundheit: Hilfen für mißhandelte Frauen, 198.
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15
Frauen gegen Männergewalt: Berliner Frauenhaus für mißhandelte Frauen, 28.
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16
Ibid., 200.
- 17 FFBIZ: A400Be20_22_5-033-225-0078.
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18
Nolte, Barbara: “Schutz vor häuslicher Gewalt. Festung der Ehefrauen,” Tagesspiegel, Nov. 16, 2016, www.tagesspiegel.de/weltspiegel/sonntag/schutz-vor-haeuslicher-gewalt-festung-der-ehefrauen/14832904.html, accessed May 10, 2024.
- 19 FFBIZ: A400Be20_22_5-002_008_0009.
- 20 FFBIZ: A400Be20_22_5-002_008_0004.
- 21 FFBIZ: A400Be20_22_5-002_008_0010.
- 22 FFBIZ: A400Be20_22_5-002_008_0014.
- 23 Zentrale Informationsstelle Autonomer Frauenhäuser: Gewalt gegen Frauen. Zugriff am 6.10.2017 unter http://www.autonome-frauenhaeuser-zif.de/de/content/autonome-frauenhäuser.
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24
Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend (Ed.): Gewalt gegen Frauen in Paarbeziehungen. Eine sekundäranalytische Auswertung zur Differenzierung von Schweregraden, Mustern, Risikofaktoren und Unterstützung nach erlebter Gewalt, Berlin 2014, 6., https://www.bmfsfj.de/blob/93970/957833aefeaf612d9806caf1d147416b/gewalt-paarbeziehungen-data.pdf, accessed December 2nd, 2024.