Famous Women

Actresses

30 Pfg. Friederike Caroline Neuber 1697-1760 in Medea (tragedy by Euripides)
40 Pfg. Sophie Schröder 1781-1868 in Sappho (tragedy by Franz Grillparzer)
50 Pfg. Louise Dumont 1862-1932 in Hedda Gabler (tragedy by
Henrik Ibsen)
70 Pfg. Hermine Körner 1882-1960 in Macbeth (tragedy by William Shakespeare)

issued Nov.16th,1976

 

I took the pictures of my Famous Women stamps with my cell phone. How do you all get your photos so crisp and clear, and large? Mine look a little blurry.

 

I use a HP DeskJet printer/scanner/copier.
I bought it in Paraguay for around Gs.300.000.-,
equivalent to about US-$ 60.-.
Similar ones maybe even cheaper in the US.

 

Thank you Werner; I just might look into that.

 

issued Feb.14th,1979

Agnes Miegel 1879-1964,poet

I read a little bit about Agnes Miegel:
As it turned out,the above stamp is very typical for postwar
West-Germany.
Agnes Miegel was from Eastern-Prussia.She was member of several openly anti-democratic right-wing groups.
When the Nazis came to power and removed all dissidents,like
Thomas Mann and others,from the writers association,she and
likeminded replaced them.She was a ardent outspoken admirer of Hitler,but did not join the NSDAP before 1940.
She never wavered or renounced her belive in the Nazi-ideology,even after the lost war.

In post-war West-Germany,with the fear of communisn during the
"cold war",former Nazis were hardly ever prosecuted.
First the Western Allies and later the west-german government
were aware,that it was not possible to run the country without the
former Nazis.
As far as I remember,except of one communist,I never met a person
of my father´s generation (he was born 1914),who was not a
convinced Nazi-follower.So even some of the most powerful men,
including one Bundeskanzler,were former middle-ranking Nazis.
This changed slowly in the 1970th and 1980th.
Today it would be not possible to issue a commemorative stamp for
Agnes Miegel.Schools,streets,librarys etc. what were named after her,have been renamed.Her poems have been removed from
school-books and she is shunned by publishing houses.
Well by most.But she is still revered by the Far Right.

 

I think the difference was: the jews did nothing to be ashamed of,
but the Nazi-regime did a lot of horrible crimes.And if Agnes Miegel
did not waver in her admiration of Hitler after the war,she really was
quite weird ! Nearly all Germans and especially those from Austria,
were of course against the Nazis... after the lost war.
There is a nice small book by Knut Hamsun,the great Norwegian
author: "On Overgrown Paths".
There he writes about his admiration of Hitler and Nazi-Germany,
what for he was put on trial after the war.
In Overgrown Paths he writes (no wordly citation):
of course I know better now,I am no fool
But Miegel did not know better...

 

Anne (Anneliese Marie) Frank was born 1929 in Frankfurt.
When the Nazis came to power,the family moved to Amsterdam,
because they were jewish.Anne went to a dutch school,so her
language became Dutch.
The Netherlands were occupied by german troops in 1940.
When in 1941 the mass-deportations and killings of Jews started,
the Frank family was in great danger.They had applied for visas
for Cuba and the USA,but had been rejected.
On July 6th,1942 they went into hiding.Few days before on her
13th birthday Anne received a diary as a present.On the same
day she started writing her diary.All the time during her hiding,
she wrote on.
On August 4th,1944 the Gestapo arrested them,after their
hidingplace had been betrayed.It is not known who the
informer was.
The family was sent to Auschwitz.Later Anne and her sister were
moved to Bergen-Belsen KZ.
Both sisters died from malnutrition and illness in February or
March 1945.
Only Anne´s father survived and he could publish Anne´s diary.

Stamp issued May 17th,1979,commemorating Anne´s 50th birth anniversary.

 

Hildegard von Bingen 1098-1179 was a benedictine nun and abbes.
She was an important composer of lithurgical songs.
She also was a poet and a polymath.
She was a mystic,who founded her teachings on her visions.
When she still was alive,she already was revered by many as a saint.
In 2012 she was named a "doctor eclesia universalis"
(doctor of the church) by pope Benedict XVI.
stamp issued Aug.9th,1979

 

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830 - 1916)
She was born as Marie Dubský von Trebomyslice on her ancestral
castle Zdislawitz near Znaim (today Czech Republic),where she
used to spend the summers,while living in Vienna for most of the
year.
In 1856 she moved to Vienna permanently.There she served an apprenticeship as a watch-maker.Quite unusual for a woman of
her class.
In later years one of her most successful novels was titled
"Die Uhrmacherin" (the watchmaker/female)
In 1848 she married Moritz von Ebner-Eschenbach,a military
inventor and author,who later rose to the rank of a
Marshall-Lieutenant,eqivalent today to a three-stars-general.
From her early youth she was supported by her parents in her
aim to become an author.
But it took a long time (1880),till she had her breakthrough with
the novel "Krambambuli".A story about the fate of a dog.
From then on she possibly was the leading german female author.
She never had to write for earning money,but lived the life of a
wealthy nobel woman.
In 1916 she died in Vienna,but was buried in the grave-yard at
Zdislawitz castel.

Stamp issued Aug.14th,1980,commemorating Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach´s 150th birth-anniversary.

 

Elly Heuss-Knapp 1881-1952,was a philologist and politician.
During the Nazi-rule,when her husband was barred from being a
university teacher, - he later (1949-1959) would become the first
president of West-Germany -,she earned the family-income with
radio commercials.During that time she was also active in the
non-Nazi-conformist protestant movement.
After the war she became a member of the parliament in
Württemberg-Baden.
In 1950 she was the co-founder of the "Müttergenesungswerk",
a charity to help mothers in need to recuperate.
stamp issued Jan.15th,1981

 

Edith Stein was born 1891 in a jewish-orthodox family in Breslau
(today Wroclaw/Poland) in Silesia.
She studied philosophy,psychology,history,germanistic and philology.
She was active in all those fields,as well as in working for women´s rights.Because for being a woman,she could not qualify as an
university-teacher.
In 1922 she converted to Catholicism.
She worked in different colleges,but was a productive author as well.
A compilation of her works,in 28 volumes,was finally published in
2014.Most of her books deal with philosophical problems,often in
connection with religion.
In 1933 she became a Carmelite nun.
In 1938 she and her older sister Rosa,who was also a nun,moved
to a monastery in the Netherlands.
When Germany invaded Holland in WW II,the Carmelites under-
estimated the danger for jews and did not move both sisters
to Switzerland in time.
On August 2nd,1942 the sisters were rounded up and sent to Auschwitz,where they were murdered on Aug.9th.
Edith Stein always saw herself as jewish woman of catholic faith.
She knew what being jewish meant in Nazi-Germany and accepted
her fate as the will of god.
She was canonized in 1998.

stamps issued Jan.13th,1983 and Jan 14th,1988;

 

Mary Wigman 1886-1973,born as Karoline Sofie Marie Wiegmann
in Hannover,was a dancer,choreographer and dancing teacher.
After finishing her studies in classical dancing,she performed
first time as a solo dancer in 1917.
She promoted her rhythmic expressive dancing style,
called "New German Dance".
In 1920 she opened a dancing academy in Dresden.
Later dependencies were established in a number of cities.
One of the biggest in New York.
She had her last solo performance in 1942,but was active as choreographer and teacher till old age.

stamp issued Nov.13th,1986

 

Queen Nefertiti (Nofretete) 1370-1338 b.C.(?) was the spouse of King Amenophis IV or Echnataon of the 18th dynasty.
The translation of Neferiti is: "The Beautiful has come"
She was a poweful woman and is thought to have been
a co-regent of the king.
The bust of painted limestone is the most popular piece of
Egytian Art in Germany.

definitives,issued July 14th,1988 (70 Pfg) and Jan 12th,1989 (20 Pfg.)
Same stamps were also issued with the additional inscription Berlin for Western Berlin.
Slight differences in colouring exist.


Less stylized,issued Jan.2nd,2013 and was issued self-adhesive on
March 1st,2013

 

Käthe (Katharina) Dorsch 1890-1957 was a german theatre- and
film-actress and operetta-soubrette.
stamp issued Nov.6th,1990

 

Anita Berber,born in Leipzig 1899,died in Berlin from tuberculosis 1928.
She never would have made it to be commemorated by a stamp in Germany,if she had not been painted by Otto Dix.
She was a variety-show dancer,self-performer and a film-actress.
She did not mind to prostitute herself,when she needed money.
She was married three times,had several affairs with men and women.She hit the bourgeois morality right into the face.
Her dances were called obscene and she was heavy on drugs.
But she was also regarded by many of the cultural elite,
as an impersonation of the Berlin of the 1920th.
In 1928 he had a breakdown during a show in Damascus,
returned to Germany and died a few months later.
By the way:
She claimed that she was modelling completely naked,
when Otto Dix painted her as the Lady in Red.

 

100th birth anniversary of Nelly Sachs,issued Nov.5th,1991.
See post #21.

 

80 Pfg.
Paula Modersohn-Becker 1876-1907 was an early
expressionist german painter.
She died of embolism,shortly after the birth of her first child.

100 Pfg.
Käthe Kollwitz 1867-1945 graphic artist,sculptor and painter.
She was one of the most important german expressionists.
She was political engaged as a pacifist and socialist.
Many of her works have a politcal message.

stamps issued May 3rd,1996