Else Peerenboom-Missong

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Else Peerenboom-Missong (born Else Peerenboom; 13 October 1893 – 31 August 1958) was a German economist who became a politician (

Else Peerenboom was born in Brauna (Kamenz, Saxony), to where her parents had recently relocated in connection with her father's work for the forestry service. Peerenboom is a Dutch name, and Johann Alexander Peerenboom, her father, was from Grieth, close to the Prussian frontier with the Netherlands. Her mother, born Maria Dillmann, came from Linz am Rhein. In August 1898, aged just 35, her father died and his widow returned from Saxony to Linz where she moved in to live with her still unmarried brother in the house where the two of them had grown up. Anton Dillmann ran a successful hardware and household goods store and took good care of his sister's daughter, financing and encouraging her schooling and study. He was a man of deep political interest with a strong sense of social duty which, sources indicate, he was able to inculcate in his niece.^[3]

She attended middle school, switching in 1899/1900 to the senior girls' school run by the Franciscan nuns in Linz.^[1] Then, in 1908/09, she was sent for two and a half years to the "Sacre Cœur" boarding school at Blumenthal/Vaals, just across the border in the Netherlands, where she passed speaking exams in French and English^[1] and broadened her knowledge of the world more generally. The "Sacre Cœur" was a prestigious internationally oriented school, intended to attract the daughters of the wealthy. One fellow pupil who later found fame was an American girl called Rose Elizabeth FitzGerald. Else Peerenboom would remain in lifelong contact, by letter, with the woman who later married a famously successful investor and became the mother of three famous sons in the world of United States politics, including John F. Kennedy. After her time at Vaals it might have been anticipated that she would find a suitable husband and "settle down", but instead Else Peerenboom found a college in Koblenz where she studied for and in July 1912 obtained a qualification as a languages teacher. She now returned to Linz where for two and a half years she worked as a teaching assistant back at the convent school.^[3]

Higher education

In August 1913, on

On 1 November 1921 she began work for the German Caritas, the catholic charitable organisation, which then as now had its main offices at Freiburg im Breisgau. She took charge of the Statistics Department,^[1] and over the next couple of years compiled two substantial volumes of statistical reports on the organisation's activities.^[4] In 1925 she also took on a teaching position at what was then known as the Soziale Frauenschule of the Catholic University of Applied Sciences Freiburg.^[1] Very soon afterwards she was given headship of the institution. Her approach to the role involved encouraging self-reliance and self-motivation on the part of the students. However, conservative (male) Caritas managers felt that this threatened a dangerous absence of discipline and control. Positions became polarised and in 1927 Else Peerenboom left German Caritas.^[3] She nevertheless remained committed to the Caritas ideals for the rest of her life.^[4]

Peerenboom now worked in Mönchengladbach for the People's Association for Catholic Germany ("Volksverein für das katholische Deutschland"), but left in 1928, entering government service as temporary acting manager of the local welfare department for the Münster region. where the regional president ("Regierungspräsident") was Rudolf Amelunxen. Amelunxen and Peerenboom already knew one another from Amelunxen's time as a hands-on Prussian Welfare Minister, when Peerenboom had been compiling statistics on catholic charitable activities. Peerenboom's temporary appointment ended at the end of 1929 and she moved to Düsseldorf, taking a position with the National Catholic Women's and Mothers' Association ("Zentralverband katholischer Frauen- und Müttervereine Deutschlands") that involved responsibility for political education. She started by sending round a short memorandum which she entitled, not without irony, "Gedanken zu einer Palastrevolution" ("Thoughts on a Palace Revolution"). In it she drew attention to the way that the national executive was purportedly committed to making its members independent self-confident women, even though, apart from herself the authority over the organisation was exercised entirely by men. Almost immediately two more women were added to the national executive. Peerenboom believed strongly that political education and citizenship schooling for women were particularly necessary at this time, as political tensions across the country grew, and extremist parties gained support at the expense of moderates.^[3]

Reichstag

By 1930 Else Peerenboom had been in contact with the

Early in 1934, she accompanied young Catholic women on a visit to Brazil. In the country's vast unspoilt woodland there were moves to try out a new farming based lifestyle, as an alternative to life in Nazi Germany. There were many in Germany who faced persecution or worse for reasons of race and / or politics, and not everyone was able or willing to escape to Moscow. Britain and France also operated increasingly restrictive immigration policies, in response to domestic pressures, as the 1930s progressed. Between 1934 and 1939 Peerenboom made repeated lengthy trips to various South American countries on behalf of the International Catholic Social League. Back in Germany she was involved in setting up training courses for young people willing to emigrate to South America. In 1936, during another lengthy visit, she prepared the way for the establishment of Soziale Frauenschule ("Social Women's Schools") in Uruguay and Venezuela.^[3] She founded a "Social Women's School" in Montevideo in 1937 and headed it up till 1939.^[2] While working in Uruguay, she also found time to prepare and publish a little book entitled "Einführung in die Wohlfahrtspflege" (loosely, "Introduction to welfare care") and to translate it into Portuguese.^[3]

A close political ally directly after the war was Franz-Josef Wuermeling, a Linz businessman who was appointed to a brief term as mayor of the town during 1945. They worked together on creating what became the Rhineland component of the national CDU (party). The two had known each other since 1921 when they were both students studying for their doctorates in applied economics ("Nationalökonomie") at Freiburg. At that time they had worked together in the "Sozialstudentische Zentrale", respectively as chair and deputy chair of this catholic student group. Now Peerenboom-Missong addressed a letter to all the Lutheran Christians in the area in order to win their active collaboration over the creation of the new "Rhineland-Palatinate CDP" ("Christlich-Demokratische Partei Rheinland-Pfalz").^[3] She undertook all the necessary written work involved in founding the new party: mailings, membership processing, preparation of speeches and, importantly, the translation of all proposed mail shot letters and other publications into French. Her fluency in French was a particular advantage during this period of occupation. She also travelled extensively in the region delivering speeches. The first meeting of party members took place at Linz on 28 May 1946. The party was formally constituted on 20 August 1946.^[2][3]

In Summer 1946 Wilhelm Boden, whom the military occupiers had appointed to serve as the first Minister-president of the newly constituted federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate ("Rhoiland-Palz"), appointed her to headship of the State Youth Department ("Landesjugendamt").^[3] A few months later the first free and fair democratic local elections in more than thirteen years took place on 15 September 1946. Else Peerenboom-Missong was elected to the Linz municipal council. Regional elections followed on 13 October 1946 and she was elected to the Neuwied district council, along with her political ally Franz-Josef Wuermeling. Also elected to the Neuwied council was Adolf Süsterhenn, another leading light of the Christian Democrats locally who had been active in Centre Party politics during the "Weimar" years.^[3]

It was also in 1946 that she became a member of the Advisory Constitutional Committee mandated to draft a constitution for Rhineland-Palatinate. Just as on the Neuwied district council, fellow members included Franz-Josef Wuermeling and Adolf Süsterhenn. The committee comprised 127 members, but Peerenboom-Missong was one of just five women among these.^[2][3] It was in a speech to the constitutional committee, meeting on 22 November 1946 in the Koblenz City Theatre, that she addressed the need for immediate measures to be taken to address the dire health and insufficient nutrition affecting the population, resulting from a prolonged period of hunger and of physical and moral deprivation. She called for the establishment of a committee to tackle the starvation conditions: "Our people want to work and to make amends, but they have no wish to become beggars. They want to live and should not starve ... We do not need a constitution for people in coffins: the first priority is to ensure that people stay alive, if our work in this committee is to make sense for the future" ("Unser Volk will arbeiten, es will wiedergutmachen, aber es will nicht zum Bettler werden, es will leben, es darf nicht verhungern. (…) Für Gräber brauchen wir keine Verfassung, darum muss zuerst das Leben unserer Menschen wieder gesichert sein, wenn unsere Arbeit von heute überhaupt Sinn und Zukunft haben soll.“ "). This impassioned speech became known as her "hunger speech" and was widely reported. It was, in fact, the first time she had addressed her fellow members of the Constitutional Committee. It would also be the last. Germany was still under military occupation and Hettier de Boislambert, the military governor was present. He interpreted the speech as criticism directed at the French authorities. As a result, Else Peerenboom-Missong came under pressure from her own party colleagues, and in a letter dated 28 December 1946 resigned from the Constitutional Committee. She resigned from her municipal and district council positions. She resigned from her State Youth Office job.^[3] Greatly disappointed and not a little embittered at her treatment, she also resigned from the CDU.^[2]

Return to South America

While her husband remained in Linz, Else Peerenboom-Missong now returned to South America, in many respects resuming the work she had been obliged to break off in 1939. She founded the "Social Women's Schools" ("Soziale Frauenschule") in Caracas (Venezuela) in 1947, and headed it up herself for two years. In 1949, suffering from Diabetes, she returned to West Germany (as the three "western occupation zones" - which included the Rhineland - became in May of that year). In 1951 she took a consultancy-administrative post with the State Emigration Office in Bremen, with special responsibility for destinations in South America and Australia. Later that same year she was back in South America, however, this time working for the German embassy in Rio de Janeiro with a portfolio role covering social-welfare matters. She remained in Brazil for three years, but in 1954 her failing health forced her back to Linz.^[3]

Death

This time her return was permanent. Else Peerenboom-Missong died in Cologne a few weeks short of her sixty-fifth birthday following a heart attack.^[2][3]

References