History of the trade unions | "A true Kreuzberger"

When the unionized printers enforced the nine-hour day in 1894, a Kreuzberg resident was at the forefront. Her name was Paula Thiede. A few years later, she would found the Association of Graphic Workers of Germany and become the first woman to lead a nationwide union.

"At first, I thought: No way! A biography of the German Empire isn't my thing at all. After two weeks, however, I was totally enthralled by how fascinating the topic was," Uwe Fuhrmann reported in an interview with "nd." The historian specializes in trade union history and was commissioned by Verdi to research the trade unionist Paula Thiede. The Verdi federal administration is located at Paula-Thiede-Ufer 10 in Berlin.

Last Thursday, Fuhrmann gave a lecture at the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum about the life of a "true Kreuzberg woman," as he calls her. In his remarks, he also addressed the living conditions at the time and the difficulties facing contemporary research into the biographies of women from proletarian backgrounds. At that time, there was a general disdain for female success.

Pauline Philippine Auguste Berlin was born in 1870 and grew up as the daughter of a carpenter on Belle-Alliance-Platz, now Mehringplatz, in Kreuzberg. The neighborhood was known as the newspaper district because of the many publishing houses located there. The SPD newspaper "Vorwärts," founded in 1876, was also headquartered here. Thus, the neighborhood was characterized by a high density of information. "Some newspapers were published three or four times a day," Fuhrmann reported.

When Thiede was 14, she began working as a sheet feeder in a printing shop. Fuhrmann showed a video from a museum in Leipzig showing sheets of paper being fed into a high-speed press. Photos from the printing industry at the time demonstrate that clear gender relations prevailed in the industry.

The profession of printing was not without its risks. Cleaning the plates involved contact with various chemicals and toxins. "Less than half of the printers lived to see their 40th birthday," Fuhrmann explained.

Dry dweller in Kreuzberg

Thiede married the typesetter Richard Fehlberg in 1889 and had a daughter named Emma. Another child from this marriage died young, as did her first husband, Fehlberg, at the age of 30. At that time, Thiede was living in an apartment near the Brandenburg Gate as a "dry dweller." Dry dwellers were people who lived in newly constructed residential buildings whose walls were not yet completely dry. While this was significantly cheaper for the tenants than a regular apartment, it posed significant health risks.

"She can confidently be counted among the poorest of the poor," Fuhrmann commented on this period in Thiede's life. In 1891, she moved back to Kreuzberg and worked again in the printing shop . In October of that year, one of the largest strikes in the German Empire took place: the printers fought for the no-hour day. In November, around 12,000 of them went on strike.

As a woman in the union

Thiede joined the Association of Women Workers at Book and Lithographic Printing Presses and assumed important roles there. The association is considered one of the first women's union organizations worldwide. After the strike failed, the association collapsed.

The next major strike in the printing industry followed in 1896, which ended in favor of the workers with the hard-fought nine-hour day. In 1898, Thiede co-founded and, until 1901, chaired the mixed-gender union Association of Graphic Workers in Germany, which grew steadily from then on.

The few pictures in which Paula Thiede herself appears show her surrounded by other union members—for example, at the International Socialist Women's Congress in Stuttgart in 1907. In 1910, when March 8 was proclaimed International Women's Day in Copenhagen's Ungdomhuset, she was one of the delegates to the conference. Thiede also campaigned for women's suffrage.

In March 1919, she died after a serious illness. Due to the general strike and street fighting, very few people attended her funeral. She was buried in the Berlin-Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery.

Uwe Fuhrmann also wrote a biography of Paula Thiede: "Frau Berlin – Paula Thiede (1870–1919) – From Working-Class Child to Union Chairwoman." The lecture was complemented by contemporary postcard images from the exhibition "Out of Time – A Kreuzberg Postcard Collection, 1890–1945." The exhibition can be viewed until May 11 at the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum or digitally .