Kalter Bürgerinnen-Krieg? Eine Deutsche Debatte um NS-Vergangenheit und Frauenbewegung am Beispiel Gertrud Bäumers 1946-1948

Gertrud Bäumer (1873-1954) was one of the most prominent female liberal politicians and leader of the German women's movement before 1933. For a two-year period after 1945, journalists and politicians from all German occupation zones accused her of having supported the Nazi regime with her editing activities and publications during the Third Reich. The article contextualizes this campaign against Bäumer within the discourse on the Nazi past in postwar Germany, the beginning of the Cold War, and the reorganization of the women's movement in East and West Germany. The case study on Bäumer draws attention to the long-neglected domestic political dimensions of the Cold War in Germany and investigates the usefulness of such concepts as Cold War culture and cold civil war beyond the category of gender in postwar German history.