Keywords

Introduction

Women’s contributions to German archaeology have often remained in the shadows despite the wide variety of tasks women performed and the diverse fields in which they were active. Even before the first women completed a degree, many female family members contributed substantially to the male archaeologist’s studies, providing drawings, classifying material, editing texts, or compiling catalogs. Such commitment usually stayed invisible unless men decided to give it explicit credit.

There is a male bias in defining what constitutes achievement in archaeology. The academic rate performance, innovation, and significance criteria were developed with men in mind. It is thus no wonder that earlier historiographers of archaeology found it hard to discover any accordingly significant women in the past (Díaz-Andreu and Stig Sørensen 1998a, 14).

Even women who held significant positions in academic institutions were quickly forgotten if these institutions did not keep their memory active. Their books and articles, for example, did not constitute memory on their own. On the contrary, memorability and prominence are made by others who continue to cite their works, edit the anniversary volumes, write their obituaries and biographies, or rank themselves their pupils (Paletschek 2006, 185–6). Since only very few women achieved posts in German universities and other institutions where they could groom a larger student body, fund people and their projects, or pave the way for others, fewer people felt directly committed to their memory; this reduced the likelihood of being considered in the field’s historiography.

We use the term contribution rather than achievement to reduce bias. We widen our perspective to the broad range of archaeological work, encompassing preservation, museums, education, academic research and the large variety of tasks and occupations in these fields.

We investigate the early nineteenth to twentieth centuries, ending with German reunification. Therefore, we are writing about female archaeologists born in the late eighteenth century onwards. We aim to give some insights into the lives and works of female archaeologists in various adjacent fields of archaeology in Germany. It can only be done in segments – a complete overview of this diverse topic is outside the scope of this paper. We picked an exemplary number of women, unfortunately leaving out many more.

Re-discovering women and their achievements and contributions to archaeological sciences is still ongoing. Archaeological institutions, their scholars, structures, and social rules are regularly part of research topics, especially within feminist archaeology (Fries and Gutsmiedl-Schümann 2020). This process mainly started with the introduction of feminist theories and the emergence of gender and feminist archaeology from the 1980s onwards, leading to various publications about women in archaeology (e.g., Kästner et al. 1995; Díaz-Andreu and Stig Sørensen 1998a; Koch and Mertens 2002; Fries and Gutsmiedl-Schümann 2013). This branch of research deserves its own written history: Historical research on earlier archaeologists is linked to activist approaches, and studies on gender in archaeology are connected to peer support efforts. This way, scientific research contributes to structural and content-related changes in archaeological sciences.

For the last 20 years, more and more historical women have been rediscovered, and biographical studies have been published for individual (almost) forgotten female archaeologists (e.g., Bodsch 2007; Müller 2012; Unverhau 2015). Summaries and comparisons of biographies are still limited (e.g., Fries and Gutsmiedl-Schümann 2013; Fries 2021) and are mostly published in German. The open-access database Propylaeum Vitae (https://www.propylaeum.de/en/themen/propylaeum-vitae) collects bibliographic data on archaeologists from the Renaissance onwards; thus, we rely on its database to substantiate our research on these women. Worth mentioning is, among others, contributions on the first female professors of prehistoric archaeology (Bräuning 2009, 2012), a recently conceived mobile exhibition on the first female archaeologists in Schleswig-Holstein in Germany (Koch 2023), as well as the recently begun interdisciplinary research project “Akteurinnen archäologischer Forschung zwischen Geistes- und Naturwissenschaften: Im Feld, im Labor, am Schreibtisch (AktArcha)” (https://www.unibw.de/geschichte/prof/wst/forsch/aktarcha).

Female Antiquarians as Early Archaeologists

Female archaeologists are mentioned in Late Antiquity. In the fourth century AD, “Helena,” later Helena Augusta, the mother of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great, traveled to Jerusalem searching for the Holy Cross. According to Eusebius of Caesarea, who wrote about her pilgrimage to Palestine, she conducted excavations beneath a Roman temple to unearth and recover the crucifix. Today, St. Helena is the patron saint of archaeologists and all discoveries (Kein 1988; Maguire 2014).

Saint Helena, as the “first” archaeologist, belongs to the realm of legends. However, from the beginnings of modern archaeology onwards, women played an important role in the emergence and development of archaeology as an academic discipline. Our first example is Sibylle Mertens-Schaaffhausen (1797–1857), also known as “Rheingräfin” (“countess from the Rhine”), who is considered Germany’s first recognized female archaeologist (see Blöcker 1997 and Wehgartner 2002, 2004). She was most influential in the city of Bonn, which connects her to Helena Augusta. It is believed that Helena endowed the first church that was built on the graves of the martyrs Cassius and Florentius, now known as the Bonn Minster.

Before archaeology developed as a discipline, the past was studied based on the written texts, arts, and architecture of ancient times, for example, in the classics. Knowledge production among antiquarians was conducted through hands-on experiences with artifacts or conversations between like-minded individuals. Sibylle Mertens-Schaaffhausen provided space and possibility for antiquarians and artists to do this in her salon and contributed to the meetings with her knowledge. A salon can be described as a gathering of educated people held by an inspiring host who entertain one another and increase their knowledge through conversation. Hosts of salons were often wealthy middle-class or aristocratic women; salons were also important places for exchanging new ideas (Köhler 1996; Stieldorf 2018, 27–28). In addition, she used her fortune to collect arts and antiques – especially engraved gems and Greek and Roman coins – and to advise, encourage and finance several museums to buy important objects for their collections (Wehgartner 2002, 269–270). Unfortunately, her collection is not preserved. After her death, it was sold in pieces and is nowadays partly scattered over different places, partly lost. Articles about her collection and its outstanding pieces, some of them written by Sibylle Mertens-Schaaffhausen herself and from the auction catalogs in which her collection was presented for sale after her death, her collections are still known (Aus’m Weerth 1857; Blöcker 1997, 60–1).

Maria Sibylla Josepha, usually called Sibylle, was born in January 1797 and baptized in Cologne on January 29, 1797. She was the first child of the banker Abraham Schaaffhausen (1756–1824) and his wife Maria Anna Schaaffhausen, née Giesen (1760–1797). Shortly after her birth, her mother died, most likely from childbed fever. Three years later, her father married again, and Sibylle grew up with five younger half-brothers and sisters (Mallinckrodt 1896, 11–2; Steidele 2010, 18–9). Before she was born, Cologne was occupied by the French during the Napoleonic wars. During her early life, she lived the transformation of her hometown from a former Freie Reichsstadt (free imperial city) to its integration into the French empire. Cultural institutions like the university and clerical institutions were closed, and church property was secularized. Thus, arts and antiques from their collections were given away, allowing collectors to acquire new items. One of them was Ferdinand Franz Wallraf (1748–1824), a close friend of Abraham Schaaffhausen, who introduced Sibylle to his collections. The arts and antiques were also discussed in her father’s salon, where young Sibylle regularly participated (Aus’m Weerth 1857, 87–8; Blöcker 1997, 56–7).

After the end of the Napoleonic wars, the Congress of Vienna determined in 1815 that Cologne would be Prussian. The following years saw many building activities, which led to the discovery of Roman remains under the modern city: Sibylle Mertens-Schaaffhausen was part of the group who ensured that these remains were excavated and preserved. She was a founding member of the Association of Antiquarians in the Rhineland Verein von Altertumsfreunden im Rheinlande 1841, where she stayed a member until she died in 1857. She was also a founding member of the Cathedral Building Society of Cologne Zentral-Dombau-Verein zu Köln in 1842, which was founded to promote and finance the completion of Cologne Cathedral. She also lived in Italy for a time, especially after 1835. Her secondary homes in Genoa and Rome were famous for the receptions she held there in her salon (Obituary 1858; Aus’m Weerth 1857; Blöcker 1997).

Sibylle Mertens-Schaaffhausen’s interest in archaeology and antiques started early. She received non-formal education through her father’s salon and her father’s friends. Her privileged position as a member of a wealthy and influential family made it possible for her to continue her work after her marriage in 1816. She became the first woman to be admitted to the scientific meetings of the Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica, founded in 1829 in Rome, where she presented copies of the engraved gems from her private collection (Wehgartner 2002, 269).

Sibylle Mertens-Schaaffhausen is an excellent example of a highly educated, cultured, and wealthy woman of the early nineteenth century who could improve her knowledge by collecting and working with books, arts, and antiques. Furthermore, she provided space and networks for other antiquarians and archaeologists to meet and connect and was most influential to them with her knowledge. As a woman, she could not obtain official positions in newly founded archaeological associations or institutions, but she was able to participate in and educate younger colleagues. It seems, for example, that the archaeologist Ernst aus’m Weerth (1829–1909), co-founder and the first director of the LVR LandesMuseum Bonn, was one of her students (Propylaeum Vitae 2022, entry Mertens-Schaaffhausen). Living in a time when formal education for women hardly existed, and access to universities was not meant for female students, finding their ways of education and scientific work was the only possible way for women to contribute to the rising academic disciplines of archaeology.

Nineteenth Century: Archaeological Work by Autodidacts

In the later nineteenth century, the few women who shaped the beginnings of archaeological sciences in Germany came, just like the men, primarily from aristocratic and middle-class families, such as the collector and researcher Ida von Boxberg (1806–1893) in Dresden (Herrmann and Krabath 2013), or the excavator and collection curator Käte Rieken, née von Preen (1865–1917), in Cottbus (Koch 2002; Wetzel 2004). They possessed the appropriate prerequisites for privately acquired education and family wealth to engage in scientific work through private study. However, any woman working in archaeology remained an exception at the time, as women in academia, in general, pursued their interests relatively isolated from other like-minded women within their respective private and family networks (Birn 2019). This situation only changed towards the end of the nineteenth century with the emergence of the First European Women’s Movement in Germany and the corresponding educational associations and women’s magazines, which publicized the achievements of individual women and promoted networking (Schaser 2006).

Amalie Buchheim (1819–1902), museum custos, may be considered the first female archaeologist in a paid position (Koch 2009; Anders 2011). She lived in Germany at a time when, on the one hand, the princely houses were opening their scientific collections – at least partially – to an interested public. On the other hand, many scholars’ associations were founded to research local history because of burgeoning nationalism. As a result, the first regional collections of prehistoric artifacts were established in many places. Amalie Buchheim took over from her father, sexton at the grand-ducal court in Schwerin, as custos (assistant to a curator) of the antiquities collection of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and the collection of the Society for Mecklenburg History and Antiquities from 1835. Thus, she was assistant to the curator Friedrich Lisch (1801–1883), in office from 1836 to 1881, and his successor Robert Beltz (1854–1942), both of whom may be counted among the leading prehistoric archaeologists of their generations. After her mother died in 1860, her employment – at the age of 41, no less – became official, even though the salary was so low that she had to continue earning extra money by sewing. Her work included cataloging new acquisitions, the restoration of prehistoric objects, and the expert guidance of both Schwerin collections, which were famous during the nineteenth century. In 1877, one of the guests was Marie von Windisch-Grätz (see below). During her long service, Buchheim experienced two museum moves. In 1844, the two collections were transferred from Schwerin Castle to a new building. After moving, the society’s collection was converted to the then-new three-period system of Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages. In contrast, the Duke’s collection was displayed separately and retained its arrangement according to subject areas. The society’s collection was thus the first antiquities collection in Germany to be arranged according to the system similar to the one published by the curator of the Copenhagen collection, Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, in 1836 (in Danish) and 1837 (in German) (Eggert 2000, 33–7). The final consolidation of the two collections for the new Grand Ducal Museum in 1882 was carried out by her alone. Amalie Buchheim may be considered a representative of all women employed in museums and universities in the nineteenth century for so-called “auxiliary” work in collections, archives, libraries, and laboratories. Their names have largely been forgotten.

Johanna Mestorf (1828–1909; Fig. 14.1), museums director and first female professor of archaeology, was a celebrity around 1900. Johanna Mestorf was the first female director of an archaeological university museum in Germany. She persistently worked her way into an academic career as an autodidact at a time when women were not yet allowed to study. For this reason, she became a role model for many women around 1900 in their pursuit of academic life (Koch and Mertens 2002; Unverhau 2015). Born a doctor’s daughter in Holstein, Germany, she received an education that included languages and household management, allowing her to work as a governess and socialité in Sweden and Italy after coming of age. It was not until she was 31 that she returned to her family in Hamburg, and from there, began to carve out a place for herself in scholarly circles as a translator of important Swedish and Danish archaeological publications and as a scholarly correspondent for daily newspapers and magazines. The first book translated and revised in German by Johanna Mestorf was Die Ureinwohner des Skandinavischen Nordens I. Das Bronzezeitalter (1863) by Sven Nilsson (original: Skandinaviska Nordens urinvånare). Thirteen books and some journal contributions followed, among them publications by Hans Hildebrand (1842–1913), Sophus Müller (1846–1934), and Oscar Montelius (1843–1921). Her last translation was Die Altgermanische Tierornamentik (1904) by Bernhard Salin. With her translation work, she made the then-leading publications of Scandinavian archaeology available for German-speaking researchers. Persistent and self-confident, she acquired the skills for a museum job – also with a private course at Amalie Buchheim in Schwerin – and built a personal network by attending the International Congresses of Archaeology and Anthropology, first in Copenhagen in 1869. Soon this included luminaries such as the Swedish archaeologist Hans Hildebrand and the German scientist and politician Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902).

Fig. 14.1
A photo of Professor Doctor h. c. Johanna Mestorf.

Prof. Dr. h. c. Johanna Mestorf (1828–1909). (Photo Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig, Germany)

Full size image

Her opportunity came with the founding of the Museum für Vaterländische Altertümer of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel (Museum of patrimonial antiquaries of Kiel University; precursor of the Archaeological State Museum Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig) in 1873, where she was employed as a custos. Since the director, the historian Heinrich Handelmann (1827–1891), was not very committed to this prehistoric collection, she increasingly took on scientific duties, such as guiding visitors, Europe-wide correspondence with specialist colleagues, and publication of the collection material. It was logical that she was offered the director’s position after he died in 1891. Since her salary was lower than her predecessor’s, she could expand the museum staff with another assistant position.

Johanna Mestorf made the Kiel Museum a hub of European archaeology, mediated between Scandinavian and German colleagues, and published on find complexes from Schleswig-Holstein. Among them is the first publication of the Ellerbek site, eponymous for the Mesolithic Ertebölle-Ellerbek Culture, and terminological introductions such as the Einzelgrabkultur (single grave culture), a Neolithic cultural group in northern Central Europe, or the Moorleiche (bog body) as a terminus technicus for Bronze Age and Iron Age human remains found in bogs (Mestorf 1892, 1900; Mestorf and Weber 1904). She published the world’s first pollen-analytical study of a settlement excavation with Karl Albrecht Weber (Mestorf and Weber 1904). Since the museum also became a contact point for interested local historians, she used her opportunities. She built up an exemplary network of local volunteer historians in the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein who regularly undertook excavations, reported on new finds, and handed them to the Kiel Museum (Mestorf 1877).

Her scientific diligence brought her numerous honors in the last two decades of her life, ranging from membership in scientific associations and academies throughout Europe, medals of honor, including the Gold Medal of the Queen of Sweden in 1904; to the title of professor, awarded by the German Emperor, but without authorization to teach in 1899; and an honorary doctorate from the Medical Faculty of Kiel University in 1909. At Kiel University, her memory has always been honored. Prof. Dr. hc. Johanna Mestorf’s photograph marks the beginning of the gallery of Kiel Professors of Prehistoric Archaeology. Since 2011, the center for interdisciplinary archaeological projects at Kiel University has carried the name Johanna Mestorf Academy.

The third archaeologist introduced here from the nineteenth century represents the noblewomen interested in science. Marie von Mecklenburg-Schwerin, née von Windisch-Grätz (1856–1929) is known in archaeology for her excavations in Slovenia and Austria (Hencken 1978; Weiss 1999; Maier 2002; Greis 2006). Born a princess of the higher nobility of the Austro-Hungarian Habsburg Empire, she was married at the age of 24 to her cousin Paul Friedrich Duke of Mecklenburg (1852–1923). Her husband was the son and later brother of two regents in the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in Northern Germany. From 1881 to 1906, the couple lived as members of the European high nobility in various countries in Europe and North Africa, although only three of their five children reached adulthood. The accidental death of a son in 1904 and, above all, the financial incapacitation of the couple by their relatives in 1906 led Marie von Mecklenburg-Schwerin to retire to Bogenšperk Castle in Slovenia, a country estate of the von Windisch-Grätz family.

Cut off from European court life, Marie von Mecklenburg-Schwerin devoted herself to archaeology in Slovenia. The interest had undoubtedly been aroused within the family beforehand, as other family members were also active in archaeology. Nevertheless, it was highly unusual for a woman of her time and status to excavate on her own. She focused her excavation projects on the important cemeteries of the early Iron Age (eighth to fifth century BC) in Carniola, namely in Vače, Magdalenska gora, Stična, and Vinica, as well as Hallstatt (Austria). She opened more than 1000 graves between 1906 and 1914 and thus building up a collection of more than 20,000 prehistoric artifacts. She worked on the excavations herself, although the local excavation management was the responsibility of her secretary Gustav Goldberg. Driven by her need for money, she sometimes succeeded in winning over the Austrian and German emperors as patrons for excavations. She was also keen to carry out and improve the documentation of her excavations according to the current scientific standards, which was honored by her visitors, including Oscar Montelius (Sweden), Joseph Déchelette (France), and Friedrich Rathgen (Germany).

The beginning of World War I in 1914 ended the excavation activities by Marie von Mecklenburg-Schwerin. It was no longer possible for her to publish after the government of the young Slovenian state had confiscated the collection. Only after her death did her daughter get it back, but for financial reasons sold the collection to the Peabody Museum at Harvard University (USA) and to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford (UK), where the objects were finally scientifically processed. The Mecklenburg Collection is still well known in specialist circles today.

Of the amateur archaeologists during the turn of the century, many are now forgotten. Among these women was Julie Schlemm (1850–1944), an amateur publishing archaeologist. She lived in Berlin, and in 1893, became a member of the Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, co-founded and hosted by Rudolf Virchow. Her father, a physician and long-time member of the same society, probably encouraged her interest. Her mother donated her father’s book collection to the society after his death. She attended meetings and lectures, participated in conversations, and sent photographic material. Once, she even copied the plates of a damaged book for the society (BGAEU 1893, 387). She began to compile a handbook to acquaint herself with archaeological terminology better and she published it in 1908 as a service to her “fellow sufferers” who had, like her, turned to archaeology out of “passion” or had no easy access to “larger libraries and public collections” (Schlemm 1908, V). Quite assertively, she addressed her book to professional archaeologists. According to her, archaeological research had grown so much “that it requires great perseverance and much effort to gather the widely scattered literature in order to obtain information about the numerous forms of utensils and decorative objects of past times, about their manifold variants, about their origin, circumstances of discovery and chronology” (Schlemm 1908, V). She added almost 2000 illustrations. Her book received some commendation (e.g., Schmidt 1908; Seger-Breslau 1908) and was available for purchase for some time until others replaced it.

So far, all women presented here had to educate themselves on archaeology and its adjacent fields informally. Before regular access to universities was granted, women could ask for access to a study program or specific lectures as guest students – depending on the university. Access had to be granted either by the professors, the faculty, or the university’s president (Birn 2019; Costas 2010, 196). However, as the example of Johanna Mestorf shows, requested access was not always granted; when she and four other women asked in 1884 to be allowed to hear a lecture on the drama “Faust,” their request was rejected (Fischer 1996, 44).

Some of these women were able to turn their archaeological work into a profession, which provided them with an income, and some of them could use their wealthy social and family backgrounds to maintain independent studies in archaeology. As the example of Julie Schlemm shows, being a dedicated female autodidact archaeologist only sometimes led to a career in archaeology. However, their underlying commonality remains their substantial contribution to the budding academic disciplines of archaeology.

Early Twentieth Century

Women gradually gained access to formal education and universities; however, towards the end of the nineteenth century, this was about to change. In Germany, women gained regular university access between 1895 (Baden) and 1908 (Prussia). From 1908 onwards, women did have unrestricted access to universities. From 1920 onwards, they also had the right to habilitate – a formal requirement to be appointed as full professors in Germany. However, having equal rights to men within the academic system did not mean women had the same chances. As in the decades before, women depended to a great extent on the support and goodwill of their male supervisors and their reputation and networks in the scientific community. After the First World War, more women entered German universities, but at the price of great financial burdens and personal uncertainty (Birn 2019). Only a few chose to study classical archaeology, prehistory, Egyptology, or other archaeological subjects.

Elvira Fölzer (1868–1937) was among the first female archaeologists to be awarded a Ph.D. She was one of the first female students admitted to study archaeology as a guest student (Merten 2013; Propylaeum Vitae 2022, entry Fölzer). She was born in Wandsbek, today part of the city of Hamburg, into a wealthy German Brazilian trade family. Unfortunately, little is known about her early life. She had at least three sisters. She received an education typical for girls from wealthy families at the Höhere Töchterschule, a finishing school in Wandsbek. After her father died in 1893, the family’s houses were sold in 1895, and the revenue was split between the siblings. This money likely enabled Elvira Fölzer to attend private classes to prepare for the Abitur, the general qualification for university entrance in Germany (Merten 2013, 119–23). The Abitur could at that time only be acquired at a Gymnasium, a secondary school that was usually only open for boys. However, girls could privately prepare for the final exams and take them as externals. In 1899, Elvira Fölzer passed her Abitur successfully at the Gymnasium in Dresden-Neustadt at the age of 31. She started to study archaeology, art history, and classical philology at the University of Leipzig in the same year and continued her studies from 1901 in Freiburg i. Breisgau, and from 1902 in Bonn, where she graduated with her Ph.D. thesis about the hydria, a Greek pottery type (Merten 2013, 122–23). Elvira Fölzer was the first woman to receive a doctorate from the faculty of philosophy of the University of Bonn, which was announced in at least two German newspapers then (Generalanzeiger 1906, 5; Norddeutsche Zeitung 1906, 8). After graduation, she participated in a study trip to Italy; however, she was not awarded the prestigious travel grant of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), for which she applied twice (Merten 2013, 124).

Her supervisor was Georg Loeschke (1852–1915), a professor of archaeology at the University of Bonn from 1889 until 1912. In 1906, Elvira Fölzer became the first of his female students to pass her Ph.D. – 50 years after the death of Sybille Mertens-Schaaffhausen, who also lived and worked in Bonn. She was followed by four more women: Margarete Bieber (1879–1978), who graduated in 1907; Margret Heinemann (1883–1968), who graduated in 1910; Charlotte Loeschke, née Fränkel (1880–1933); and Viktoria von Lieres und Wilkau (1881–1970), who both graduated in 1912. Those were the only female archaeologists who received a doctorate before the First World War in Germany. These examples show how much women still depended on the local support of men in leading positions. Besides Georg Loeschke in Bonn, there were two more professors in addition to Leonard Franz (1895–1974) in Prague (occupied Czechia) and Innsbruck (Austria) and probably Gustav Eichhorn (1862–1929) in Jena, who seemed to encourage female students to study and graduate in archaeology and pursue subject-specific careers after their Ph.D. Elvira Fölzer followed his advice. In 1906, she started working for the museum in Trier under a contract. Her main duty was to investigate the Roman pottery excavated in 1899 during the town’s sewerage construction, which she delivered to the museum. However, as she was the only museum worker besides the museum director, she did many everyday tasks. She worked for the museum in Trier until 1917 and published two books and many articles during this time. Her systematic scientific work on Roman pottery was ground-breaking. Elvira Fölzer can therefore be seen as one of the founders of the discipline of the archaeology of the Roman Provinces (Merten 2013). However, after 1917, Elvira Fölzer did not get a renewed contract from the museum in Trier or any other archaeological museum; in general, little is known about her life afterward. It seems that she started to work full-time as a teacher in Berlin. Maybe this position allowed her to share her passion for archaeology and archaeological artifacts with some of her pupils.

Elvira Fölzer’s archaeological career ended during the First World War and before the socio-political changes of the Weimar Republic were implemented. However, one of her fellow students, Margarete Bieber (1879–1978), started her archaeological career in 1907 and remained an archaeologist for her whole life, as discussed below.

Archaeologists Committed to National Socialism and Victims of Nazi Persecution Between 1933 and 1945

Prehistoric archaeology had an inherent tendency towards nationalism from its beginnings. In institutional terms, the field was far behind classical archaeology even after World War I in an atmosphere of increasingly radical nationalism. Segments of the National Socialist movement had shown a particular interest in what they regarded as Germanic prehistory early on. When the National Socialists came into power, prehistoric archaeologists received ample funding, several new chairs, and university academic positions. New job opportunities opened up in conservation, heritage, and communication, as these fields were also granted more resources to advance public interest in prehistory and, at the same time, prepare a scientific rationale for conquest (Haβmann 2002). Young scholars of prehistoric archaeology, among them, the first generation of university-trained female archaeologists and female high school graduates, were drawn to this. Young women now found jobs and opportunities to gain recognition in the academic world that were hitherto unknown. Many were ready to progress in their careers, dedicating themselves to a research agenda aligned with the prevailing ideology. While some embraced National Socialism, others fell victim, as described here.

Liebetraut Rothert (1909–2005) came from an upper-middle-class family interested in history and archaeology (Halle 2013, 177–187; Piezonka and Wetzel 2004). She studied prehistoric archaeology, geology, and art history in Vienna, Breslau, and Tübingen. She received her doctorate in 1935 with a study of the Middle Stone Age flint tools from Silesia (Rothert 1936). As a student, she joined the Kampfbund für Deutsche Kultur and began to engage with National Socialism. She started her career at Amt Rosenberg. Amt Rosenberg was an official body for cultural policy within the NSDAP and was headed by Alfred Rosenberg (1893–1946). Its endeavors included the Reichsbund für Deutsche Vorgeschichte, the gleichgeschaltet successor organization of Gustav Kossinna’s (1858–1931) Gesellschaft für Deutsche Vorgeschichte, where Rothert worked with two other female archaeologists, Waldtraut Bohm (1890–1969; Leube 2010, 48–49) and Gerta Blaschka, née Schneider (1908–1999; Leube 2006, 145). Rothert published in the National Socialist periodical Germanen-Erbe and actively popularized the völkisch version of prehistoric research. Rothert curated the popular, highly propagandistic traveling exhibition “Living Prehistory” (Lebendige Vorzeit) (Schöbel 2002, 353). However, for unclear reasons, Liebetraut Rothert left the Amt Rosenberg in 1938 for the newly established Landesamt für Vor- und Frühgeschichte of Brandenburg in Potsdam and turned to a much less politicized occupation. She built its artifact archive, registered all private collections (Rothert 1940), did some fieldwork, and took on several administrative tasks. She continued her job after her wedding in 1940, even after her children were born. Before transferring to manage the Niederlausitzer Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte in Cottbus in 1942, she was in charge of running the Landesamt on her own as her male colleagues had been enlisted (Gahrau-Rothert 1941). In 1944, she packed up the Cottbus collections to save them from war damage. In early 1945, she fled with her children to Westphalia. She divorced in 1948, shortly after the birth of a third child, and tried to return to the profession as a single working mother. While many male archaeologists easily glided through denazification and resumed their positions, Rothert found no new job in archaeological research. By chance, she changed careers and became the editor of a mining company magazine in 1954, later becoming a mining archivist until retirement.

How can we assess what we know about her? At first, she seemed to have been committed to National Socialism as she willingly took on propaganda tasks. Similar to Thea Haevernick, Waldtraut Bohm, or Gerta Blaschka, she supported the Nazi regime through her professional capacities. They profited from the new job opportunities the regime offered (Halle 2013) and took on highly qualified tasks in research and management. At some point, Rothert pulled back from the more politicized realms of prehistory. She showed organizational skills and leadership expertise at the Landesamt and the Cottbus Museum. While she may have been less politically charged than fellow female archaeologists such as Bohm and Schneider or Camilla Streit (1903–1950), her archaeological career ended with the war. Some, such as Clara Redlich (1908–1992), found occupations in museums or related areas before returning to university careers. Redlich, for example, was the first woman to habilitate in prehistoric archaeology in 1946. She stayed with the Landesmuseum Hannover until 1966. Shortly before her retirement, Redlich became an extraordinary professor (Bräuning 2012, 24).

Many first-generation female university graduates seem to have devoted some time in their career to the more detailed study of specific periods, artifacts, or regions, even to smaller-scale local studies. In the case of prehistorian Liebetraut Rothert and others, this was due to their employment situation as they were hired by institutions devoted to the preservation of archaeological monuments and surveys. This occupation did not inspire or even allow syntheses or overarching analyses (Neumann 1963). Many of them had originally been trained as teachers. Teaching was then a socially acceptable occupation for (unmarried) women. They found their interest in prehistory during specific teacher training seminars offered by museums and academic prehistorians. Albert Kiekebusch (1870–1935), then director of Märkisches Museum Berlin, conducted one such long-lasting seminar, the Kiekebusch-Kreis. Some women abided by voluntary preservation work for decades. Sources from the German Democratic Republic show that they often acquired profound knowledge, led local excavations, and sometimes managed heritage museums (Ausgrabungen und Funde 1956–1994). Their archaeological training was semi-academic and practical – various state offices offered such courses for preserving monuments. For example, in the 1930s and 1940s, such special programs consisted of field trips, lectures, and in-service training (Nachrichtenblatt für Deutsche Vorzeit 1933, 1935).

Elisabeth Schlicht (1914–1989) dedicated her life to the conservation of archaeological monuments. When she received her doctorate from Kiel University in 1941, she was already an expert in the area she came from the Hümmling, a moraine landscape in Emsland, Northern Germany. Her father, a wealthy lawyer from Sögel, had founded a private local heritage museum there in 1911. Among other activities, his wife and daughters Elisabeth and Marie-Luise were responsible for rearranging the museum’s prehistoric department in 1932. They conducted excavations and published extensively on the prehistory of the Emsland region. She developed research concepts and forms of presentation for her father’s collections (Kaltofen 1992, 275). During the war, the Schlichts received grants from SS-Ahnenerbe for local excavation work. Ahnenerbe was a financially well-endowed think tank founded by Heinrich Himmler as an SS appendage. Ahnenerbe was to promote the Nazi doctrine through archaeological and historical, linguistic, and ethnological research. Scientists devoted themselves to finding hard evidence for ideologies on race, Aryan expansion, and Germanic dominance and spreading these through exhibitions, conferences and popular books and magazines. Schlicht, a member of the NSDAP, was in contact with Wolfram Sievers (1905–1948), the managing director of SS-Ahnenerbe, who was later executed as a war criminal. After the annexation of Poland, Elisabeth Schlicht took part in the highly political documentation of archaeological monuments. Both sisters returned to the Emsland to continue their local heritage research and preservation work. They continued excavating and preserving monuments in the following decades. It is not pretentious to say that both women dedicated their lives to preserving the archaeological monuments of their home region.

The choice of research subjects and perspectives is clearly multifaceted. Gender and gender relations are just two of many parameters that influence the decisions archaeologists make. Structural categories other than gender affect such decisions and so do material or practical considerations. Such choices also reflect existing power relations. There was a tendency for women to commit to more detailed studies of particular subjects and periods or even more small-scale studies of specific regions. At the same time, men – or the men in power – wrote the syntheses and the general overviews (Díaz-Andreu and Stig Sørensen 1998b, 10).

While the women we have presented profited from or were at least on reliable terms with National Socialism, there were archaeologists, both men and women, who fell victim to the persecutions and the murderous policies of the Nazi regime. Some were murdered or lost their lives upon escape (Peuckert 2014; The Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names, Yad Vashem). Others emigrated abroad. As in many other academic fields, the exodus from Nazi Germany from 1933 onwards was noticeable in the archaeological disciplines, especially in classical archaeology and antiquities (cf. Obermayer 2014; Heinz 2009), much less so in prehistory.

Margarete Bieber (1879–1978) was the first female to become a full professor in archaeology. Margarete Bieber’s career was exceptional in several ways. She was one of the female students supported by classical archaeologist Georg Loeschcke (1852–1915) in Bonn (see above), where she received her doctorate in 1907. She was the second woman and the first female archaeologist to receive a famous travel grant from the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) shortly after graduation. In 1919, she was allowed to habilitate in Gießen. In the following years, she became a renowned researcher and academic teacher, receiving professional recognition in the scientific community. In 1932, she was granted a full professorship and earmarked to receive a chair. However, after the political takeover by the National Socialists, Margarete Bieber was forced into retirement in June 1933 due to her Jewish ancestry. Her career in Germany was abruptly halted. Shortly afterward, she emigrated to the USA, where she began to teach at Barnard College and Columbia University New York. Like many other migrant scholars, she suffered a blow to her academic life, attaining only an associate professorship instead of a full one.Nevertheless, her students and colleagues held her in high esteem. She is still remembered in the USA, perhaps more so than in Germany (Recke 2013). So, as with many emigrated researchers from all subjects, Bieber was lost to German classical archaeology. In the overall history of classical archaeology in the German-speaking world, she remained exceptional until 1961, when Hedwig Kenner (1910–1993) became the second woman ever appointed a full professorship in Vienna (Gutsmiedl-Schümann 2013).

Hermine Speier (1898–1989) was the first woman employed by the Vatican Museum. Of Jewish ancestry, she escaped the National Socialists, although her career in archaeology evolved quite differently than Margarete Bieber’s. Hermine Speier (1898–1989) was a classical archaeologist. She received her doctorate in Heidelberg in 1925 but was not allowed the highest grading because her supervisor reserved this exclusively for men. Nevertheless, he brought her to Rome to the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) in 1928. She built up the institute’s photo archive and developed the model by which later archaeological photo libraries were organized. Since she was Jewish, Hermine Speier was dismissed from her position in 1934. The Director-General of the Vatican Museums then hired her as a photo librarian. Speier then became the first woman ever to be employed at the Vatican. Her employment was also a political signal; what is more, it offered her some protection from persecution. In 1943/44, she went into hiding in a convent and thus escaped deportation. After the war, she returned to work at the Vatican Museums and accepted commissions from the DAI. In 1961, she was responsible for the Vatican’s collection of antiquities (Sailer 2014).

Archaeology in Post-war Germany

After the Second World War, the first task was to get teaching, research, and preserving archaeological monuments back on track. The legal and practical conditions varied in the four occupation zones. However, with some exceptions, male archaeologists who had survived the war continued their careers rather seamlessly – even if they had been highly involved with National Socialism. Women archaeologists with doctorates, graphic designers, and skilled helpers, who maintained scientific operations in universities, institutes, museums, and heritage departments during the war, often also packing the archaeological collections to protect them, were soon ousted from their jobs by the returning men.

Due to the various structural obstacles, only a few women who graduated from the university between the 1920s and 1940s pursued a professional career as an archaeologist in the narrower sense, for example, at universities and non-university research institutes or the institutions responsible for the preservation of historical monuments. Others left these institutions and professions after a relatively short time. More women found long-term employment in museums, mainly in smaller, local, regional, or private museums. Previously, we mentioned that the first women in paid museum jobs took place in the late nineteenth century. With no formal training in archaeology, these women were employed for the significant but inconspicuous activities of arranging, cataloging, labeling, and caring for findings (Provinzial-Museum 1890, 13). To this day, the women who work in museums are much less visible, especially if they were not publishing and instead worked in administration, restoration, or drawing/photography. A larger proportion of academically qualified female archaeologists has pursued voluntary, unpaid work, again in smaller museums and historic preservation.

Nonetheless, in the German-speaking world, museums were the first area of archaeology where women could rise to and keep relatively stable positions. Still, even after World War II, we know very few women in leading positions, such as Gertrud Dorka (1893–1976) and Sieglind Kramer (1914–1965). Their careers are also interesting regarding the early history of divided Germany (Fig. 14.2).

Fig. 14.2
A photo of Doctor Gertrud Dorka seated at a desk with artefacts on it.

Dr. Gertrud Dorka in her office in the basement of the former State Museum for Prehistory and Early History Berlin, Germany, in the 1950s. (Photo Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte)

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Gertrud Dorka was an outstanding woman of the reconstruction years. A teacher by training, she joined the Kiekebusch-Kreis at Berlin’s Märkisches Museum. Only in 1930 did she become a full-time student in Berlin, finally graduating from Kiel University with a Ph.D. in 1936. Apparently, due to her refusal to join the NSDAP, she found no job in archaeology but returned to teaching instead. After the demise of National Socialism, she was offered the direction of the former State Museum for Prehistory and Early History (Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte) in Berlin in 1947. She made it her job to salvage museum artifacts from the rubble and retrieve items relocated during the war. While rebuilding the museum, its archive, library, and collections, Gertrud Dorka was also responsible for archaeological conservation in Berlin. She led several excavations and coordinated the volunteer conservationists. She founded a scientific journal and a series focused on Berlin (Wegner 2013; Nawroth 2005). Gertrud Dorka was the first woman after 1945 to hold a top position in heritage and conservation. The next woman to gain a comparable position in the Federal Republic of Germany was Renate Schneider (*1936) in Hamburg in 1974.

Fig. 14.3
A photo of archaeologist Ute Leuken working on the production of a lacquer profile.

Archaeologist Ute Leuken (1935–2015), later married Steiner (Wetzel 2014), served as a photo model for several work photos, “Production of a lacquer profile” of the Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte Halle (GDR), during her time as a trainee in 1954. (Photo Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt (Germany), Waldemar Matthias)

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In the German Democratic Republic, Sieglind Kramer became the director of the newly founded Research Center for Prehistory and Early History (Forschungsstelle für Vor- und Frühgeschichte) in Potsdam in 1953. She was responsible for research, conservation, heritage management, and for creating the Museum for Prehistory and Early History there (Knorr 1965).

Female Archaeologists in Divided Germany

The precarious dynamic of Germany’s division is reflected in the career of Waldtraut Schrickel (1920–2009). She had studied history, prehistory, and geography. She received her Ph.D. in medieval history in 1944. From 1945, she had various jobs at the Prehistoric Museum of the University of Jena. Meanwhile, she prepared her habilitation in an entirely new field of expertise: prehistoric stone tools. After her habilitation in 1952, she taught at the University of Jena and reorganized the museum. In addition, she was appointed district conservator of a large area in Thuringia (Neumann 1963, 229–30). Her career was going well. In 1958, however, she did not return to the GDR from a conference in the Federal Republic of Germany. It was a high-risk decision because it was illegal and heavily sanctioned to leave the German Democratic Republic and could have ruined her career. However, gaining her professional footing in the Federal Republic of Germany with the help of colleagues at the Römisch-germanische Kommission and others in 1958, she finally moved to the Heidelberg Institute for Prehistory, where she became an academic assistant. The peculiarities of the German habilitation system required the University of Heidelberg to accept her habilitation before her lecturing. She was only allowed a reduced venia legendi. In 1967, Waldtraut Schrickel was appointed an extraordinary professor. It was a more or less honorary position without funding, so she depended on her job in the non-professorial teaching staff. She never applied for a regular professorship but took over the interim management of the institute in 1978 (Bräuning 2012, 26–7).

Decades of Transformation in the East and West

Only in the 1970s did women decide to study archaeology; fewer women completed a Ph.D. or were habilitated. Only a few women found long-term employment at universities, academies, and extramural research institutes. Among them was archaeobotanist Maria Hopf (1914–2008). She graduated in 1947 and worked both for the Department Geschichte der Kulturpflanzen at the Max-Planck-Institut at Berlin–Dahlem, which was then led by another female botanist, Elisabeth Schiemann (1881–1972), and the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz (Bittmann and Behre 2008).

It was not until 1969 that Gisela Freund (*1920) in Erlangen (FRG) became the first woman in the German-speaking world to be appointed to a chair in prehistory and early history, followed by Renate Rolle (*1941) in Hamburg in 1991 (Bräuning 2009, 4–5; 11–12). In 1963, Erika Simon (1927–2019) became the first female archaeologist to be appointed to a chair in classical archaeology in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) (Wehgartner 2004, 163).

In the German Democratic Republic (GDR), prehistorian Edith Hoffmann (*1929) received a chair in 1979. She had worked her way through the academic levels at Leipzig. In 1954, she became an assistant, receiving her doctorate in 1959 with a study on ribbon ware in Saxony, and, in 1969, she accepted a position as a senior assistant. In 1979, she completed her doctorate B and was appointed full professor. Hoffmann held many honorary posts and functions in committees of the SED party, expert commissions, and university committees. Between 1983 and her retirement in 1990, she headed the Department of Prehistory and Ancient History at Leipzig. Hoffmann was also exceptionally interested in the historiography of archaeology. She published several works on her university’s Nazi past. Hers was an extraordinary career in the GDR. Only one other woman interested in archaeological matters achieved a full professorship in the GDR. Irmgard Sellnow (1922–2010), ethnologist, anthropologist, and ethnographer, spent most of her career at the Central Institute for Ancient History and Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR. A leading Marxist theoretician, Sellnow integrated Marxism-Leninism into anthropology and ethnology, especially in collaboration with prehistorian Joachim Herrmann (1932–2010). She held high-ranking positions in several national and international committees and had long-lasting networks on both sides of the iron curtain.

Their political affiliations and activities were important reasons why Sellnow and, to a lesser extent, Hoffmann achieved influential positions in professional and political associations and committees. Very few women of their generation could occupy such posts, even in the GDR. In theory, all educational opportunities and professions were open to women there. The constitution also vested their equal rights in professional terms, but work and careers remained gender-based. Although women’s employment rates were relatively high in the GDR, and married women and mothers were prompted to work, many previously male-dominated domains remained unattended. Only a few women rose to leadership positions – this also applied to archaeological professions. The state granted access to universities subject to many restrictions. Among other things, applicants were required to perform prolonged military service and voluntary archaeological or political activities. Women accounted for just over one-quarter of all archaeology students (Struwe 2021, 60–1). Graduates from the mid-1960s onward could expect immediate employment at one of the universities or in the museums and in historic preservation (Fig. 14.3). While this was true for women and men, many female graduates seem to have given up these jobs or were not offered a suitable follow-up position. They virtually disappeared from GDR archaeology. Indeed, some women earned doctorates, became lecturers and assistants, such as Ingeburg Nilius (1927–1984) at Greifswald, and were given permanent positions at museums such as Erika Schmidt-Thielbeer (1927–2011) at Köthen. However, the big careers, the doctorate B (the equivalent of habilitation), and thus the professorships remained reserved for men.

Sigrid Dušek (1937–2009) graduated from the Humboldt-Universität Berlin in 1960 and received a job at the Museum für Ur- und Frühgeschichte in Weimar. Already a young mother, she completed her Ph.D. in 1970, when she was already working at the Archaeological Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Nitra. She specialized in information processing and data management and set up a modern library information system there. After a decade, she returned to the GDR and was appointed deputy director at the Weimar Museum. After German Reunification, she was regarded as politically unconflicted. So she became the director of the museum at Weimar and, in 1994, Landesarchäologin in the reconstructed state of Thuringia. Dušek was particularly interested in interdisciplinary collaboration and data processing and logistics. She was one of the few genuinely successful GDR archaeologists, and her career also endured and spanned the reunification of Germany (Struwe 2021).

Although women in both parts of Germany occupy different spheres of archaeological practice, and even some are in leading positions, women are not necessarily regarded as equals, with rights and duties. Various obstacles and restrictions – both material and non-material – were placed upon female archaeologists. For example, leading positions of the expert committees, associations, and societies were firmly in male hands. Only in 2011 did Friederike Fless (*1964 –) become the first female president of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. The proverbial glass ceiling was and is still substantial (Gutsmiedl-Schümann and Helmbrecht 2017, 169–70).

Conclusions

Women have contributed to various fields in German archaeology, as our selected examples from different times showed – and they still do today. Female archaeologists have helped shape the discipline from early on. From the beginning, women were present in archaeology: as antiquarians, collectors, excavators, or museum workers. They often sorted and organized collections, cleaned and restored, and drew and painted finds and objects, making them available for other archaeologists to work with and publish. Those tasks often required creativity to develop new working methods or adapt techniques from other fields. However, these small yet important contributions to many archaeological fields are yet to be adequately researched. Archaeological work has always been about teamwork. Highlighting only the heads of excavations, museums, heritage organizations, and university departments often denies the work and efforts of other persons working in archaeology. In these pages, we, mostly write of “contributions” instead of “achievements” of several women in archaeology to highlight that those achievements might only be possible if systematic exclusion and structural disadvantage are not an issue.

Nevertheless, the names and biographies of some female archaeologists are still known, and their contributions can be made visible again by researching their biographies. Unlike other scientific fields, where completing a study program and a subsequent academic career was the only way to participate, archaeology has always maintained connections to citizen science and voluntary work from enthusiasts. Diverse people of different genders and social and cultural backgrounds built archaeology as a profession. Acknowledging the various contributions to archaeology on different levels that were mostly invisible or nearly forgotten women made leads not only to a better understanding of the roots of the academic discipline but also stresses the need for a more inclusive perspective to prepare archaeology for the future in a diverse society.