Frieda Wunderlich (8 November 1884 – 9 December 1965) was a Germansociologist,economist andpolitician of theGerman Democratic Party. She was actively involved in the women's movement fighting for gender equality.

Frieda Wunderlich was born on 8 November 1884 inCharlottenburg,Berlin, the second child of the Jewish merchant David Wunderlich and his wife Rosa Ashkenazy. Her older brother, Georg Wunderlich, was a lawyer, and her younger sister, Eva Wunderlich, worked in the field of literature.^[1]

She received her secondary education at a German all-girls school and then, in 1901, started an apprenticeship at her father's business. In 1910, she completed the GermanAbitur, enabling her to go on to studyeconomics andphilosophy inBerlin andFreiburg.^[2] Wunderlich interrupted her studies duringWorld War I and worked for theNationaler Frauendienst (National Women's Work) and other war related organizations.^[3] She received herdoctorate in 1919 from theUniversity of Freiburgsumma cum laude with a dissertation on the importance ofHugo Münsterberg for economics ("Hugo Münsterberg's Bedeutung für die Nationalökonomie").

In 1914, Wunderlich started teaching at a school forsocial work in Berlin, and at the academy for administration of theUniversity of Berlin.^[4] She succeededIgnaz Jastrow as publisher of the weekly journalSocial Practice (Soziale Praxis) from 1923 until she emigrated in 1933. This journal was described as at the center of the social reform movement,^[3] highlighting Wunderlich's position within the movement and her importance for its success. During these years, she frequently wrote articles forSocial Practice. She stressed international aspects of women's labour and women's employment protection.^[5] Wunderlich was also head of the Society for Social Reform (Gesellschaft für soziale Reform) in Germany, in which role she led a good part of the sociopolitical discussions in theWeimar Republic.

She also worked as judge at the highest court for national insurance in 1924–25. In 1930, she was promoted to professor forsociology and social politics at a public institute for vocational education studies in Berlin, the Staatliches Berufspädagogisches Institut in Berlin.

AfterAdolf Hitler and theNazi Party came to power in 1933, Wunderlich was forced to retire from her position. She was among the 45% of Jewish academics who left Germany in 1933. Her plan to emigrate toGreat Britain with the help of her contacts at theLondon School of Economics and Social Science failed.^[6] Instead, she accepted an invitation from theNew School for Social Research inNew York City and until 1954 worked as professor for political and social sciences on its graduate faculty. This faculty, known after 1933 asthe University in Exile, was a rescue program for European academics. Wunderlich was the only woman among its ten founding members.^[7][8]

The academic staff at the New School concerned themselves with the question of why socio-political reforms had failed in Germany and why there was no noteworthy resistance movement. Wunderlich participated in this discussion through her lectures, like one titled "Freedom and Intellectual Responsibility" (1937)^[9] delivered at a colloquium opened byThomas Mann and focused on educational systems in totalitarian states.

She thought thatNational Socialism and its totalitarian aspects substituted for religion, with the belief in the superiority of the German race as its central tenet. Thus rights are no longer based on human rights, the law of nature or the feeling of belonging to one nation, but derive instead from the feeling of belonging to a "mystic society bound by blood". This definition exceeds the meaning of nation as a political society and, according to her, implies the war on inferior races as well as a fight against liberal values such as equality, liberty and self-determination.^[10] She was convinced that National Socialism takes over the control of the cultural and social unity of the family, altering the role of women, who are left with their maternal and household management roles. She adds that not all employment positions were purged of women, but that they were to work in the lowest positions with the smallest income.

Wunderlich was one of few academics who emigrated and managed to continue to have a political career. Her colleagues elected her by a unanimous vote to serve as Dean of the New School's Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science for the academic year 1939–40. The chairman of the faculty,Alvin Johnson, said:^[11]

Dr. Wunderlich's work in a succession of important educational and governmental positions in Germany prior to 1933 made her one of the first ranking women of that country. In contrast to the present status of women, which restricts them to the lower paid and less important positions, Dr. Wunderlich's career embodied far-sighted social policy based on scholarly training in economics, on experience in social work that began with the administration of a whole district during the World War, and on practical politics in both elective governmental posts and trade unions and other politically important groups.

She was the first women to be dean of a faculty in the United States.^[12] Apart from her involvement in the university, Wunderlich was from 1939 until 1943 the head of a research projects funded by theRockefeller Foundation focusing on social and economic control in Germany and Russia.^[13]

In 1955, a year after her retirement, she received an honorary doctorate from theUniversity of Cologne.

She died on 9 December 1965 inEast Orange,New Jersey.^[14]

Frieda Wunderlich was a member of theGerman Democratic Party which became the DStP in 1930. From 1925 until 1933, she served on the city council inBerlin and from 1930 until 1932 was politically active as a representative of theGerman Democratic Party in thePrussian parliament,^[4] where she stressed social issues and the politics of the labour market.

She was also active in the women's movement. For example, she published a paper in 1924 about the problems of maternity leave and women's employment protection in general ("Frauen als Subjekte und Objekte der Sozialpolitik" inKölner Sozialpolitische Vierteljahresschrift). She was convinced that with the expansion of public social welfare policies, women would gain additional employment opportunities.^[5] Her emigration to the U.S. made it possible for Wunderlich to enjoy a degree of gender equality not possible elsewhere at the time. She said:

It still holds true that in Germany the fundamental principle is that woman is meant for marriage, while in the United States woman's life is regarded as an end in itself which may find completion without marriage.

• Handbuch der Kriegsfürsorge (Hrsg. Nationaler Frauendienst), 1916
• Hugo Münsterbergs Bedeutung für die Nationalökonomie, 1920
• Die Bekämpfung der Arbeitslosigkeit in Deutschland, 1925
• Produktivität, Jena 1926
• Kampf um die Sozialversicherung, 1930
• Versicherung und Fürsorge, 1930
• Labor under German Democracy, 1940
• British Labor and the War, 1941
• German Labor Courts, 1947
• Farm Labor in Germany, 1960

• Theresa Wobbe:Wahlverwandtschaften. Die Soziologie und die Frauen auf dem Weg zur Wissenschaft, Berlin 1995, bes. 170–186
  • with Claudia Honegger eds.:Frauen in der Soziologie. Neun Portraits.(sic) Beck, München 1998ISBN 3406392989 (außer F. W.:Dorothy Swaine Thomas,Marie Jahoda,Jenny P. d'Héricourt (Jenny d'Héricourt),Mathilde Vaerting,Béatrice Webb,Jane Addams,Harriet Martineau undMarianne Weber
• Klemens Wittebur:Die Deutsche Soziologie im Exil 1933–1945, Lit, Münster 1991 (Dissertation von 1989), S. 73 f.
• Christine von Oertzen, Strategie Verständigung – Zur transnationalen Vernetzung von Akademikerinnen 1917–1955, Göttingen 2012.

• Literature by and about Frieda Wunderlich in theGerman National Library catalogue
• Frieda Wunderlich Collection, AR 3230 Archival Collection at theLeo Baeck Institute, New York

• 20th-century American economists
• 20th-century German economists
• 20th-century American women scientists
• 20th-century German women scientists
• 20th-century German women politicians
• 20th-century German women writers
• 20th-century American women writers
• 20th-century American sociologists
• American women sociologists
• German women sociologists
• Jewish American sociologists
• Jewish American economists
• American women economists
• German women economists
• Jewish German scientists
• Jewish German politicians
• Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States
• Emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States
• Weimar Republic politicians
• 20th-century German Jews
• 20th-century American Jews
• 1884 births
• 1965 deaths

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata