%0 Generic
%A Rauschenberger, Joey
%C Heidelberg
%D 2023
%F heidok:33942
%R 10.11588/heidok.00033942
%T Dr. Käthe Leichter: An Austrian Socialist, Pioneer of Social Science, and Jewish Nazi Victim and her Connections to Heidelberg University
%U https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/33942/
%X In December 2022, Heidelberg University opened its new center for doctoral candidates, the Käthe Leichter Forum. To mark the occasion, this text, which is based on the lecture given at the inauguration ceremony, introduces the Austrian namesake and guides us through the stages of her eventful and impressive biography. Particular attention is paid to the connection that existed between Leichter and Heidelberg. For Heidelberg University history, Käthe Leichter (1895-1942) is paradigmatic of the vicissitudes of a "century of extremes" (Eric Hobsbawm): Leichter, a pioneer both as a woman and as a Jew, obtained her doctorate under the eminent scholar Max Weber, before the university leadership revoked her title two decades later under the Nazi rector Paul Schmitthenner because she had fallen into political disgrace as a socialist resistance fighter. As a Jewish member of the opposition, the social scientist, women's rights activist and politician Leichter was soon threatened by other consequences of Nazi ideology: in 1940 she was deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp and murdered in the Bernburg killing center in 1942.