Pfulf, Antonie

(1877-1933)

   politician; advocated equal rights for women* and abolition of Germany's death penalty. Born in Metz to a Bavarian army officer, she studied pedagogy during 1896-1902 and thereafter taught in Upper Bavaria.* In 1902 she joined the SPD. In 1910, while living in Munich, she was forced by illness into an extended leave of absence. During World War I she did yeoman work as a counselor to orphans.

   Pfulf entered the National Assembly* in 1919 and, as a member of the Con-stitutional Committee, championed child welfare and women's rights. After breaking with Catholicism,* she tried to underscore the incompatibility of serv-ing as both a state and a church official. Reelected to the Reichstag* in 1920, she became secretary of the law committee. She was dedicated to criminal-law reform, including abolition of the death penalty. She also worked in the SPD's Women's Conference on behalf of basic rights for gainfully employed women and actively promoted community schools and parent organizations.

   From the time of the 1930 Reichstag elections Pfulf was absorbed in coun-tering the NSDAP. Following reelection on 5 March 1933, she was briefly in-carcerated. In mid-May she begged the SPD faction to boycott a session scheduled to vote for Hitler's Peace Resolution"; coerced by Nazi threats, a majority of the faction sustained his resolution. Despairing, Pfülf committed suicide on 8 June 1933.

   REFERENCES:Benz and Graml, Biographisches Lexikon; Dertinger, Dazwischen liegt nur der Tod.