Sender, Toni

(1888-1964)

   politician; the highest-ranking woman in the USPD. Born Sidonie Zippora to a businessman who managed the Jewish com-munity in Biebrich am Rhein, a suburb of Wiesbaden, she took the name Toni. After studying at Frankfurt s Handelshochschule, she found a secretarial position in the same city and entered the union for office employees in 1905; the next year she joined the SPD. She worked in Paris during 1910-1914 as a foreign-language secretary, but was forced by World War I to return to Germany, where she found employment as an office manager for a Frankfurt metallurgy firm. She became an associate of Robert Dissmann, a leader in the metalworkers union, and was soon engaged in antiwar activities. She took part in Bern s International Socialist Women's Conference in March 1915 and was a founding member in 1917 of the USPD.

   Sender was an uncommon blend of radicalism and pragmatism. She became general secretary on the managing board of Frankfurt s Workers Council* and was among the city s leading activists in the November Revolution.* But in December 1918 she resigned her position (and her employment at the metallurgy firm) to become editor of the USPD newspaper,* Volksrecht. She also edited Betriebsrate-Zeitung, the organ of the metalworkers' union. Active until 1924 in Frankfurt s city government, she entered the Reichstag* in June 1920 and held her mandate until 1933, from 1922 as a member of the SPD. While she was angered by the "irrational" decision of a majority of the USPD to join the KPD in October 1920, she also deemed the 1922 merger of the two socialist parties premature. She gained prominence in the SPD s left wing, regularly opposing the "opportunistic coalitions of the Party s leadership. In August 1923 she submitted the no-confidence resolution that induced Wilhelm Cuno's* resignation as Chancellor. She sat on the committees for foreign policy, eco-nomics, and social policy; indeed, she gained considerable attention in plenum sessions with her statements against both Left and Right radicalism.

   In March 1933 Sender fled Germany, going first to Czechoslovakia and then to Belgium. She emigrated to the United States in 1935 and worked for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. After the war she was em-ployed by the American Federation of Labor and the United Nations.

   REFERENCES:Benz and Graml, Biographisches Lexikon; Morgan, Socialist Left; Sender, Autobiography.