Elly Heuss-Knapp

Elisabeth Eleonore Anna Justine "Elly" Heuss-Knapp, (née Knapp; 25 January 1881 – 19 July 1952), was a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), social reformer, author and wife of German president Theodor Heuss. She was the founder of the Müttergenesungswerk charitable organisation officially called Elly Heuss-Knapp Foundation in her honour.

Elly Knapp was born in Straßburg, then capital of the Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine, the daughter of the renowned economist Georg Friedrich Knapp (1842–1926), founder of the chartalist school of monetary theory, who taught at the Straßburg University. Her mother Lydia Qorghanashvili (1849–1925), who was from Georgia, became mentally ill shortly after her birth. Elly, a bright, inquisitive child, and her sister Marianne spent much time with their grandparents and were raised by their father alone, uncommon at the time.

She studied to become a teacher, taking the exam in 1899, and worked as a teacher at a girls' school in Straßburg from 1900, of which she was one of the co-founders. Concerned with civic education, she early became influenced by the liberal politician Friedrich Naumann and in 1905, she went on to study economics in Freiburg and Berlin, while becoming a frequent public speaker on political issues. In 1908, she married then-journalist Theodor Heuss, an assistant to Friedrich Naumann. The wedding in Straßburg was presided over by Albert Schweitzer. Their only son, Ernst Ludwig Heuss, was born in 1910. Due to complications during that birth (which was nearly fatal for Elly), she could not have more children.

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