Gertrude Guillaume-Schack

Gertrude Guillaume-Schack
Gertrude Guillaume-Schack in 1867
Born	Gertrud Gräfin Schack von Wittenau (1845-11-09)9 November 1845 Uschütz, Silesia
Died	20 May 1903(1903-05-20) (aged 57) Surbiton, United Kingdom
Nationality	German, Swiss
Occupation	Activist

Gertrude Guillaume-Schack (9 November 1845 – 20 May 1903) was a women's rights activist who pioneered the fight against state-regulated prostitution in Germany, where she was born. She met considerable resistance due to the prevailing belief that such matters should not be discussed by respectable people, especially women. She also became active in organizing workers associations for German women, and was linked to the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Her activities and political views caused her to be exiled by the German authorities. She moved to England in 1886, where she became involved in Socialist organizations, but fell out with Friedrich Engels. After leaving the English Socialist League she became involved in theosophy. Refusal to accept medical treatment may have contributed to her early death of untreated breast cancer.

Gertrud Schack was born in the village of Uschütz, Silesia, Germany, near what is now Gorzów Śląski, on 9 November 1845. Her parents were Count Alexander Schack von Wittenau and Elizabeth, Countess of Königsdorf. Her father's family belonged to the old nobility of Lower Silesia. Her father, Count Schack, was an open-minded and wise man who exercised great influence on his gifted daughter. In 1862, when Gertrud was seventeen years old, her parents left their estate and bought a villa in Beuthen an der Oder. Her father sent Gertrud to live with a sister, asking her to visit him often.

In the autumn of 1873 she moved to Neufchatel, Switzerland. In 1876 she married a Swiss painter, and lived for a while with him in his parents' house. Her husband was Edouard Guillaume of Les Verrières, Neuchatel. Her brother-in-law was James Guillaume, an anarchist closely associated with Mikhail Bakunin. The newlyweds moved to Paris, but it turned out that her husband was not willing to commit to marriage and abandon his bachelor habits, and Gertrude was constrained to demand a divorce. In the summer of 1878 she returned home from Paris.

While in Paris Guillaume-Schack became active in the abolitionist movement started by Josephine Butler of England to fight state-regulated prostitution. She began the campaign in Germany with the same goals. In her view, compulsory medical examinations and other regulations imposed on prostitutes penalized the women, but ignored their male clients. In January 1879 she went to Berlin to work for the cause, and in May 1879 gave her first lectures to very small audiences. She spoke publicly against state-regulated prostitution in the city hall of Berlin on 14 May 1880, but very few people turned up to hear her. On 7 March 1880 she founded the Deutscher Kulturbund (German Cultural Association) in Berlin. The Deutscher Kulturbund was, in effect, the first chapter of what would become the International Abolitionist Federation (IAF) in Germany. Technically, it was independent of the IAF, due to restrictions imposed by the laws of Prussia, and was based in Beuthen an der Oder, however, it followed the principles that Butler had defined.