Minna Specht

Minna Specht (22 December 1879 – 3 February 1961) was a German educator, socialist and member of the German Resistance. She was one of the founders of the Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund.

Minna Specht was born the seventh child of Mathilde and Wilhelm Specht (d. 1882). The family lived in Reinbek castle, originally the hunting lodge in Friedrichsruh, which they acquired in 1874 and turned into a hotel. The approximately 70-room castle was only open in summer, during which the children lived with a nanny and a governess in one of two small houses next door. In 1882, following an accident, her father died, leaving the family in financial difficulties.

Specht's first schooling was in a small private school at the castle from 1884 to 1894 and at a girls' school in Bergedorf. She then attended a monastic school in Hamburg from 1896 to 1899, where she was trained as a teacher, the only career available to impoverished upper-class families. Her education was such, that Specht first applied for work as a governess. In 1902, she was invited to teach in a new girls' school in Hamburg, founded by a teacher from the monastic school she had attended. In this new job, she was given the freedom to decide her own curriculum and she discovered her love of teaching. She remained there until she went to university in 1906 in order to increase her qualifications and become an Oberlehrerin. For three years, she studied geography, history, geology and philosophy at the University of Göttingen and one or two semesters at the University of Munich. In 1909, she returned to teach at the girls' school where she'd previously worked, staying until 1914.

In 1914, at the age of 35, Specht returned to the University of Göttingen to study mathematics, finishing as an Oberlehrerin, certified to teach the higher grades. The following year, she met the philosopher Leonard Nelson, an acquaintance that changed her way of thinking and developed into a close working and personal relationship. Together, they founded the Internationaler Jugendbund, along with Max Hodann and his wife, Mary.

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