Department of German Literature

This research explores paradigmatic patterns in the life stories of four women in three generations of the bourgeois Jewish Mosse family. Selected from extensive archival materials, the project is focused on the seams and breaking points of these lives, momenti of biographical importance. They give evidence of personal experiences and events in the context of family, profession and institutions, exhibiting the attitudes, thinking, and the various activities of these Jewish women: their striving for social recognition, cultural valorization, and professional success, notable features of Jewish acculturation within the majority society of imperial Germany and the Weimar Republic, as well as in the Third Reich, American exile and in the post war period. The intention is to explore and incorporate “die Umgebung einer Handlungsweise” (the set conditions of acting and behaving, Wittgenstein) in its ideal, habitual, and rhetorical dimensions.

Emilie Mosse (1851-1924) was the daughter of the merchant Benjamin Löwenstein from Trier in Rheinland-Pfalz. In 1874, she married Rudolf Mosse, the founder and owner of the rising publishing house in Berlin. Participating in his philanthropy, she managed the charity organisation of the “Berliner Mädchenhort” ( a girls daycare center).  Beginning in 1885, she acted as patron of the newly established Mosse Foundation, devoted to the education of boys and girls from all religious denominations. In 1909, she became the first Jewish woman to be honored with the royal medal, the Wilhelm Orden, in recognition of her philanthropic commitment.  Under her guidance, the Mosse-Mansion at Leipziger Platz in Berlin and the Manor House in nearby Schenkendorf became well known sites of cultivated conviviality.  In addition, she was an esteemed reader and mediator between writers, women’s rights activists, and the editorial staff of the Berliner Tageblatt, flagship of the Mosse press group.

Hilde Lachmann-Mosse (1912-1982) was the granddaughter of Emilie and Rudolf Mosse, born as the first child of their adoptive daughter Felicia and Hans Lachmann, who took the name Mosse.  As a Jew, she was forced to give up her medical studies in Bonn when the Nazis came to power.  She moved to Switzerland, where she received her doctor’s degree in Basel, and from there went into exile in New York. In the black community of Harlem, she worked as a socially engaged pediatrician and psychiatrist. She was the co-founder of the Lafargue Clinic, where, for the first time, psychological treatment was offered to black youngsters.  Her anti-racist activities and numerous publications gained her public visibility and reputation as a scholar and activist of civil rights. She returned temporarily to Germany in 1964/65 as a Fulbright scholar.

Martha Mosse (1884-1977) was the daughter of Lina Mosse, born Meyer, and Albert Mosse, a Prussian higher regional court councilor. In 1920, she earned her doctoral degree from the Law Faculty of Heidelberg University and became the first woman to occupy the position of a Prussian police officer. She was dismissed from service according to the Nazis’ Professional Civil Service Act in 1933 and thereafter worked for Jewish organizations. Being responsible for housing and settlement she was forced to cooperate with the Gestapo.  Having survived the concentration camp of Theresienstadt, she faced court of honor proceedings of the Jewish Community after having been slandered. She is the only member of the Mosse family to have remained in Nazi-Germany with her lifelong partner Erna Stock.

Dora Panofsky-Mosse (1885-1965), Martha’s sister, studied archeology and art history at Berlin’s Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, where she met her future husband, the art historian Erwin Panofsky. After moving to Hamburg, she was a respected affiliate of the Warburg-Library and the University. She went into exile together with Panofsky, who had been a visiting professor at New York University even before 1933, and in 1935 became a member of the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton. Without any official status in Princeton, known for its misogynist and antisemitic tendencies at that time, she was a loyal companion and collaborator of her distinguished husband. Only at the age of 58 did she publish work of her own, which earned recognition, together with art-historical contributions   co-authored in the 1950s with her husband as a result of joint research.

Recent gender studies and literary criticism, significant for this project, suggest that biographical writing should dissolve the “biographical illusion” (Bourdieu) of a coherent life story, a fabric of personal identity. Instead the vita activa of these four protagonists in everyday and professional life is being explored, following, case by case, the traces of personal and extraneous testimonies, their own reports and publications, including the meaningful reservoir of domestic life, correspondences, institutional documents and press releases; private and public photo material has also proved to be highly informative and suggestive.

In setting up research patterns and tentative interpretations regarding the correlation of personal experience and social interaction, Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “habitus”, as a modus operandi, has been especially helpful. It is attractive for biographical writing in that it observes the dynamics of individual productivity while navigating the “social field”. In the familial “habitus” the origin and tradition of a person are activated: mostly unconscious, traditional customs, habits and (religious) rituals become effective. This approach opens the possibility to gain insight into the Mosse women’s life trajectory and to understand the “hidden tradition” of the Jewish Pariah (Hannah Arendt), which might have energized their motivation and striving for recognition in the fields of philanthropy, education, “Bildung” and professional qualifications in challenging times.

This research project is funded by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, supported by the Mosse-Foundation and the German Department of Humboldt-University. It has benefited for years from the program of the Berlin Mosse-Lectures, established in 1997 by George L. Mosse and Klaus R. Scherpe

Responsible                                                           
Dr. Elisabeth Wagner
In cooperation with
Prof. Dr. Ulrike Vedder                                                           
Institut für deutsche Literatur                             
Humboldt-Universität                                
Unter den Linden 6
D-10099 Berlin
fon. 0049 30 2093 9712
fax. 0049 30 2093 9653
e-mail  elisabeth.wagner@hu-berlin.de