Helene Stöcker was a German feminist, pacifist and sexual reformer. Stöcker was raised in a Calvinist household and attended a school for girls which emphasized rationality and morality. She moved to Berlin to continue her education and then she studied at the University of Bern, where she became one of the first German women to receive her doctorate. In 1905 she helped found the League for the Protection of Mothers (BfM, Bund für Mutterschutz), and she became the editor of the organization's magazine Mutterschutz (1905-1908) and then Die Neue Generation (1908-1932). Stöcker's influential new philosophy, called the New Ethic, advocated the equality of illegitimate children, legalization of abortion, and sexual education, all in the service of creating deeper relationships between men and women which would eventually achieve women's political and social equality.

During World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 and the Weimar period

Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

, Stöcker's interest shifted to activities in the peace movement

Peace movement

A peace movement is a social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war , minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, often linked to the goal of achieving world peace...

. In 1921 in Bilthoven, together with Kees Boeke and Wilfred Wellock

Wilfred Wellock

Wilfred Wellock was a socialist Gandhian and sometime Labour politician and MP.He was imprisoned as a conscientious objector in the First World War....

, she founded PACO (later known as: War Resisters' International

War Resisters' International

War Resisters' International is an international anti-war organization with members and affiliates in over thirty countries. Its headquarters are in London, UK.-History:...

, (WRI) the "Internationale der Kriegsdienstgegner"). She was also very active in the Weimar sexual reform movement. The Bund für Mutterschutz sponsored a number of sexual health clinics, which employed both lay and medical personnel, where women and men could go for contraception, marriage advice, and sometimes abortions and sterilization. From 1929 to 1932, she took one last stand for abortion rights. After a papal encyclical, the Casti connubii

Casti Connubii

Castī Connūbiī was a papal encyclical promulgated by Pope Pius XI on December 31, 1930 in response to the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican church. It stressed the sanctity of marriage, prohibited Catholics from using any form of artificial birth control, and reaffirmed the prohibition on abortion...

, issued on December 31, 1930 denounced sex without the intent to procreate, the radical sexual reform movement collaborated with the Socialist and Communist parties to launch one final campaign against paragraph 218, which prohibited abortion. Stöcker added her iconic voice to a campaign that ultimately failed.

When the Nazis came to power in Germany, Stöcker fled first to Switzerland and then to England when the Nazis invaded Austria. Stöcker was attending a PEN writers conference in Sweden when war broke out and remained there until the Nazis invaded Norway, at which point she took the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Japan and finally ended up in the United States in 1942. She moved into an apartment on Riverside Drive in NYC and died there of cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

in 1943.

Books

• 1906 - Die Liebe und die Frauen. Ein Manifest der Emanzipation von Frau und Mann im deutschen Kaiserreich.
• 1928 - Verkünder und Verwirklicher. Beiträge zum Gewaltproblem.

Papers

• Frauen-Rundschau, 1903-1922
• Mutterschutz, newspaper of the Bund für Mutterschutz, published from 1905 to 1907.
• Die Neue Generation, 1908-1932.