Sternstunde ihres Lebens (2014)

Lawyer Elisabeth Selbert travels from her home in Kassel to Bonn. As one of four women, she is a member of the Parliamentary Council, which begins drafting the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany in September 1948. At the opening event at the Museum Koenig, the SPD politician immediately meets her future secretary, Irma Lankwitz, and also meets her fellow party member Frieda Nadig, as well as Helene Weber (CDU) and Helene Wessel (Centre Party). Two days later, she realizes that the Herrenchiemsee minutes say nothing about equal rights, which her SPD colleague Carlo Schmid dismisses with a curt remark that there were no women there. She wants clear wording for the Basic Law: “Men and women have equal rights.” Unlike the wording intended by most of the other Council members—“equal civil rights and duties” (as in the Weimar Constitution)—this sentence would not apply only to criminal law (sic! It should actually say constitutional law, see below). Nadig points out the consequences for the Civil Code, but Selbert is firmly resolved. Lankwitz, who lost her partner Georg in the war, talks with her cousin Lore Mertens, with whom she works in Bonn. She confides that she is interested in the member of parliament Heinrich Bode. At a meeting of the committee on 25 October, Selbert presents her proposal on equal rights for Article 3, Paragraph 2, but representatives of the conservative parties, the CDU and the Centre Party, including Weber and Wessel, respond negatively. The SPD politician then quietly reflects on Bebel’s 1903 views about the “liberation of humanity.” Four days later, she uses Lankwitz—who was denied an education as a woman during the Nazi era—as an example to persuade her fellow party members at the SPD office. On Friday evening, the secretary agrees to a date dancing with Bode and tells him about Georg. Selbert continues to face strong resistance to her plan in the days that follow. She decides to appoint Lankwitz as her personal secretary, but expects her to give her full commitment. On 22 November, she tells Lankwitz about her career, which her progressive-minded husband encouraged her to pursue. As a woman, she managed to obtain her license to work as a lawyer before the Nazis banned it. But she is skeptical about Lankwitz’s affair with Bode. While her opponents agree that they want to stop Selbert, she tries, in vain, to persuade her critics in a conversation with Weber and Wessel a few days before the Main Committee meeting. Then, after receiving a message from her son Gerhart, she has to go home temporarily because her husband Adam has suffered a sugar shock, but he insists that she return to Bonn quickly. There, Lankwitz sees Bode with another woman, and shortly afterward Selbert dismisses her for careless work. At the first reading in the Main Committee on 3 December, Selbert threatens to enlist all the women in Germany in support of her proposal, but her motion for Article 3 is rejected by 9 votes to 11. She then suffers a nervous breakdown in the toilets in front of Lankwitz. While Selbert is being cared for in bed, Bode visits Lankwitz and explains that his relationship is not a proper marriage. His wife Tamara, a baptized Jew, had escaped the Gestapo’s notice, but was nevertheless arrested while he was at the front and is now in a psychiatric hospital. Lankwitz throws him out and ends the affair. That night, Lore Mertens’s missing husband Kurt comes home, so Irma has to leave the apartment she shares with Lore. When Selbert returns to Bonn, she is confronted at the SPD office with the news that the conservative representatives on the Council are now opposing equal rights even more forcefully and also want to remove the alternative wording from the bill. But she remains persistent and receives support from Lankwitz, who, after her recent experiences, now wants to work actively for equal rights. Selbert plans to give speeches to women’s groups in several major German cities. Her secretary points out the women’s radio program, which excites Selbert, and on 15 December the SPD politician appears on air. Selbert and Lankwitz travel around the country to reach as many women as possible. Their conservative opponents are furious, seeing public participation as an attack on the Council’s authority. Shortly before Christmas, Selbert also receives angry letters from men, and Weber is critical too, arguing that society is not yet ready for so much equality. Adam visits his wife at Christmas and praises her for her commitment. On 3 January, Lankwitz surprises her boss by showing her that sacks of letters from women supporting the plan for equal rights are arriving in the mail. The male critics around Albert Finck react with as much disbelief as the two conservative women on the Council. At the second reading in the Main Committee on 18 January, Selbert’s proposal for Article 3, Paragraph 2, is finally adopted with 35 votes in favor and one abstention. The next day, she speaks on the women’s radio program, where Lankwitz now works, about her success. On 23 January, Konrad Adenauer, as president of the Parliamentary Council, announces that the Basic Law has been completed. Despite her success, the SPD does not nominate Selbert for the Bundestag. Instead, she continues working in Kassel as a family-law attorney. In the years that follow, the Civil Code is also amended to provide for equal rights. The process of putting this into practice proves arduous.