science

Käthe Leichter

Käthe Leichter is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Käthe Leichter rather than just read about it. In short: Marianne Katharina "Käthe" Leichter (20 August 1895 in Vienna, Austria – February 1942) was an Austrian Jewish economist, women's rights activist, journalist and politician. She was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria and the Viennese Labour Chamber.

Key takeaways

Käthe Leichter belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Käthe Leichter to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Käthe Leichter from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Marianne Katharina "Käthe" Leichter (20 August 1895 in Vienna, Austria – February 1942) was an Austrian Jewish economist, women's rights activist, journalist and politician. She was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria and the Viennese Labour Chamber. She was detained in Ravensbrück concentration camp during the Nazi regime and killed by gas at the Bernburg Euthanasia Centre in 1942.

Early life Leichter was born Marianne Katharina Pick in 1895 in Vienna, the second daughter of a Jewish couple, lawyer Josef Pick (1849, Náchod–1926) and his wife Charlotte "Lotte" Rubinstein (1871, Galați–1939). Her older sister was the Austrian-American composer and music therapist Vally Weigl. Käthe graduated from the Beamten-Töchter-Lyceum in 1914 and subsequently began studying political science at the University of Vienna. Since, at the time, Austrian women were not allowed to graduate, she transferred to the German Heidelberg University in 1917; she graduated in July 1918 before returning to Vienna to complete two further semesters at the university.

Political career Leichter became involved in the Wiener Jugendbewegung (Viennese Youth Movement), a radical left-wing organisation, as a student prior to the outbreak of World War I, and was later a member of the Parteischüler-Bildungsverein Karl Marx (Karl Marx Association for Party Scholars and Education), a Marxist group for Social Democratic Party of Austria (SDAPÖ) members who opposed the war. When the Republic of Austria was founded in 1918, and as one of the first Austrian women political science graduates to have specialised in economics, she joined the Reichswirtschaftskommission der Arbeiterräte (State Economic Committee of the Workers' Councils), Sozialisierungskommission (State Committee for the Socialisation of Industry) and the Zentralverband für Gemeinwirtschaft (Central Organisation for Public Goods and Corporations), as well as working for the Ministry of Finance. Leichter joined the Frauenreferat der Wiener Arbeiterkammer (Women's Department of the Viennese Institutionalised Workers' Chamber) in 1925 and led the department until 1934. She was elected to the Betriebsrat der Wiener Arbeitkammer (Workers' Committee of the Viennese Institutionalised Workers' Chamber) in 1932. She published articles and reports based on statistical data that she gathered about women's work in Austria, and also gave lectures, school courses and radio broadcasts to advocate for women's rights. She argued for equal pay, the hiring of more women in social administration, and employment opportunities for university-educated women.

Personal life

She married Otto Leichter, a fellow socialist and journalist, in 1921. She gave birth to their first son, Heinz, in 1924 and their second, Franz, in 1930.

Political persecution and death When the SDAPÖ was banned in Austria in February 1934, Leichter joined the Revolutionäre Sozialisten (Revolutionary Socialists), an underground socialist organisation that had been formed in response to the party ban. She and her husband Otto migrated to Zürich in exile for six months in 1934, but returned to Vienna when she was elected the Revolutionary Socialists' chair of education. She wrote anti-fascist pamphlets and published articles abroad under the pseudonyms Maria Mahler and Anna Gärtner. After the Nazi Party invaded Austria in the 1938 Anschluss, she attempted to flee Austria with her family; although her family escaped, Leichter was arrested by the Gestapo in Vienna on 30 May 1938 and subsequently imprisoned. She was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1940 and was killed by gas at the Bernburg Euthanasia Centre in early 1942. An urn at Feuerhalle Simmering filled with earth from Ravensbrück concentration camp serves as her cenotaph in Vienna.

Legacy Käthe-Leichter-Gasse, a street in the Hietzing district of Vienna, was named after Leichter in 1949. An annual prize awarded by the Austrian government to a woman historian is also named in Leichter's memory. Austrian-American historian Gerda Lerner wrote that Leichter "personifies the highest ideals of feminism—lifelong activity on behalf of all women, but especially working-class women; conviction that social reforms are only just if they serve the interests of women as well as men; uncompromising struggle against fascism and National Socialism, which cost her life."

Relatives Käthe Leichter's maternal relatives are

Jacques Rubinstein, Yiddish: יעקב רובינשטיין‎ (1841, Yareslov (Jarosław), Royal Galicia-Lodomeria–1912, Vienna, Austria-Hungary) ∞ Henriette Rosenfeld, (Yiddish: הענריעטטע רויזענפעלד‎, Hebrew: הנרייטה רוזנפלד‎) (1848, Pöstyén (German: Pistyan, Pistian, Püschtin, Bad Püschtin, Piešťany), Nyitra Co. Royal Hungary–1934, Vienna, Austria), and had the following children: Charlotte "Lotte" Rubinstein (married Käthe Leichter's father Josef Pick) Caroline Friederike Rubinstein (married name Landau) Helene Rubinstein (married name Kux) Heinrich Rubinstein Artur Rubinstein

Bibliography Frauenarbeit und Arbeiterinnenschutz in Österreich, 1927 Wie leben die Wiener Heimarbeiter? : eine Erhebung über die Arbeits- und Lebensverhältnisse von tausend Wiener Heimarbeitern, 1923 So leben wir ... 1320 Industriearbeiterinnen berichten über ihr Leben ; Eine Erhebung, 1932 Käthe Leichter. Leben und Werk, 1973 Käthe Leichter zum 100. Geburtstag : Texte zur Frauenpolitik, 1995

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Käthe Leichter

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Käthe Leichter claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Käthe Leichter before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Käthe Leichter ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Käthe Leichter

In research: Käthe Leichter appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Käthe Leichter in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Käthe Leichter is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1895 births, 1942 deaths, 20th-century Austrian economists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Käthe Leichter outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Käthe Leichter in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Käthe Leichter means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Käthe Leichter out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Käthe Leichter in simple terms?

Why does Käthe Leichter matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Käthe Leichter?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Käthe Leichter.