Democratic Women's League of Germany
Mass women's organisation in East Germany / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Democratic Women's League of Germany[1][2][3] (German: Demokratischer Frauenbund Deutschlands, or DFD) was the mass women's organisation in East Germany. It was one of the constituent members of the National Front and sent representatives to the Volkskammer. In 1988, membership was 1.5 million.[4][1]
Demokratischer Frauenbund Deutschlands | |
Formation | March 1947; 77 years ago (1947-03) |
---|---|
Dissolved | 1990 |
Type | Mass organization |
Purpose | Women's rights |
Membership (1988) | 1.5 million |
Parent organization | National Front |
The DFD did not have much independence from the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED). Käte Selbmann, a member of the DFD's executive board, complained that it was "a pre-school for women, neither as central as the FDGB nor even more important than any other mass organization to women's work, and absolutely subordinate to the SED",[5] while historian Valerie Dubslaff writes that "the role of the department was therefore neither to represent the interests of women nor to promote them within the party, but to execute the political will of its leaders".[6]