German Protestant Women's Federation

The Deutscher Evangelischer Frauenbund (DEF) is a German Protestant women's association founded on 7 June 1899 in Kassel as the Deutsch-Evangelischer-Frauenbund (D.E.F.B.); it was renamed in 1969 and has had its federal headquarters in Hanover since its registration in the Vereinsregister on 18 September 1901. It promotes education, social work and equal rights for women in church and society, and today focuses on demographic change, everyday skills, media work and ecumenical cooperation, particularly with the Katholischer Deutscher Frauenbund (KDFB). In 2024 it celebrated its 125th anniversary.

The Deutsch-Evangelischer Frauenbund (D.E.F.B.) was founded on 7 June 1899 in Kassel; the name was changed to Deutscher Evangelischer Frauenbund in 1969. Within the confessional women's movement it was the only grouping with an independent organizational structure, and it was the first to be entered in the Vereinsregister on 18 September 1901; since then its federal headquarters has been in Hanover. It is regarded as the only Protestant women's organization that consciously sees itself as part of the bourgeois women's movement, continues to exert socio-political influence, and has contributed to modernizing the image of women in the Protestant church. Its members, drawn from the educated bourgeoisie and nobility, campaigned then as now for equal access to education and profession for women and girls. In 1919 there was a second major wave of founding. During the Third Reich, the D.E.F.B. joined church women's work in order to avoid incorporation into the NS-Frauenschaft or dissolution; local groups were forbidden to use the name D.E.F.B., and in the course of deconfessionalization one practical field of work after another had to be abandoned. In 2024 the Deutscher Evangelische Frauenbund celebrated its 125th anniversary.

The only Protestant women's organization that consciously sees itself as part of the bourgeois women's movement and continues to exert socio-political influence.

1. 1Startseite DEF - Deutscher Evangelischer Frauenbund e.V.def-bundesverband.de
2. 2Geschichte - Deutscher Evangelischer Frauenbund e.V.def-bundesverband.de
3. 3Biografie eines Kochbuchs – Das Bayerische Kochbuch erzählt Kulturgeschichte - Deutscher Evangelischer Frauenbund e.V.def-bundesverband.de
4. 4Deutscher Evangelischer Frauenbundwikidata.org