Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt was born in Frankfurt in 1901, "just in time to experience two world wars, two inflationary periods and the threat of a third, a nuclear war," she writes in her biography. She grew up in a liberal home in which both parents were intensively involved with the women's movement, which flourished from 1900 until the First World War, and practiced a lifestyle of equality. Both parents were teachers. While her father rose to become a high school councillor and member of the Prussian state parliament, her mother was dismissed from the teaching profession after her marriage in 1900 due to the "celibacy of female teachers". In the German Empire, women only had the right to devote themselves either to their family or their profession. Until 1908, women were also not allowed to be politically active in associations and parties.

During the First World War, Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt's mother lost all her domestic staff. "She sacrificed herself to maintain a household for her family at pre-war middle-class standards at a time when there were no washing machines, no dishwashers and no central heating," writes her daughter, who witnessed how much her cosmopolitan and intelligent mother with lively artistic interests suffered from being reduced to the role of housewife. "I myself did not want to take on this role that my mother exemplified. The question of how the role of women could be adapted to new forms of society in such a way that they could have children and still have the same opportunities for development as men became a theme in my life."

From 1913, Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt attended the Schiller School in Sachsenhausen, one of the leading girls' schools in Germany at the time, which had been offering a grammar school course leading to the Abitur since 1908. She also had many Jewish friends there. From 1921, she studied law in Frankfurt and Berlin. She passed her second state examination in 1930 after interruptions due to long stays in a sanatorium in the Black Forest and Switzerland because of a lung disease.

She then took up a position at a legal aid office for women in Frankfurt. Looking back, she remarks: "I felt that before taking on a job as a judge in a social work setting, I should learn more about the lives and problems of people from different living conditions to those in which I had grown up. What I learned during the two years in which I had to give legal advice on family matters to 20 to 30 women from all walks of life, mostly wives of workers and the unemployed, in my office hours, came in handy again and again [...]." In 1932, she took up a position as a judge in Dortmund.

In 1928, Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt read Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and Rosenberg's "The Myth of the 20th Century" and was horrified. In 1983, she wrote: "I imagined with horror what would become of Germany if a man of Hitler's level and narrow-mindedness, his demagoguery and his undifferentiated radicalism were to determine German politics. It seemed just as bad to me if political thinking was determined by the semi-academic superficiality that I found in Rosenberg's book."

Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt had repeatedly been confronted with the social paternalism and legal discrimination of women in her work and life. In 1932, she became politically active herself in order to counter the spreading National Socialist ideology. "Political goals, such as the extermination of the Jews and the conquest of Ukraine, and also what Hitler said about women not becoming citizens but only nationals, upset me and helped me to overcome my fear of public speaking."

She feared massive regression in terms of the rights women had achieved since the turn of the century and that women would be restricted to their role as mothers and companions to their husbands. She wanted to raise awareness of the serious consequences for women of the implementation of the Nazi program. In 1932, she gave numerous lectures and published the campaign brochure "What can German women expect from National Socialism?", in which, after a detailed analysis of the four areas relevant to women, she came to the conclusion "that the National Socialist movement endangersthe interests of women in all areas, in their political and professional position, in the education of girls and in their position as wives and mothers". Naturally, she was vilified in the Nazi press. When she once appeared at a Nazi meeting to which she had been invited, she was shouted down.

After coming to power, the Nazis put Hitler's statement that a woman should not be a statesman, judge or soldier into practice. Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt was banned from working as a judge on May 15, 1933.

In addition, her private happiness was also destroyed by the Nazis. In 1926, she had met a Jewish doctor from Gelsenkirchen during her stays at a health resort and soon became engaged to him. In 1933, the Nazis revoked the doctor's license to practice medicine because he was Jewish, without which he lost his livelihood and had to give up his medical practice. In the same year, he fled to Switzerland because he feared the situation would worsen. Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt was not prepared to follow him without any professional prospects of her own. As all her efforts to find a job as a lawyer in Switzerland failed, they separated in 1936.

Having returned to her parental home, the unemployed Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt decided to do a doctorate in order to improve her chances of finding a job in the economy. After about a year of low-paid and unsatisfactory work at the "Reichsbund der deutschen Kapital- und Kleinrentner" (Reich Association of German Capital and Small Pensioners), which she pursued in parallel to her dissertation, the devout Protestant finally found a job as a lawyer in the church chancellery of the Evangelical Church in Germany in Berlin in 1935. In 1939, she became the first woman ever to be appointed a church councillor there and in 1944 she was appointed a senior church councillor.

In 1945, Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt returned to Frankfurt to organize the Protestant women's work there. At the same time, she was involved in the rebuilding of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). At the end of the Second World War, the German Protestant Church (DEK) was in dissolution due to the collaboration of the German Christians with the Nazi regime, which only the Confessing Church had opposed. In 1948, Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt moved to the Church Foreign Office of the EKD at the request of Martin Niemöller.

In 1946, she was involved in the founding of a non-partisan and non-denominational Frankfurt women's committee. In 1953, she joined the CDU and ran for the Bundestag for the first time. The CDU again offered her a secure place on the list, which she had turned down in 1949. She herself explained in 1983: "Hermann Ehlers - then President of the Bundestag - [...] talked me into it [...]. He said that women, and especially female lawyers, were needed for the legal reforms that were imminent. It was also important for the CDU that we did not completely leave the field to our Catholic party friends. After a long conversation with him, I put aside my reservations about the "Christian party"." In 1957, she succeeded in winning her Wiesbaden constituency directly. In 1957, she became the first woman to become deputy chairwoman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag. She remained a member of the Bundestag until 1969.

The inclusion of the equal rights article in the German Basic Law (Article 3, Paragraph 2) made it necessary to amend the anti-women's marriage and family law provisions of the Civil Code (BGB) of 1900, which had been in force until then. A transitional period until March 31, 1953 was granted in the Basic Law (Article 117, Paragraph 1) for the revision of the BGB. On December 18, 1953, almost nine months after the deadline had passed without the BGB having been reformed, the Federal Constitutional Court, with the decisive participation of Erna Scheffler, announced the immediate validity of the equal rights article. This prompted the Adenauer government to finally implement the revision of the BGB.

In 1954, Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt gave her first speech in the Bundestag, which attracted attention. The Federal Cabinet had presented a bill that advocated both the retention of the father's "right of final decision" (§ 1628) in child rearing and the so-called "obedience paragraph" (§ 1354), which obliged the wife to submit to the husband's decisions in all matters relating to married life. Schwarzhaupt argued for the abolition of both provisions. She allied herself with DP MP Margot Kalinke.

Together with the FDP and SPD, both women voted against their own parliamentary groups in the Legal Affairs Committee to delete the "obedience clause" from the bill, thus ensuring that the "Act on the Equality of Men and Women in the Field of Civil Law" was passed on June 18, 1957 without this discriminatory clause. The father's "right of final decision", which was still included in the "Equal Rights Act", was overturned by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1959, again with the involvement of Erna Scheffler, as a violation of the equal rights article in the Basic Law.

From 1966 to 1969, Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt fought for equal rights for illegitimate and legitimate children as chairwoman of the sub-committee on the "reform of illegitimate marriage law". Her ideas shaped the "Act on the legal status of illegitimate children" passed on August 19, 1969, which significantly improved the legal situation of illegitimate children.

In 1957, the Union women's demand for a female minister was rejected by Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. Helene Weber, who had personally approached Adenauer to remind him of the promise he had made in the run-up to the election, received a written reply from him, without explanation, stating that, to his regret, it was not possible "to provide a woman for a ministerial office when forming the Federal Government".

This shameful defeat was not to be repeated in 1961. The women of the Union faction went on the offensive under the energetic leadership of 80-year-old Helene Weber, who had learned "that Adenauer had once again drawn up a cabinet list without a female member, although he had promised her that he would appoint a woman minister", writes Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt in her memoirs. In response to telegrams from Helene Weber, some of the 18 women who belonged to the Union faction of 251 MPs at the time came to Bonn on November 10, but Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt did not. She had not been called to Bonn - perhaps because the CDU women felt it was inappropriate for her to fight for her own ministerial post.

After the Union women who had traveled to Bonn had deliberated from 2 pm, they issued the following press release at 4 pm: "The female members of the CDU/CSU are unanimous in their conviction that the fourth Adenauer cabinet must include a woman in a ministerial office. They expect the Chancellor to keep the promise he made to German women voters. In repeated discussions, the women of the CDU/CSU have proposed Dr. Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt, member of the Bundestag, for a ministerial office."

Heike Drummer and Jutta Zwilling describe the exact course of the afternoon: "On November 10, 1961, the troops gathered for a strategy meeting in the women's rest room of the Bundestag. After discussing their tactics, they moved to the Cabinet Room in the Federal Chancellery, where the difficult coalition negotiations between the CDU/CSU and FDP were taking place. According to Elisabeth Pitz-Savelsberg's report [...], Helene Weber first ordered chairs, drinks and a platter of snacks in order to be adequately prepared for this 'sit-in': they were prepared for long waiting times. At certain intervals, Weber had an usher deliver notes to Adenauer. It was only after the third messenger round that the Chancellor is said to have appeared in person at the door, but only to sneer after an excited speech by the outwardly somewhat deranged woman: 'Mrs. Weber, what a smart little hat you have on!

He answered the actual question as to how the minister was doing with her with a curt: 'No comment'. After the meeting, however, the ground-breaking result was known: The Cabinet would be expanded to include the healthcare portfolio, and the new head would be Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt." A new ministry for healthcare had been proposed by the CDU/CSU women gathered in the Federal Chancellery for the sit-in, as the list of ministerial posts had already been agreed with their coalition partner, the FDP. They argued that health and environmental issues were becoming increasingly important to the population.

The lawyer Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt would have much preferred to take on the Ministry of Justice or the Ministry of Family and Youth, as she was highly qualified for both portfolios, but these posts were intended for others. In a personal conversation with Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt, Konrad Adenauer used the excuse that the Minister of Justice had to advocate stricter criminal law, which "could not be expected from a woman". It seemed completely absurd to him to assign the "Catholic" Ministry of Family and Youth to a liberal Protestant woman who, being single and childless, had no practical experience.

Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt finally agreed to become Minister of Health. From her point of view, she had no other choice. "If I turned it down, there would have been another woman in the cabinet and I would have been responsible for it. I couldn't do that to women, to turn down this opportunity to take a small step forward in their participation in leading political tasks. So I took over a ministry that didn't even exist yet, in the knowledge that I was a token woman who had been hard-won by my female colleagues." Schwarzhaupt was still sworn in as a "minister". Later, however, she managed to be addressed as "Minister".

Adenauer only benefited from Schwarzhaupt's inclusion in the government. He had known her for eight years and knew that she did not question his authoritarian political style, she spoke competently, objectively and never polemically in the Bundestag, and with her as a woman and a Protestant, he hoped to tap into new voter potential. Behind her back, however, he disparagingly referred to her as a "church lady".

The challenges Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt faced were enormous: there was neither a job description nor staff or premises for the new ministry. She had to fight with the other ministries over responsibilities that they had to hand over to the Ministry of Health. She was met with mistrust from all political groups because, as a woman and non-medical professional, she was allegedly not sufficiently qualified. She had to push through personnel decisions, in some cases against months of resistance from Adenauer. In addition, she was confronted with the thalidomide scandal just a few days after taking office.

Since taking up her post in the cabinet, according to Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt, "the press was mainly concerned with the fact that a woman had become minister. What I accomplished and set in motion was of much less interest." Many women and women's associations had very high expectations of her as a woman in government. They hoped that the minister would represent their demands and support their efforts in all areas where women were disadvantaged. "Individual letters and petitions turned me into a wailing wall for women," Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt describes this situation. This involved housing shortages, pension problems, discrimination in the workplace, family difficulties and much more. In order to at least begin to do justice to this role as a contact person for women, Schwarzhaupt employed a personal advisor specifically for women's issues in the Ministry of Health (!).

Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt remained Minister of Health under Federal Chancellor Ludwig Erhard until 1966. She introduced a number of important innovations, e.g. the best-before date and the labeling of foreign substances in food and introduced the first environmental protection regulations to keep air and water clean. (She herself had a catalytic converter installed in her company car immediately after the law was passed).

One of her responses to the thalidomide scandal was a reform of the German Medicines Act, which provided for drugs to be tested for damage to embryos before being placed on the market.

In 1969, Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt decided not to run for the Bundestag at her own request. In 1984, she wrote about this phase of her life: "Since then, I have enjoyed the freedom of a retiree who no longer has to fulfill certain tasks in her profession and politics, but is still allowed to do some things she likes to do." As the successor to Erna Scheffler, the first female judge at the Federal Constitutional Court, she was the first chairwoman of the German Association of Women Academics from 1970 to 1974 and chairwoman of the German Women's Council from 1970 to 1972.

She continued to deal with general political issues as well as many things that particularly affected women. At the end of her life, she summed it up as follows: "Unfortunately, I have not yet noticed that society is changing in favor of women in such a way that it gives less cause for criticism."

As the first female minister in the federal cabinet, Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt was a pioneer whose work radiated into the public sphere. Looking back on her political career in 1983, she herself wrote: "I also believe that by joining the cabinet, albeit as a token woman, I opened a door for women that could no longer be slammed shut." In fact, there has not been a federal government without female ministers since. However, it took another 60 years (!), namely until 2021, for the first federal cabinet with equal representation (8 women and 8 men plus Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz) to be formed.

Just how difficult her position as the only female minister in a male cabinet was is shown by her following statement as an over 80-year-old: "A token woman in a cabinet of around twenty men has it good in that her colleagues treat her nicely and politely. She has a hard time as soon as it comes to fighting over responsibilities and even harder when it comes to money that has to be wrested from the finance minister. Her political work, which she pursued with extraordinary commitment and dedication, must have been particularly difficult for her because she felt alienated among men. "Throughout my life, I also felt like I was speaking a foreign language when I was the only woman on a male committee. I am not able to define this more precisely. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the naturalness of a struggle for power is not as ingrained in me as it is in the men I have met in politics. I can only say that I felt more at home in a comparable body of women, such as the board of the German Association of Women Academics, the board of the German Women's Council or the CDU Women's Association."

Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt was also confronted with the following problem: "A disadvantage for the female minority results [...] from the fact that women rarely take part in the men's rounds in the evenings at skat and at the beer table, in which personnel problems are solved and jobs are allocated on the side. Absentees are easily forgotten."

Heike Drummer and Jutta Zwilling take stock of Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt's advocacy of women's rights: "As a 'higher' daughter who had experienced her socialization in the educated middle-class milieu, she [...] never fundamentally questioned patriarchal structures. Although the Protestant may have occasionally provoked her own party, the more Catholic CDU, with her progressive thinking for the circumstances of the 1950s and 1960s, there was rarely any controversy with her parliamentary colleagues. [...]

However, her generally rather traditional understanding of equal rights later led to conflicts with the more self-confident New Women's Movement, which had radically declared war on the very structures she accepted. Nevertheless, no one will be able to deny the role model character of her commitment as a 'door opener' for the daughter and granddaughter generation."

In Bonn in 1965, Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt was the first woman to be awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. The German Federal Post Office immortalized her on a stamp in 1997. A street was named in her honor in the Bonn-Röttgen district in 2013: Elisabeth-Schwarzhaupt-Straße.

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