Lore Maria Peschel-Gutzeit

Lore Maria Peschel-Gutzeit worked as a judge, lawyer and Senator of Justice in Hamburg and Berlin. She fought for the introduction of part-time work and family leave for female civil servants, which was introduced in 1968 and has been called “Lex Peschel” ever since.

Quote: “As far as the legal, political and social position of women in Germany goes, there have been many well needed improvements. However, the result is still not good (enough). Much remains to be done for future generations of women and men.“

Law Studies and an impressive career

Peschel-Gutzeit¹⁾ began studying law in Hamburg in 1951. At that time, studying law was still significantly more common for men than women and she was one of four or five women who studied law among hundreds of men at Hamburgs Faculty of Law. Despite being an outstanding student in school before starting her studies, she initially found it difficult to keep up with her study program. For her third and fourth semesters, she went to study in Freiburg, where she completed an internship in a commercial law firm run by three women, Dr. Maria Plum, Dr. Karola Fettweis and Dr. Tula Huber-Simons. Afterwards she returned to Hamburg, where she took lessons with a private tutor and felt like she finally understood law and gained much confidence. She graduated with honors when she was 22 years old.

Peschel-Gutzeit then began her legal clerkship, where she met her first husband. Tragically, he died when he was only 26 years old. During her mourning period, she received a call from the law firm where she previously completed an internship at in Freiburg, telling her that she could work as a lawyer there after completing her second state examination. She accepted the offer and went to Freiburg to work as a lawyer. Shortly afterwards, she was offered a position as a judge in Hamburg. She felt torn, as she had also been offered a position as a junior partner at the law firm where she worked. In the end, amongst other things, she was convinced by the argument that there had only been two women judges in Hamburg up to that point, and she therefore became a judge in Hamburg in June 1960.

She later met her second husband, Horst Peschel, who also worked as a judge. They had three children together. In order to provide inexpensive childcare for her children while she and her husband were working full-time, Peschel-Gutzeit trained for three years as a so called “master housewife” alongside her job. As a trained “master housewife”, she was allowed to train nannies who earned less than fully trained professionals and who supported her with childcare.

“Lex Peschel”

When Peschel-Gutzeit²⁾ worked as a judge in the 1960s, it was not possible for civil servants like judges to work part-time. Even though the public sector is known today for its compatibility with family life, things looked very different back then.

This led to one of Peschel-Gutzeit’s highly respected female colleagues quitting her job as a judge after the birth of her third child, who needed to be cared for because of a disability. It was not possible for her colleague to work part-time or take a leave of absence without pay, and she was unable to return to her profession later in life as she had already exceeded the maximum age limit for entering the civil service.

Peschel-Gutzeit was compelled to take action to alter the situation. She had been a member of the The German Women Lawyers Association (djb) since 1956, where she founded the “Civil Service Law Commission” to analyze the situation in more detail with her colleagues. They formulated a draft law in order to allow part time work and take a leave of absence in civil service. The Commission faced considerable opposition, with a large number of men speaking out against the draft law. Dr. Erna Scheffler, the only female judge at the Federal Constitutional Court at the time, also considered Peschel-Gutzeit’s plan to be a mistake. She was concerned that special rights for women would mean that women would no longer be hired. However, Peschel-Gutzeit also received support from women in politics, who endorsed the initiative and led to the introduction of the law in 1969, which has since been known as the “Lex Peschel” legislation.

An act of balance

Since Peschel-Gutzeit³⁾ had initiated and enforced the law, she did not want to work part-time herself, to make it clear that she was campaigning for the benefit of society and not for her own personal gain. She continued to pursue her career full-time and was promoted to judge at the Higher Regional Court in 1972.

A complicated divorce from her husband followed, leaving her as a single mother of three children. In order to financially support her family, while her ex-husband refused to pay child support in the beginning, she took on a part-time job as a state examiner. Out of approximately one hundred examiners, she was the only woman. Although she suffered from the heavy double burden of a career and family, in 1984 she was promoted to President of the Senate, i.e. presiding judge at the Higher Regional Court.

In the 1980s, she also became the first female author for “Staudinger”, the largest and most important commentary on the German Civil Code. Having to prove herself as the first female author weighed heavily on her and led to her not taking a vacation for five years and working from morning to night, even on weekends. She was able to submit the first part of her work for “Staudinger” as a doctoral thesis entitled “The right to deal with one’s own child” and was awarded a doctorate in law in 1990.

Foto: Joachim Loch, http://www.loch-fotografie.de/

The amendment of Art. 3 (2) of the German Basic Law

In 1991⁴⁾, Peschel-Gutzeit was appointed Senator for Justice in Hamburg. In 1992, a constitutional commission was formed in order to unite the Basic Law of Germany following the country’s reunification. The commission consisted of 16 members of the Bundestag (all male) and 16 ministers of the federal states members of this constitutional commission (12 men and 4 women). Together with Jutta Limbach, Peschel-Gutzeit was a member of this constitutional commission, which added a new sentence to the existing Art. 3 (2) of the German Basic Law: “Men and women shall have equal rights”. After Elisabeth Selberts tough fight that led to this first sentence of Art. 3 (2) of the Basic Law, the implementation of equal rights in Germany was still a long process characterized by political resistance from conservative politicians. The four women ministers who were part of the commission set themselves the task of not only enforcing equal rights in the Basic Law, but to implementing de facto gender equality in society. After what Peschel-Gutzeit called a “struggle lasting several years in the Consitutional Comission[,] […][f]inally, with very, very great difficulty”, the amendment to the Basic Law was approved, which reads: “The state shall promote the actual implementation of equal rights for women and men and take steps to eliminate disadvantages that now exist.”

Work and success into old age

After⁵⁾ the new elections in 1993, Peschel-Gutzeit found herself unemployed for the first time in her life. She then received an offer from Berlin to become the successor to Senator of Justice Jutta Limbach. She accepted and became Senator of Justice in Berlin and returned to Hamburg in 1997 to once again serve as Hamburg’s Senator for Justice. After new elections in 2001, Peschel-Gutzeit received several requests from law firms in Berlin to return to work as a lawyer. She was delighted; and despite her age of 69 years, retirement was not an option for her. Therefore, at the age of 69, she became self-employed and joined a renowned law firm in Berlin as a lawyer. In 2019, she founded the family and inheritance law firm “Peschel-Gutzeit, Fahrenbach & Breuer Rechtsanwältinnen”, where she worked as a lawyer until she died on 2. September 2023. Her significant achievements throughout her eventful life have opened many doors for women to this day. Lawyers, especially women, continue to campaign for the issues that she advocated for late in her life, such as parity or children’s rights in the German constitution, and follow her impressive path.

Literary References and Further Sources:

• Lore Maria Peschel-Gutzeit mit Nele-Marie Brüdgam, Selbstverständlich gleichberechtigt, Hamburg 2012.
• Podcast “Selbstverständlich gleichberechtigt – mit Ehrenpräsidentin Dr. Lore Maria Peschel-Gutzeit” (Justitias Töchter, 26. April 2023) https://justitias-toechter.podigee.io/37-new-episode (accesed 30. August 2024).
• Podcast “Lore-Maria Peschel-Gutzeit, Juristin und Politikerin” (SWR2 Zeitgenossen, 7. February 2019), https://www.swr.de/swrkultur/leben-und-gesellschaft/aexavarticle-swr-58916.html (accesed 30. August 2024).
• Lore Maria Peschel-Gutzeit im Gespräch mit Liane von Billerbeck, Abschaffung der ehemännlichen Verwaltung, Interview, https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/abschaffung-der-ehemaennlichen-verwaltung-100.html (accesed 30. August 2024).
• Lore Maria Peschel-Gutzeit im Gespräch mit Nadja Harraschain, Dr. Lore Maria Peschel-Gutzeit im Porträt, Interview, https://www.breakingthrough.de/portraet-lore-maria-peschel-gutzeit (accesed 30. August 2024).