The first habilitations of women at the University of Vienna
Elise Richter was the first woman to receive her habilitation at the University of Vienna in 1905. With the habilitation as the highest academic qualification as an university lecturer, she completed a complex process. It was only two years later, in 1907, that she finally received the license to teach Romance philology, despite concerns and resistance from male experts.
Over the next 50 years, many female academics followed in Elise Richterʼs footsteps. All of the first six women who cpmpleted their habilitation were humanities scholars, all of whom habilitated at the Philosophical Faculty (“Philosophische Fakultät”). In the following decades, an average of one woman per year was habilitated, with female physicians and natural scientists being added from the 1930s and female lawyers from the end of the 1940s. The first women had to struggle with similar prejudices in virtually all departments and often had to wait for long discussions before being approved as a private lecturer, at the Faculty of Catholic Theology even until 1997.
The first female “private lecturers” (“Privatdozentinnen”) at the University of Vienna
1905/07 Elise Richter, Romance Studies
1921 Christine Touaillon, German Studies
1923 Charlotte Bühler, Psychology (habilitation 1920 TH Dresden)
1924 Marianne Thalmann, German studies
1925 Erna Patzelt, History
1927 Lily Weiser, German studies
1930 Helene Wastl, Medicine (1st habilitated physician)
1930 Carmen Coronini-Kronberg, Medicine
1931 Anna Simona Spiegel-Adolf, Medical Chemistry
1932 Gertrud Herzog-Hauser, Classical Philology
1933 Franziska Seidl, Experimental Physics
1934 Carla Zawisch-Ossenitz, Medicine
1935 Elise Hofmann, Paleobotany
1937 Berta Karlik, Physics (1st full professor in 1956)
1940 Marie Höfner, Semitic Philology and Ancient History
1940 Hertha Wambacher, Physics
1942 Hedwig Kenner, Archaeology
1943 Sylvia (Bayr-)Klimpfinger, Psychology
1945 Gertrude Thausing, Egyptology and African Studies
1945 Gertraud Repp, Plant Physiology
1946 Lotte Reuter, Plant Physiology
1947 Sibylle Bolla-Kotek, Law (1st habilitated lawyer at the University of Vienna, habilitation 1938 University of Prague)
1948 Charlotte Leitmaier, Canon Law
1948 Margarete Weninger, Anthropology
1948 Elisabeth Tschermak-Woess, Botany
1949 Irmtraud Obiditsch-Mayer, Medicine (Pathology, Anatomy)
1950 Hermine Leinfellner-Baum, Systematic Botany
1951 Gertrude Eberl-Rothe, Zoology
1952 Anneliese Strenger, Zoology
1952 Alexandra Piringer-Kuchinka, Pathological Anatomy
1952 Margarete Mecenseffy, Church History (1st habilitated Protestant theologian)
1953 Margret Dietrich, Theater Studies
1953 Gertrud Pleskot, Zoology
1955 Blanka Horacek, German Studies
1956 Maria Luhan, Biology
1956 Annemarie Ziegler, Biology
1957 Agnes Ruttner, Biology
…
1997 Martha Zechmeister, Fundamental Theology (1st habilitated Catholic theologian)
Last edited: 03/05/24
