Tony Sender was born Sidonie Zippora Sender on 29 November 1888 in Biebrich near Wiesbaden and died in 1964 in New York. For thirteen years, she was a leading voice on the left of the Social Democratic parliamentary group in the German Reichstag. After emigrating to the United States, she remained active as a trade unionist, speaker, lecturer, and economic policy expert. Yet despite her political achievements, international network, and striking personal charisma, Tony Sender is now remembered by relatively few.
Historian and political scientist Dr Christl Wickert completed her doctorate on the first generation of women elected to the Reichstag and the Prussian Landtag during the Weimar Republic. Alongside her academic research – particularly on women under National Socialism – she organises exhibitions and conferences and is actively involved in adult education. In October 2022, thanks to her initiative, a commemorative plaque was unveiled at Tony Sender’s last residence in Berlin.
Lutz Vössing spoke with Christl Wickert about this extraordinary politician and her lifelong struggle against social injustice.
How did you first become aware of Tony Sender?
While working on my doctoral thesis about Social Democratic women in the Reichstag, I came across a photo of Tony Sender campaigning in 1924, which I found in the Frankfurt city archive. It’s now widely available online. She’s wearing a Charleston dress and standing confidently at the lectern, having just finished her speech.
And that must have made an impression on you!
It completely challenged my idea of what a Reichstag deputy looked like. She clearly had a vibrant personality – modern, cosmopolitan, and full of energy. That sparked my curiosity. Later, I found her memoirs in the Houghton Library at Harvard, written in 1940 and eventually published in 1981 under the title Autobiography of a German Rebel.
(A copy of Tony Sender’s autobiography on a bench in New Jersey. Image: Holden Lubin.)
She came from an orthodox Jewish family. What do we know about her background?
Her father was chairman of the Orthodox Jewish community in Wiesbaden-Biebrich. The three daughters were expected to marry pious Jewish men who shared the family’s religious values.
But she rejected her parents’ plans and left the Jewish girls’ school to attend business school in Frankfurt am Main. What did that mean at the time?
It was a bold move. Without financial support from her family, she set off for the big city, found work in commerce, and began supporting herself. In her memoirs, she describes how, after a full day of school and work, she would study for her exams – often outside on a bench in Frankfurt’s Palmengarten. She eventually broke off contact with her family. Even at this early stage, I was struck by the determination she showed in pursuing personal and professional independence. That was truly remarkable for a woman in the imperial era.
What were her first political steps?
She joined a trade union and, in 1910 – the year women were first permitted to join political parties – became a member of the SPD. She wanted to study economics, but her father refused to give his consent. Through her job at the Frankfurt firm Beer, Sondheimer & Co., she eventually found work in Paris as a foreign-language secretary. Politically, she quickly connected with French socialists and collaborated with the pacifist Jean Jaurès. When war broke out in 1914, she was expelled from France and returned to Frankfurt, where she met her life partner and political ally, Robert Dißmann.
What was their relationship like?
They campaigned together across southern Germany, advocating for a European peace policy. In 1917, they were among the founding members of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which brought together those who had opposed the war credits of 1914. After the USPD split in 1922, both joined the left wing of the SPD.
(Sender at the SPD lectern)
What role did she play in the November Revolution?
In 1918, Tony Sender became the only woman elected to the Frankfurt Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council. That made her one of the very few women active in the council movement. She campaigned for a republican form of government and, above all, for the abolition of the three-class franchise system – and thus for women’s suffrage, which the SPD had been demanding since 1892.
She focused mainly on women’s issues during her time in the Reichstag. What else was part of her agenda?
It was difficult for the first generation of women parliamentarians to assert their agenda within the constitutional framework. Sender worked on a broad range of issues: she fought for maternity protection, workplace safety, access to education for girls and women, the abolition of the ban on abortion, support for unmarried mothers and their children, sex education and contraception, and economic equality between men and women.
In parallel, she finally fulfilled her ambition to study economics and became the SPD’s economic policy spokesperson in the second half of the 1920s. From 1919 to 1933, she also served as editor of the Metalworkers’ Union works council newspaper. In 1927, she became editor-in-chief of the SPD magazine Frauenwelt, where she published over 400 articles of her own. On 20 March 1931, she and six other SPD deputies boycotted the vote on the construction of the battleship Armoured Ship A and Cruiser B, as a form of protest.
What was she able to achieve?
Thanks to the efforts of women in the SPD and USPD, the Reichstag passed its first maternity protection law in 1920. Gradually, more professions were opened up to women – but many barriers remained. For instance, female postal workers and teachers were still dismissed upon marriage. From today’s perspective, the achievements may seem modest, but at the time it was significant that these issues were even being publicly addressed.
What do we know about her as a speaker?
Tony Sender was particularly respected for her contributions to economic policy debates, where she was considered a persuasive and well-informed speaker. However, like many women in public life, she was often subjected to sexist commentary – conservative parliamentarians, for example, tended to focus more on her appearance than her arguments. She was known to enjoy dancing during breaks, especially at the In den Zelten venue near the Reichstag, and she often wore eye-catching outfits.
Opposition to National Socialism was central to her life. How was she politically active in this period?
The turning point came in 1928, when 59 Nazi Party members entered the Reichstag. From then on, MPs of Jewish origin – even those who no longer identified religiously – were subjected to increasing verbal attacks. Among the 153 SPD deputies, Jewish women were especially targeted, often through smear campaigns fuelled by the antisemitic tabloid Der Stürmer.
Sender remained politically active, trying to counteract the growing threat through public speaking and constituency work. But after receiving direct death threats, she fled Germany on 5 March 1933.
How did she manage to escape?
Her first stop was Prague, where the SPD’s exile leadership (Sopade) had established its headquarters. There, she worked as an editor for Neuer Vorwärts, which had been relaunched in June 1933. She was also in charge of producing leaflets for clandestine distribution in her old Saxon constituency.
That autumn, the Belgian socialist Camille Huysmans invited her to write for De Volksgazet in Antwerp. While in Belgium, she continued her anti-Nazi work, coordinating with members of the exiled Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold (a republican paramilitary group).
In March 1934, the Nazi regime revoked her German citizenship. The following year, Sender undertook a three-month lecture tour across the United States, speaking about the situation of workers and trade unions in Nazi Germany, at the invitation of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). She decided to remain in the U.S. and was granted American citizenship in 1943.
Her activism was wide-ranging, and she was even well connected in the United States. How did that come about? What were her goals?
Tony Sender saw herself first and foremost as part of the international workers’ and trade union movement. For her, women’s rights were inseparable from the broader political struggle for justice, decent working conditions, and human rights. Together with her partner Robert Dißmann, she had already built strong ties to the U.S. labour movement and had spoken at union congresses there. After Dißmann’s untimely death in 1926 during a trip abroad, she concentrated her political work more squarely on Germany and Europe.
How did her life develop in the United States? Was she able to continue her political engagement?
Sender’s reputation preceded her, and in exile she remained an influential voice. Invited by the AFL and émigré groups in New York, she gave lectures on developments in Germany and presented ideas for a new international order after Nazism.
From 1941, she joined other social democratic exiles – including Käthe Frankenthal and Hedwig Wachenheim – working in the U.S. War Department’s Office of Strategic Services (OSS). There, they contributed expertise and drafted recommendations for the post-Nazi reconstruction of Germany. Sender’s particular focus was on re-establishing democratic trade unions.
Later, she was active on the international stage. As a U.S. citizen and expert on economic issues, she worked for the UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) ahead of the founding of the United Nations. She went on to represent both the AFL and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions on the UN Economic and Social Council.
She also contributed to the UN Commission on Human Rights and the Commission on the Status of Women, anticipating many of the issues that would later be central to the UN’s International Women’s Year in 1975.
By the mid-1950s, her health had declined due to Parkinson’s disease, and she was forced to withdraw from public life. In her final years, she reconnected with the Jewish community. Tony Sender died in 1964.
Commemorative plaque for Tony Sender at Wittelsbacherstraße 34, Berlin-Wilmersdorf. Photo: Wiki.
Text: Lutz Vössing
This article is part of the series Civil Engagement and Democracy in German History: Jewish Experiences and Perspectives, first published in German as Engagement & Demokratie in der jüdisch-deutschen Geschichte by the Freunde und Förderer des Leo Baeck Instituts. You can read the original article in German here: https://fuf-leobaeck.de/2025/04/tony-sender-politische-ausnahmeerschein…
