Helene von Forster

Christian Schmidmer, her father, was a prominent member of the city's business community and the owner of a factory producing wires and cables.

Her mother, born Nanette Lotz, was the daughter of a top civil servant from the nearby Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

[3] On 20 September 1882 Helene Schmidmer married the leading Nuremberg eye doctor, Dr. Sigmund von Forster (1851 - 1939)[6] whom she had met at literary events.

[3] She contributed a short comedy to a celebration of the Pegnesischer Blumenorden (a misleadingly named Nuremberg literary society).

This had what was seen as the important practical benefit of enabling working woman the chance to bring their babies into the world under medical supervision.

[10] In 1908 the old (originally Prussian) ban on women's participation in politics, which for some years had been interpreted with varying levels of vigour in different parts of Germany, finally disappeared.

In the event, the new constitution introduced during the 1918/19 revolution, delivered equal voting rights for women (along with a number of other innovations which generated more discussion at the time), and in 1919 von Forster became a DDP city councillor.

[3][4][11] According to one source it was the level of energy that Helene von Forster applied to her role as a campaigning city councillor that hastened her death.