Women’s Day declared a public holiday in Berlin

Calls for complete equality between men and women

The idea of dedicating a special day on which to campaign for women’s rights emerged in the USA at the beginning of the 20th century. This inspired the German socialist Clara Zetkin to speak at the International Socialist Women’s Conference in Copenhagen in 1910 in favour of the establishment of an international women’s day. From 1911 onward, Women’s Day was marked on different dates in the German-speaking lands, with campaigners focussed primarily on women’s suffrage. The German revolution of 1919 finally saw women cast their vote in national and regional elections.

Seeking to commemorate a strike held on 8 March 1917 by female workers, which helped spark the Russian Revolution, a conference of Communist women in Moscow in 1921 called for the introduction of an international day of remembrance on 8 March, and the practice was adopted by German Communists. Under the Third Reich, celebration of this day or any other festival of feminism was banned. Instead, Mother’s Day was made an official public holiday. The next International Women’s Day was celebrated in the Soviet zone of occupation on 8 March 1946. In West Germany, however, Women’s Day lost significance, despite there being still much to do to establish equality between the sexes. A 1977 UN resolution called on all states to establish a day of remembrance or public holiday for women’s rights and world peace. It was only after reunification that the idea gained momentum in both East and West: Women’s Day on 8 March has been a public holiday in Berlin since 2021 and in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania since 2023.