From the archives: Maria Plum’s story as a pioneer of her time

On July 11, 1922, a law was enacted in Germany allowing women to pass the bar exam and pursue a legal profession. A brief time later in 1932, Boehringer Ingelheim or – as it was called then - C.H. Boehringer Sohn hired one of these first female lawyers as legal counselor. Her name was Maria Plum – she was a pioneer of her profession and of the time.

Only four years earlier in 1928, Plum had set up her own law firm making her the first woman to do so in Freiburg, Germany. In the early 1930s, Robert Boehringer, a nephew of our company's founder Albert Boehringer, and his wife, Margrit, recommended Plum to the company. During Plum’s time with us, she provided legal advice on tax, labor, and company law issues.

Maria’s journey to law school

Plum was born in Berlin in 1894. Her family ran a dry-cleaning shop, which she took over in 1913 due to a sudden illness of her father and to help take care of her sister and mother.

She had a good education for a young woman of that time: She went to a private secondary school, spent one year in a private school in Belgium, and attended a commercial school for two semesters in Berlin.

After her father’s death in 1918, Plum sold the business to study at a university. In addition, she went to evening classes and obtained the Abitur (general qualification for university entrance). Plum then enrolled first at the University of Frankfurt and later at the University of Freiburg where she completed her economics studies with a dissertation and a law degree.

Once she graduated, Plum began working in the then most renowned Freiburg law firm. In 1927, Plum took the bar exam, but declined permanent employment with the law firm to take out a loan for her own firm.

Her renowned, women-run firm

The “Kanzlei Plum” became a distinguished business law firm. It specialized in legal advice for companies, but also in civil law, competition law and public law. The firm also had two female partners along with Plum: Karola Fettweis and Tula Huber-Simons.

Plum even trained young female law students, which was especially important to her. In 1934, when the admission of female students to universities was increasingly restricted by the National Socialists (because women were to be primarily mothers and should not necessarily work or seek an academic education), Plum offered secret legal courses for female students.

During this time, she also employed more female lawyers at her firm than usual, including female Jewish lawyers. She also represented Jewish people who were forced to emigrate.

Ongoing fight for equality

After World War II, Plum remained an active supporter of equality between women and men. This commitment even inspired younger women who she trained. In 1968, Lore Maria Peschel-Gutzeit advocated the so-called "Lex Peschel", a legal claim for women in the civil service to maintain their employment after giving birth to a child and taking time off following the birth.

Plum was a woman who Ernst and Albert Boehringer, the two sons of our company’s founder Albert Boehringer, supported and respected. Her legal advice was very valuable to C.H. Boehringer Sohn.

She claimed her place in a man's domain and filled it with competence and professionalism. As one of the first independent female lawyers in Germany during this era, Plum undermined the prevailing ideology by helping persecuted Jewish people, offering young women a legal education despite difficulties, and campaigning for professional equality between women and men.

She paved the way and broke down barriers for women of her time and today. It’s women like Plum who open possibilities for others, which reinforces the importance of diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging for all.

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