1950: The First Female State Councillor in Austria: Maria Matzner

Maria Matzner was born in 1902 near Lemberg in Galicia. By the age of 15 she was already a functionary of the Socialist Youth and active in the workers’ gymnastics club. An employee in the district secretariat of the metal workers’ association in Wiener Neustadt, she moved to Graz in 1926, became the spokesperson for the federal women’s party branch in 1927, and in February 1934 she was appointed to the regional executive committee of the Social Democratic Party of Austria. After February 12, 1934, she led the social democratic resistance in Styria for several weeks. In 1945 she was again the spokesperson for the Styrian women’s party branch as well as a member of the state parliament und a member of the regional party executive committee. From 1950 to 1962, Matzner was the Styrian state councillor, the first woman in Austria to hold this function. Matzner died in 1987 in Graz.