Elisabeth Gerdts-Rupp
Elisabeth Gerdts-Rupp, born Elisabeth Rupp (23 November 1888 – 18 March 1972), was a German jurist, poet and ethnologist. She grew up in Ravensburg as the eldest child of a judge and his wife. The family moved to Stuttgart when she was young, and she finished school at a private girls’ school in 1906. Her school was one of the first in Germany to prepare girls for the Abitur, which opened the way to university study.
She studied law in Strasbourg, Leipzig and Berlin, encouraged by her mother even though her father hoped she would marry. Elisabeth earned her doctorate in jurisprudence in 1913 with a thesis called The Legal Right to Die, inspired by a friend who planned to take his own life. After a period in Berlin, she moved to Reutlingen in 1916, where she began writing poetry. Her first book, Wiesnelieder, appeared in 1916, followed by Wolke, Wiese, Welt in 1918. She also had connections with Hermann Hesse and later wrote about a close affection between them.
In 1922 she went to Argentina for a year as a home tutor for a German family. She traveled on the Cap Polonio and married the naval officer Jan Gerdts after returning to Hamburg. Because he often traveled for work, Elisabeth could travel as well, and the marriage gave her new opportunities.
In 1925 she began studying ethnology and geography at the University of Tübingen, and earned a second doctorate in 1934. Her ethnology work focused on the Arauca people of what is now Chile, using Spanish sources. Her dissertation was later published as Magische Vorstellungen und Bräuche der Araukaner im Spiegel spanischer Quellen seit der Conquista. While later scholars criticized its emphasis on magical beliefs, it established her as a capable ethnologist.
In the late 1930s she made study trips to North Africa, South America and the Near East and worked for a time at the Hamburg Ethnology Museum. The war in 1939 interrupted travel, and she returned to Tübingen to teach ethnology, initially without pay. She continued teaching there after the war and, at times, led the Geography and Ethnology departments. Her husband Jan Gerdts had died by suicide during the war, but she stayed in Tübingen until retirement in 1959.
Among her students were Friedrich Kussmaul, Heinz Walter and Hermann Bausinger. In 1960 she moved back to the Lake Constance region, where she cared for nature and continued writing poetry. Her poetry collection Tier und Landschaft (Animals and Countryside) appeared in 1958. Elisabeth Gerdts-Rupp died in Radolfzell on 18 March 1972.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 06:27 (CET).