Agnes-Heineken-Denkmal, Bremen

The Agnes-Heineken-Denkmal stands in Bremen-Mitte beside the city’s vocational training centre. A simple stone stele by the sculptor Kurt Lettow, it was raised in 1957 to honour Agnes Heineken, a leading local educator and campaigner for women’s rights. The monument is protected by Bremen’s own list of historic landmarks. Agnes Heineken helped win girls the right to attend public secondary schools before the First World War. In 1910 she founded the Bremen Women’s City Federation and later became director of the schools run by the Women’s Employment and Training Association. As a member of the Bremen Bürgerschaft she fought for female suffrage. Dismissed from her post in 1933 under the National Socialists, she remains an important figure in the city’s women’s movement. The stele shows a high-relief portrait of Heineken on one side. On the reverse, Lettow carved two figures—a woman and a girl—turned towards each other, symbolising her work in education and reform. It stands between two wings of the vocational centre, where passers-by can pause beside this quiet tribute to a reformer’s life.