Postage stamp: women of German history - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1997 - 300 Pfennig

Maria Probst was born on July 1, 1902 in Munich. After visiting various boarding schools followed by a degree in history and German studies, which is completed in 1930, the year of her marriage to the lawyer and deputy Alfons Probst, by graduation. Three years later, her husband is arrested in the wake of the seizure of power by the National Socialists. Following the young family follows the sentenced to Frankfurt / Oder and finally to Szczecin. The end of the war sees Maria Probst as a widow and single mother in Lower Franconia Hammelburg. There, she actively tries to improve people's living conditions through her own work, thereby encouraging them to take their own political action. Her social and political commitment led her in 1946 first as a deputy to Munich and in 1949 to Bonn, later in 1958, even in the European Parliament. In addition to her parliamentary work, which focuses particularly on the problems and hardships of the victims of war and the bereaved, her involvement of women in political life is of particular concern to her. So she founded together with other committed women in 1947, the State Working Community of Women in the CSU and is from 1963 to 1967 president of the European Women's Union. When Maria Probst dies on May 1, 1967, obituaries repeatedly acknowledge her ability to systematically work and focus on the essentials, her knowledge of reality, and her honorary name "Frau Maria Hilf." (Text: Dr. C. Brügmann, Archive for Christian Social Policy of the Hanns Seidel Foundation, Munich)