Partner Emma Trosse
Queer Places:
Storchenvilla, Hauptstraße 42 (now No. 120), Bad Neuenahr
Hermine Dulsmann, Baroness von Bardeleben (July 14, 1846 - 1905) and her pivotal connection to Emma Trosse represent a fascinating chapter in early LGBTQ+ history. While Emma Trosse is celebrated as a groundbreaking pioneer of lesbian and asexual discourse, Hermine was her close life partner, co-administrator, and the structural backbone of the environment that allowed Trosse’s work to flourish.
Hermine Christiane Elise Dorothee Baroness von Bardeleben was born on July 14, 1846. Born into the German nobility (Adel), she held the title of Baronesse.
Hermine married August Wilhelm Ludwig Dulsmann (1840–1890), a quarry director (Steinbruchdirektor). The couple settled in the scenic spa town of Bad Neuenahr in the Ahr Valley. They had several children, including a daughter named Luise.
August Dulsmann passed away on November 7, 1890. Left as a widow with children, Hermine remained in their spacious residence—a local landmark known as the "Storchenvilla" (Stork Villa) located at Hauptstraße 42 (now No. 120).
In June 1893, a highly educated 30-year-old teacher and poet named Emma Trosse arrived in the Ahr Valley for a summer holiday. Trosse, who had been serving as the principal of a girls' boarding school in Würzburg, fell in love with the area.
During this holiday, Trosse met Hermine Dulsmann. The chemistry and shared vision between the two women was immediate. Trosse impulsively resigned from her prestigious position in Würzburg to stay in Bad Neuenahr with Hermine.
In 1893, Hermine and Emma co-founded a private school and boarding home for girls (Mädchenpensionat) operated out of the Storchenvilla.
Hermine acted as the overall director ("Frau Direktor Dulsmann") and financial manager, while Emma took on the role of headmistress, managing the daily curriculum and teaching scientific subjects.
The school became highly successful, catering to "higher daughters" (höhere Töchter). In local spa registries from 1896, the establishment was listed as "Pensionat Trosse" with both Hermine and Emma listed at the helm.
Historical research, featured in exhibitions by Berlin’s Schwules Museum and documentation on lesbian history, frames Hermine and Emma's relationship as a romantic and domestic partnership (Lebensgemeinschaft). For seven years (1893–1900), they lived and worked together at the Storchenvilla, challenging the rigid patriarchal norms of late-19th-century Imperial Germany.
Hermine’s emotional and financial partnership provided Emma with the safety and stability to write. It was during her years living with Hermine that Emma Trosse published her most revolutionary works:
1. Der Konträrsexualismus (1895): The first scientific defense of homosexuality written by a woman. Trosse argued that homosexuality was an innate, natural variation—not a disease—years before male sexologists like Magnus Hirschfeld popularized the concept.
2. Ein Weib? (1897): Published anonymously, this is considered the first scientific treatise on female homosexuality written by a woman.
3. Asexuality: In her writings, Emma also conceptualized individuals "without sensuality" (ohne Sinnlichkeit)—identifying herself as such—marking one of the earliest documentations of asexuality as a valid identity.
The intense partnership at the Storchenvilla shifted in October 1900 when Emma Trosse married a local physician, Dr. Constantin Külz. Because married women in Germany were legally barred from teaching, Emma had to step down from the school. Hermine Dulsmann’s daughter eventually took over Emma’s teaching and administrative duties at the boarding school.
Hermine Dulsmann passed away in 1905 at the age of 59. Though she did not write the radical treatises herself, her life with Emma Trosse at the Storchenvilla represents a vital, early sanctuary for lesbian and queer intellectual history in Europe.
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