BURIED TOGETHER

Partner Ottilie Wilhelmine Roederstein

Queer Places:
University of Zürich, Rämistrasse 71, 8006 Zürich, Switzerland
University of Bern, Hochschulstrasse 4, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
Bleichstraße 60, 60313 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Hochstraße 40, 60313 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Roedersteinweg 2, 65719 Hofheim am Taunus, Germany
Waldfriedhof Hofheim am Taunus, Vincenzstraße, 65719 Hofheim am Taunus, Germany

Elisabeth Hermine Winterhalter (December 17, 1856 - February 13, 1952) was born on December 17, 1856, in Munich, Germany, as the thirteenth and youngest child of a medical family. Her father was the physician Georg Winterhalter, and her mother was Elisabeth Winterhalter, née von Garr. Facing strict family opposition to women pursuing higher education and medicine early on, she initially attended a convent school and a teacher training seminar, working briefly as an assistant teacher in Schwabing. In 1884, with the backing of her mother and guardian, she moved to Switzerland to study medicine at the University of Zürich and the University of Bern, since universities in the German Empire were closed to women at the time. She passed her Swiss Matura, completed her Physikum, earned her medical doctorate in Zürich in 1890, and obtained her Swiss state examination.

Winterhalter broke numerous professional barriers, establishing herself as a pioneering physician, gynecologist, and the first female surgeon in Germany. In 1891, she moved to Frankfurt am Main, where she co-founded a gynecological polyclinic with the Maingau nursing association and became a celebrated specialist in women's health. Defying professional limitations, she performed what is widely considered the first abdominal surgery by a female surgeon in Germany in 1895, and she conducted neuroanatomical research alongside Ludwig Edinger at the Dr. Senckenberg Institute of Pathology. After formal medical degrees and state board certifications officially opened to women in Germany, she successfully completed her German state exams and obtained her formal German medical license (Approbation) in 1904. Alongside her clinical practice, she was an active advocate for the women's movement and a patron of the arts. In 1911, she and her partner retired to a custom-built villa in Hofheim am Taunus. Winterhalter lived to the age of 95, passing away on February 12, 1952, in Hofheim am Taunus.

Elisabeth Winterhalter shared a life-long, committed same-sex partnership spanning approximately 50 years with the prominent German-Swiss painter Ottilie Wilhelmine Roederstein. The two women met in Zürich in the summer of 1885 while Winterhalter was a medical student and Roederstein was visiting her family from Paris, and by 1887 their connection had evolved into a committed romantic relationship. Roederstein affectionately nicknamed Winterhalter "Hans," while Winterhalter called Roederstein "Tilly". They lived and worked closely together, moving in tandem to Frankfurt am Main in 1891 and later commissioning a shared home in Hofheim am Taunus. Roederstein documented their life together by painting dozens of portraits of Winterhalter over the decades. Following Roederstein's death in 1937, Winterhalter established the Roederstein-Winterhalter-Stiftung, a philanthropic foundation aimed at supporting vulnerable female artists and other public causes. Upon Winterhalter's death in 1952, she was laid to rest beside Roederstein in a joint honorary grave (Ehrengrab) maintained by the town of Hofheim.

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