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Lily Braun (2 July 1865 – 8 August 1916), born Amalie von Kretschmann, was a German feminist writer and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). She developed the idea of the single-kitchen home.
Raised according to the Prussian virtues of order and discipline from her father's military career, Braun nevertheless developed a direct and open personality, encouraged in particular by her grandmother . She was considered to be highly ambitious, and her family provided her with a broad education by numerous private teachers. From an early age, she began to question her parents' bourgeois values as influenced by Lutheranism and Calvinism as well the position of women in Prussian society. When her father retired in 1890, Braun had to establish a sustainable livelihood herself.
In 1893, Braun married to , a professor of philosophy at the Frederick William University in Berlin, who was associated with the Social Democratic Party without however being a member. Together with him she was involved in the ethical movement, which sought to establish a system of morality in place of the traditional religions. Also, she became concerned with the ideas of socialism and the feminist movement, working as a journalist for the feminist newspaper (The Women's Movement) issued by Minna Cauer.
After her first husband's death, she married in 1896 Heinrich Braun, who was a Social Democratic politician and a publicist. The couple had one son, Otto Braun, a talented poet who was killed at the Western Front in the last months of World War I.
Braun joined the SPD at an early age and became one of the leaders of the German feminist movement. Within the party, she belonged to the revisionist opposition within the SPD, which did not believe in the theories of historical materialism, but aimed for a gradual change in society, rather than a socialist revolution. Her attempts to mediate between proletarian and bourgeois feminist circles and proposals on reconciliation of family and working life were highly criticized. Her answers to the woman question were rejected by socialist authors like Clara Zetkin, while middle-class circles considered her ideas too radical.
Like her fellow political activist Helene Stöcker, Braun was strongly influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche; she and her husband wanted the SPD to focus on the development of personality and individuality. They believed women should have their own personality and should not have to be regarded only as (future) mothers and wives. Braun wanted economic freedom for women and advocated new types of personal relations up to the abolition of legal marriage.
Deeply concerned about the fate of her son, Braun died in Zehlendorf (today part of Berlin) from the consequences of a stroke at the age of 51, in the midst of World War I. After her death, her second husband Heinrich Braun married Julie Braun-Vogelstein, Guide to the Julie Braun-Vogelstein Collection, 1743-1971AR 25034 / MF 473 who was also the editor of Lily Braun's Collected Works.
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