The two-volume edition Lebenslinien zwischen Ideologie und Emanzipation (Lifelines between Ideology and Emancipation) is based on the master\'s theses of Felicia Engelhard and Anne Krohn, which deal with the autobiographical accounts of colonial settler Ada Cramer in German South West Africa and local historian Helene Höhnk from Dithmarschen. The studies presented here focus on the question of how the authors interpreted and legitimized their experiences, beliefs, and agency autobiographically in the ideologically charged contexts of the first half of the 20th century. While Felicia Engelhard analyzes the interconnectedness of racial thinking, colonial reality, and self-justification using the example of Ada Cramer\'s colonial experience report Weiß oder Schwarz (1913), Anne Krohn uses Helene Höhnk\'s Lebenserinnerungen (1939) to show how female self-assertion took shape between emancipatory aspirations and a nationalist worldview. The volume shows that emancipation and ideology were not opposites, but rather intertwined forces in shaping women\'s lives.