Aryan Women Flashcards
What were the nazis aims for Aryan women?
To be housewives and mothers
To have have superior Aryan children so that the Nazis would habe enough Aryans to conquer inferior nations’ lands
What did Nazis want of women? (2)
- Their policies towards women consisted of social requirements summed up in the phrase ‘Kinder, Küche, Kirche.’ This meant that women must focus on having children, cooking and attending church.
- The Nazi family was based on the traditional medieval notion of society rooted in love of homeland and ties of kinship
Define eugenics
Fake science to produce perfect genetics applying selective breeding methods to people. It was used by the Nazis who believe that German people were descended from a perfect ‘Aryan’ race - a Master Race which was strongly blond, white skinned and noble.
How did Nazis achieve their goals with the law ? (4)
- Nazis sacked women from their jobs
- After 1933 women could not be appointed to civil service positions or become a judge
- Women were discriminated against in the workplace and when applying for jobs
- Most women’s associations were closed down voluntarily and some women’s leaders were arrested or assassinated
- This meant women had to become mothers and housewives
How did Nazis achieve their goals with use of incentives ?
- The Law to Reduce Unemployment meant women had time to marry and have children and become a mother and housewife
- it offered a 600 mark marriage loan to unemployed women who married and left work
What was given after 1935?
Families were given welfare allowances and in 1936 it was replaced by regular payments for the 5th child onwards, paid for by increased taxes on the childless
What happened on the 12th August?
This was Hitler’s mothers birthday and women with more than seven children were given an ‘Honour Cross’ (bronze for four children, silver for six and gold for eight). These women were also able to benefit from lower taxation levels and increased state benefits
What happened to unmarried mothers after 1935? (2)
- After 1935 unmarried mothers were encouraged to live in ‘Lebensborn’ (Spring of Life) homes where SS men could impregnate them.
- Contraception and abortions also became much harder to get and therefore made it easier for women to become pregnant
- Childless couples were encouraged to divorce so that the woman could have the chance of becoming pregnant with someone lose
What was the Nazi Women’s League ?
It ran classes for school girls and new brides. During the war, it ran cooking classes and they collected scrap metal.
What was the Nazi Women’s League’s magazine called and what did it promote?
The Frauen Warte Magazine promoted that women wore their hair in plaits or a bun, not to wear makeup, trousers or high heels. They were also not allowed to slim in the case that it would affect their ability to bear children
What encouraged women to have large families and get married ?
- The Law for the Encouragement of Marriage encouraged women to marry and have large families to support the Aryan race.
What did women require to have a marriage loan? (5)
- You needed a Certificate of Suitability for Marriage, signed by a doctor
- The doctor was looking for illnesses outlined in the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring (1933) such as schizophrenia, blindness, depression etc
- Women who were physically unable to bear children or who had extra or pre-martial sex were also rejected.
- One In 25 women failed to get a Certificate and were sterilised as a result
- By 1939 an estimated 350,000 women had been sterilised by Genetic Health Courts
What would send an Aryan woman to a concentration camp?
Women who failed or refused the Certificate could find themselves being put in a workhouse or a concentration camp, because it was linked to some kind of mental, physical or social unsuitability for the Volksgemeinschaft
Describe two ways in which the lives of women changed in Nazi Germans between 1933 and 1939
Awards such as the mothers cross were offered to encourage women to give birth to as many children as possible. There were different levels of the mothers cross, depending on how many children the woman had. The Nazis also tried to encourage women to have more children offering lower taxes and increase state benefits to mothers
Were the Nazi attempts to raise marriage rates and family numbers successful? (2)
- Birth rate increased but not to the same extent as in the 1920s. It seemed that Germans were only motivated to gain financial benefits
- Nazis were giving benefits to parents who had large families but it seemed they were merely giving money to people who would have had large families anyway rather than encouraging people to have large families
- Marriages didn’t increase. Women didn’t want to risk sterilisation and when this threat was removed, more marriages took place
