Building The Future: Women, Education And Young People In Nazi Germany Flashcards
What were Hitler’s expectations of women and children?
-Nazi existence would be one of ‘eternal struggle’ to hold onto conquered land. Therefore women/youth had clearly defined roles
Women: Create children to give Germany manpower
Youth: Fight in wars. To prepare them, emphasis on resilience and toughness, physical fitness, indoctrination in nazi ideas
Key dates for Nazi policies on women and children
1933:
- Jewish/unreliable teachers dismissed
- Marriage loan scheme introduced
- Baldur von Schirach ‘Youth leader of the German reich’
1936:
- Law on the Hitler Youth introduced
- Catholic Youth association outlawed
1938:
- Mother Cross award introduced
The weimar era and women: progress/policies?
- Weimar constitution gave women the vote, allowed them to become reichstag members
- Number of women in paid employment rose in 1920s due to 4000 000 men killed in 1914-18
- New social freedoms for ‘weimar woman’ - stylish, received poorly
What were nazi ideas on the role of women?
- Three Ks: Kitchen, church, children
- ‘Weimar woman’ was selfish and immoral’
- Not a woman’s place to contribute via paid work, but by child-bearing/rearing
- Denied women However, society male dominated, and menopausal women=expendable, sent to work in dangerous conditions
Nazi policy of pronatalism
- Encouraged child bearing/glorified parenthood
- Aimed to reverse decline in birth rates/big families
Marriage loan scheme 1933: couples intending to marry could apply for loan s cross: bronze 4, silver 6, gold 8
Nazis scrapped abortion law in 1933 so genetically fit woman could not abort, closed birth control clinics and relaxed divorce law in 1938 to encourage remarriage
Deutsches Frauenwerk lead by Gertrud Schlotz Klink, leader of all national socialist women, training courses for motherhood attended by millions in 1930s/early 1940s
Women in university restricted to 10% of places
Impact of nazi policy on women?
-Birth rate 1933: 14.7 1939: 20.3
-Women in labour decreased from 37-33% in 1939
BUT LIMITED SUCCESS
-Cannot determine causality with nazi policy, minor increase more likely due to economic climate
-Those who received money under marital loan schemes did not (for the majority) go on to have larger families
-Did not make women more domestic. % of women in paid work rose in 1930s, but more difficult for them to get promotions
-later 1930s abandoned ideas about domestic women as they were needed in the workplace for the war economy
What were the Nazi’s educational priorities?
- To indoctrinate the youth of Germany with Nazi ideology
- To prepare young men for military service
- To prepare girls to fulfill their duties as wives and mothers
- Intellect was rejected as worthless
How did the curriculum change under the nazis?
- Mathematics, languages, RS, physics and chemistry given less time but still used in indoctrination to prepare students for ‘eternal struggle’ ie chemistry=explosives
- Biology, history and PE were important
- Biology and history used for indoctrination
- PE for military service/motherhood
HISTORY: German only. Pre C. 20th was Germany heroes, post C. 20th was communist/jewish blame for Germany’s WW1 defeat and Hitler’s national revival
Biology: ‘Racial Science’. Aryan social Darwinism, Aryans> sub human slavs. ‘Racial hygiene’ (selective breeding) and preventing ‘genetically defective’. Aryan/Aryan marriage
PE: 2 hours daily, cross country running/competitive sports for boys, boxing compulsory. Girls did gymnastics/dance
Resulted in a DECLINE OF EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS
Nazi elite schools
- Mainstream education no longer focused on producing intellects of leadership material. Elite schools for this
- National Political Educational Institutions (Napolas)
- 16 by 1939 to prepare for civil/army leadership
- “Adolf Hitler Schools” to prepare future nazi leaders, went on to be educated at ‘order castles’ -nazi universities
Youth movements for the nazis
- Needed to reach out to everyone, minimize impact of non nazi parent opinions on their children. Solution was organisations for everyone to join
- Hitler youth: military hierarchical organisation headed by Baldur von Schirach until 1941
- organised activities on weekdays/ends. It was the only youth organisation as others from the weimar parties were banned in 1933.
- 100 000 in 1933 to 6 mil members by 1936. Law on Hitler youth made membership compulsory
- By 1937, 1 mil boys had attended HJ youth camp, and 100000 girls had attended a BDM youth camp
- Boys and girls attended political education classes, physical exercise. Boys did military training, girls did nursing, maternal training, domestic management
Different sections of the Hitler youth
Age 6-10 ‘Little fellows -boys only
Age 10-14 German Young People/League of Young Girls
Age 14-18 Hitler Youth/League of German Girls
Did Nazi youth policies achieve their objectives?
- Hitler youth was popular for novelty of activities and interaction with other German teenagers
- Bored of repetitive programme of Hitler youth by the late 1930s. Political education/drills unpopular -> absenteeism
- Rebellious behavior with ‘swing kids’ and the ‘Edelweiss pirates’ who tormented hitler youth. Some sent to camps with crackdown in 1941-2
- Emphasis on toughness hardened children. Reports of aggression, and many who committed war crimes in Poland/Russia in 1939-45 were educated in 1930s Germany
How successful were Nazi policies towards women and the young?
- Aimed to change how they behaved and thought. More difficult than Nazifying institutions
- Largely failed to achieve aims with women
- Youth started well, but unpopular by late 1930s and evidence that not everyone was indoctrinated/conformed
