Final Flashcards
National socialist women’s politics
Reactionary - not only in modern terms but in 1933 as well
Around 1900 women were allowed to work and go to university and since 1918 women had the right to vote -NS deprived the women of these rights
In comparison to many Western European nations, Germany had until the end of the second Reich (1918/19) lagged behind in terms of women’s right. Now in the wake of the lost ww1, history accelerated and women were suddenly everywhere, and in the eyes of men not at ease with this - competing with men in politics and in the workplace
NS ideology stated that based on biology and because the state is designed to serve the race, it is crucial to always keep in mind that men and women are biologically different and therefor serve fundamentally different purposes
~any political attempt to create full equality by letting women do what men do (aka “emancipation” which was denounced as a “Jewish invention”) is therefore against nature. Politics cannot and should not work against nature. Women are equal but separate.
In reality, this means that women are banned from public life and from politics in particular. The Nazis specialized in a kind of terminological compensation by stressing the compradeship between men and women (once again, separate but allegedly on equal footing). The quintessential male experience - the frontline pain and suffering of the trenches of ww1 - is also attributed to women in order to elevate their status. Men suffer killing and dying; women suffer giving birth; soldiers and mothers are equal
Given that the most important goal in politics is the reproduction, purification, and expansion of the race, motherhood becomes a vitally political issue. Is it therefore wrong to simply say that the Nazis pushed women out of the public sphere back into the private sphere. And this, from their perspective, gave them the right to keep women out of the traditional political sphere
The irony, is that NS is trying to roll back the gains made by women as a result of the necessary mobilization of women during ww1, but by instigating the Second World War with its accompanying “total mobilization” the Nazis were in fact working against their attempt to push women into this so-called private sphere.
The “natural” separation of men and women cannot be maintained in a world that requires women to work (and even look) like men
University enrolment decline
B/w 1931 and 1939 student numbers declined drastically, during the war (1939) they rose again.
Reasons for the decline:
Demographic - smaller student cohorts during the 1930s reflected the lower birth rates of the war years 1914-18
The main reasons were political
Decline of specific faculties
The main reasons were political
Decline of specific faculties.
A law degree for instance became less desirable as careers in the civil service formerly involved legal training now merely required party membership instead.
Certain portions of the humanities were considered irrelevant for, or even biased against, the regime
. Physics - especially theoretical physics- in which Germany had been at the forefront - suffered irreparable damage from the large scale exodus of leading scientists
Increasingly research was being conducted by major corporations (eg. IG Farben) or sponsored by organizations like the army of the SS
On the other hand, the significant increase in the percentage of medical students attests both the importance of the medical profession in the new regime (doctors are now warriors protecting and nurturing the national body) and to the fact that with the departure of many Jewish doctors new career paths opened up
university decline
One major disincentive aimed at women was to ban girls from learning Latin at grammar schools, which was a prerequisite for many university study programs
In addition there was a noticeable lack of interest on the part of the regime. For more time and energy went into reshaping the elementary and high school systems (not to mention youth organizations) than into reshaping the universities
Last but not least, the third Reichs university policy is another instance of the systems internal divisiveness. It was less a matter of incompetence- the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing - the endemic competition- both hands fighting each other. Ministerial portfolios overlapped; provincial ministries and the party constantly intervened to ensure the installation of politically acceptable professors, deans and presidents; and there were ongoing disagreements over how to reorganize universities along the more authoritarian, top-down lines of the fürhrer principle. Bernard rust, the incompetent Reich minister for education and Volksbildung (“public education”) was constantly challenged, among others, by Joseph goebbels, responsible for “propaganda and volksaufklarung” (“public enlightenment”)
Under these circumstances (dwindling student numbers; political pressure; shrinking financial support) it became necessary for many academics to pay lip service to the regime and to stress the importance of their disciplines
Bernhard rust
1883-1945
Reichs Minister of science, education, and Volksbildung from 1934-45 (suicide)
In the opinion of goebbels “an absolute knucklehead”
Messages
- Long before the NSDAP made noticeable gains in national elections, NS student organizations were running strong in university elections. Students were among the avant-Garde of the NS party
- On the whole NS student organizations did less well in predominantly Catholic institutions (Freiburg and Munich)
Changes of university
Some immediate measures imposed by the NS regime were rules to change the basic administrative structure of universities
One example is the installation of the so-called führer-Rektor
~ Starting in 1933, the university president, in German, Rektor - was no longer elected by his peers (senor faculty) but appointed by the provincial ministries of culture
This was done for two reasons
- The top-down authoritarian political führer system is applied to universities in the hope of making them more efficient
- The president thereby becomes a tool for the party, a conduit the Nazi bureaucrats could use to directly influence university politics - a second measure was the dismissal of all Jewish faculty. In some cases, the party tried to force universities to hire academically unqualified but politically loyal senior faculty. Example:
Arnold Sommerfeld (1868-1951) Werner Heisenberg (1901-76)
Heisenberg was not appointed to the prestigious chair of theoretical physics in Munich because quantum physics was considered by some to be a “Jewish” science
Heisenberg had been the target of an attack launched by the SS journal das schwarze Corps
On the other hand, he was involved in a top secret German project to construct at atomic bomb
Instead, a incompetent alternate was appointed and the great tradition of Munich physics went down the drain
Students were forced to attend indoctrination lectures and do “work service” (put on uniforms and jointly do manual labour). In the beginning, there was attempts to force students into joint housing. Inevitably the initially strong support for the regime and party dwindled among students; they tended to withdraw and become apolitical
To a certain extent, the radicalization of universities under nazism was the inverse of the overall radicalization of German society. In the beginning there were ill-fated attempt to “germanize” disciples (e.g. German physics, German mathematics), but they did not lead very far. Many disciplines, students and faculty paid lip service but continued to do business as usual. There are however hardly any cases of active resistance
Arnold sommerfeld
1868-1951
Professor of physic Munich
Officially retires in 1935 goes on until 1939 due to replacement squabbles
Werner Heisenberg
1901-76
Awarded Nobel piece prize in 1932 for pioneering work in quantum mechanics
The white rose
A student resistance group at the Ludwig-maximillians university/ Munich
Distributed pamphlets
Led by Hans and Sophie Scholl, who were both caught for distributing the groups sixth pamphlet on campus on 18 feb 1943. Put on trial and executed on the same day 22 feb
Context white rose
German VI army had just capitulated at Stalingrad, which many Germans saw as a decisive turning point in the war. The white rose, partly under the influence of Kurt huber, now advocated that moral objections against the regime were insufficient: for Nazism to be defeated - while some students may have agreed with the anti-Nazi sentiment, the propagation of a national defeat was seen by many as treasonous
Kurt huber
1893-1943
Musicologist and philosopher, faculty member, Umunich
Partly under his influence the pamphlets of the white rose became more political (more of a matter of action than of conscience)
Put on trial and executed
Paul giesler
1895-1945
Another event that drove a wedge b/w the students and the regime:
High ranking Nazi official who gives a controversial speech at the U/Munich in Jan 1943.
Tells female students that they should quit their studies and produce babies instead.
Adds that “his aids would be happy to offer assistance”
There are physical altercations and severs, students are arrested, but charges are dropped so as not to further aggravate the situation
Roland Freisler
1893-1945
Former communist who switched sides and becomes one of the most rabid Nazis in the legal system
State secretary of the Reich ministry of justice 1934 to 1942
President of the “people’s court” 1942-45
Presides over the trial against Scholls
