Germany - 5.4. Did the Nazis achieve a social revolution by 1939?

Question 1

Who was Joseph Goebbels and what was his role within Nazi Germany?

Answer 1

Minister of Propaganda - very high up in Hitler’s inner circle

Question 2

What were the Nazi strategies for women?

Answer 2

Remove women from business to encourage them to have children but they do this from places they have control over first

Question 3

What education were there for girls?

Answer 3

• Girls from the age of 10 joined the Jungmadel (Young Maidens).
• From 14 they entered the Bund Deutscher Madel (German Girls’ League).
• They were taught their role was as a good wife and mother and their place – - was in the home: kinder, kuche, kirche (children, cooking, church)

Question 4

What Nazi strategies were there for marriage?

Answer 4

1934: 10 commandments for choice of spouse which encouraged people fitting the German Ideal to marry and keep race pure.

Question 5

How was women’s employment affected?

Answer 5

Women taken out of the labour market.
1934: Women dismissed from the professions
1936: Women could not be judges or sit on jury
Women were expected to be home-makers, wives and mothers.

1933- 11.48 million women employed
1936 - 11.7 million
1939 - 12.7 million

Question 6

What was the breeding programme?

Answer 6

• Women had biological purpose
• Medals for women who had more than 4 children
• Encouraged unmarried women to have children via Lebensborns where women who were racially desirable were able to have children away from social stigma
• Banned contraception and abortion
• Sterilised racially ‘impure’

Question 7

What physical constraints did women have?

Answer 7

Not allowed to wear make-up, have hair dyed or have perms.
Only to wear flat shoes and no trousers allowed.
No slimming as thought unhealthy and would upset child-bearing.
No smoking is seen as ‘un-German‘.
Long hair or put in bun or plaits.

Question 8

What Nazi youth movements were there for boys?

Answer 8

Age 6-10 = Pimpfen (cubs)
Age 10-14 = Deutsches Jungvolk (Young German Boys)
Age 14-18 = Hitler Youth

Question 9

How does the Hitler Youth membership stats change from 1933 to 1934?

Answer 9

In 1933 Hitler Youth membership was 100,000 members.

By 1934 it had grown to 4 million members.

Question 10

When did it become compulsory to join the Hitler Youth for 14 -18 year old boys?

Answer 10

1936

Question 11

What were girls and boys prepared for in the youth movements?

Answer 11

Girls - motherhood

Boys - military

Question 12

What were the Hitler Youth Law’s (1,2,3)?

Answer 12

• First Hitler Youth Law (December 1, 1936) - To make membership in the Hitler Youth mandatory for all eligible German youths.
• Second Hitler Youth Law (March 25, 1939) - The Law explicitly states that German children must join the Hitler Youth at age 10 and serve through age 18 years. Penalties are provided for guardians who do not comply, including confinement. The Law also gives officials the authority to require participation.
• Third Hitler Youth Law (1941) - Apparently designed to limit exemptions granted and to make the compliance for evasion more severe.

Question 13

Why were young people won over by the varying youth movements?

Answer 13

• Attractive prospect - sports, games, singing and camping, uniform, oath, badge and a salute
• It was away from school and away from home
• Germany’s hope and future
• Comradeship, enthusiasm, honour
• Allowed children to escape from a childish narrow life and attach themselves to something great and fundamental
• New and exciting
• Became most important influence in their life

Question 14

How was education in the Third Reich changed?

Answer 14

• curriculum Nazified
• history focused on German military might and how Jews were to blame
• biology focused on racial purity
• taught how to build bridges and aircrafts
• taught impact of poisonous gases
• Girls were taught domestic skills and eugenics – where they were educated on how to pick a husband.
• Fitness was promoted over intellectualism – the Nazi regime sought to raise future soldiers of Germany.

Question 15

Where would exceptional boys go?

Answer 15

Adolf Hitler Schools - where they took part in tough physical training and achieved positions in the Wehrmacht, SS or went to University.
The very best pupils went to “Order Castles” where they played war games with live ammunition. Some pupils died; those who survived often became high ranking members of the Wehrmacht and SS.

Question 16

What are 3 examples of alternative youth groups?

Answer 16

• Edelweiss Pirates
• Swing Youth
• The White Rose

Question 17

What did the Edelweiss pirates do/ consist of and what response did they get from the Nazis?

Answer 17

• Working class
• The earliest recorded groups existed in 1934 and membership was around 2,000 by 1939
• mainly just rebellious youngsters trying to escape the intrusive Nazi system.
• The response of the authorities became harsher over time – warnings were initially issued with some raids and arrests. In December 1942 the Gestapo arrested 739 Edelweiss Pirates.
• They had their heads shaven, were detained or sent for corrective education or to labour camps. Some were tried and executed in 1944 the leaders of the Cologne Edelweiss Pirates were hanged.

Question 18

What were the Swing Youth?

Answer 18

• Group of apolitical jazz and swing lovers and were mainly upper-middle class youths.
• Many were members of the Hitler Youth, but they rejected the ideas.
• For those non-Aryan it became even more dangerous to be associated with the swing crowd by November 1938, during and after Kristallnacht. Many half-Jews were persecuted before others.
• Jazz music was offensive to Nazi ideology and the events organised by the -‘Swing Youth’ mocked the Nazis, the military and the Hitler Youth.

Question 19

What were the White Rose?

Answer 19

• Non-violent students from Munich University.
• Distributed anti-Nazi leaflets among the populace.
• Their sixth and final leaflet was used as propaganda by the British – “The Manifesto of the Students of Munich”.
• Six core members were captured and executed in February 1943
• Informally linked to the Swing Kids.
• Became a symbol of resistance in Germany after Allied use of their propaganda.

Question 20

What was the order of the persecution of the Jews?

Answer 20

1933 - April Boycott (for 1 day Germans were told not to buy from any Jewish owned shops, enforced by SA), forced out of jobs in law, civil service, dentistry, journalism, teaching and farming
1934 - Jews forced out jobs in the theatre
1935 - No longer citizens of Germany and lost right to vote - nuremberg laws
1936 - Berlin olympics - gipsies forced to move temporarily out of city
1937 - Not allowed to be pharmacists
1938 - Kristallnacht - one night of violence across Germany and Austria, 91 Jews murdered, synagogues burnt, shop windows smashed, sacred items desactrated, 20,000 jewish men rounded up and sent to concentration camps
1939 - Jews not allowed to leave houses after 8pm, Jews could be evicted from their home without notice and reason

Question 21

When and what was the Kristallnacht?

Answer 21

1938
Kristallnacht - one night of violence across Germany and Austria, 91 Jews murdered, synagogues burnt, shop windows smashed, sacred items desactrated, 20,000 jewish men rounded up and sent to concentration camps