Impact of Nazi Rule on Women’s Lives

Question 1

Nazi view on Women at first

Answer 1

Adopted the Kinder, Küche, Kirche slogan to give their view of women a “familiar feel” ; yet again accentuating the idea of continuity. They wanted women at home in the kitchen but they were also against church membership as it competed with Nazi influence - wanted the right women producing the right children
Stressed the virtues of the family, saying women were equal to men but physically different so their job was to look after family
Saw family unite as too individualistic and wanted family members to work for good of Germany ; not to simply support the family

Question 2

Subtopics in this Topic

Answer 2

Women as mothers
Impact of Nazi policies on women
Impact of WW2 on women

Question 3

Women as mothers

Answer 3

They were vital to the state - politics and work was for men ; the Reichstag was emptied of women
They had their own Nazi Organisation called the National socialist womanhood (NSF) and a wider based movement called the z German Women’s Enterprise (Deutsches Frauenwork) organised activities for non-party members

Question 4

Eugenics

Answer 4

Belief that controlling reproduction can produce a healthier population - society for population policy (1916) fed growing interest in issues of genetics and heredity in its magazine the Coming Generation
Nazis believed in this and encouraged pure German couples to breed and passed laws to stop the wrong kind of breeding

Question 5

Laws to stop wrong breeding

Answer 5

31st December 1931 - SS Marriage order states members of the SS can only marry Aryan women (amended in 1936 to say SS men must have at least 4 children with such a woman)
1933 1st June - Law to reduce unemployment includes an interest free marriage loan to aryan couples if the woman gives up her job and is passed fit to have children ; loan is cleared after having 4 children
14th July 1933 - Law for Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary diseases makes it possible to sterilise those with mental and physical disabilities ; also extended to women with several sexual partners or illegitimate children (secretly also covered racial undesirability)
18th October 1935 - law for protection of hereditary health of German people is a fitness-to-marry certificate required to prove neither couple is genetically or racially impure

Question 6

Laws to promote having children

Answer 6

1933 1st June - Law to reduce unemployment includes an interest free marriage loan to aryan couples if the woman gives up her job and is passed fit to have children ; loan is cleared after having 4 children
1939 May - Mother’s cross introduced for mothers with 4 (bronze), six (silver) or 8 or more (gold) children ; awarded on Mother’s Day

Question 7

How else was their discrimination?

Answer 7

Help with school fees and transport only provided for families if they were “suitable” ; these families were given grants up to RM100 for each child

Question 8

Lebensborn program?

Answer 8

Started in 1936 where selected men from the SS were encouraged to mate with as many different “racially pure” young women as possible - many from the Bund Deutschland Mädel ; it had its own hospitals, clinics and homes for the children born - they were then adopted by fit Germans who had trouble conceiving. Once they took over more Lebensraum - they took these fit children and put them into homes in lands they had taken over

Question 9

BDM

Answer 9

League of German girls - the older female Nazi youth group

Aim was to mate with SS to produce Aryan breed (blonde-haired, blue-eyed etc)

Question 10

Impact of Nazi Policies

Answer 10

Large number of women - especially married women, lost their jobs ; single women too were excluded from the professions but had domestic/Secretary work
Teachers, who belonged to the largest female professional group, could only work at the lowest level in schools ; had to teach primary school children and civil servants had to work in a women’s section of the government offices in which they worked

Question 11

Nazi social policies impact?

Answer 11

Women who were considered racially suitable and wanted to be wives and mothers found that they had a much higher level of status + health care ; mothers of soldiers who had died or were on active service were also given a lot of support and honoured on Mother’s Day (national holiday)
Local youth groups brought them together for teas etc

Question 12

Expectations of mothers

Answer 12

Meant there was a level of state policing as well as care - mothers were expected to eat well, get enough exercise, not smoke etc ; expected to be a good and faithful wife - these organisations were used to monitor mothers to make sure they kept to these standards

Question 13

Policies discouraging women from work

Answer 13

30th June 1933 - all married women in civil service with wage earning husbands were dismissed
1936 - women excluded from working in the law, except administrative posts

Question 14

Impact of WW2 on Women

Answer 14

Same as in WW1 - war out extra pressure on production and as more men were conscripted, it meant a shift in the attitudes towards women working (has to create a command economy) ; women were urged to join work even if they were married and more childcare was provided
NSV (national socialists people welfare) had 31000 kindergartens and crèches by the end of 1942

Question 15

Difference between employment levels between first and Second World War

Answer 15

Far less than in WW1 where it was a 76% increase between 1913 and 1918 ; the total number of women in the workforce went up by 27% between 1933 and 1939 and just 2% during the war years ; in Britain there was a 50% increase

Question 16

Why was the increase so low for the Nazis?

Answer 16

Nazi propaganda machine had done its job very well and many women were reluctant to work and many organisations were reluctant to have them - telling volunteers who had children to go back (brainwashed)
Government did not use women in all kinds of work - replaced male teachers or work on land instead of mines/heavy industry (where it was arguably needed more and where work was being done in Britain)
Germany had the use of “foreign Labour” from Lebensraum so their need to mobilise woken was nowhere near as great

Question 17

Sad times for women?

Answer 17

Once war came closer to home - retaliation for the blitz - 1940 Germany bombed extensively
Living without electricity or water or every s roof
Food and essential supplies were patchy - even substitutes like soap (made from fish oil) were scarce

Question 18

Was there a twist at the end?

Answer 18

From October 1940 - women were allowed to join the armed forces in womens auxiliary services doing clerical and support jobs to free up men to fight # members of BDM had to serve in the forces for 6 months
By 1941 - not enough women so Nazis introduced compulsory military service for women between ages of 18 to 40 ; this law was not rigorously enforced (some could be excused for “I’ll health” and so by 1944, shortage of men so severe that women were being trained to operate anti-aircraft guns and were sent to worm in signal stations close to the front