Nazi Germany 1933 - 1939 Flashcards
To learn about this era
What was the Nazi policy towards women?
In Weimar Germany, there had been new opportunities for women. They experimented with their appearances, some took jobs and women were treated as equal citizens within the constitution, having the right to vote. However, there is debate about how many women experienced these changes. Life had altered in some ways, with some greater freedoms acquired but some women had experienced very little change. The Nazis had clear ideas of what they wanted from women. They were expected to stay at home, look after the family and produce children in order to secure the future of the Aryan race – the traditional role of the woman that had existed before the 1920s.
Hitler believed women’s lives should revolve round the three ‘Ks’:
Kinder, (Children) Kuche (Kitchen) Kirche (Church)
How did the Nazi party achieve their policy towards women?
Marriage and family
Hitler wanted a high birth rate so that the Aryan population would grow. He tried to achieve this by:
introducing the Law for the Encouragement of Marriage which gave newlywed couples a loan of 1,000 marks, and allowed them to keep 250 marks for each child they had
giving an award called the Mother’s Cross to women who had large numbers of children
allowing women to volunteer to have a baby for an Aryan member of the SS
Employment
Measures were introduced which strongly discouraged women from working, including:
the introduction of the Law for the Reduction of Unemployment, which gave women financial incentives to stay at home
not conscripting women to help in the war effort until 1943
However, female labour was cheap and between 1933 and 1939 the number of women in employment actually rose by 2.4 million. As the German economy grew, women were needed in the workplace.
Appearance
Women were expected to emulate traditional German peasant fashions - plain peasant costumes, hair in plaits or buns and flat shoes. They were not expected to wear make-up or trousers, dye their hair or smoke in public. They were discouraged from staying slim, because it was thought that thin women had trouble giving birth.
What was the Nazis policies towards the young?
Young people were very important to Hitler and the Nazis. Hitler spoke of his Third Reich lasting for a thousand years and to achieve this he would have to ensure German children were thoroughly indoctrinated into Nazi ideology.
To this end, from the age of 10 boys and girls were encouraged to join the Nazis’ youth organisation, the Hitler Youth (the girls’ wing of which was called the League of German Maidens). Membership from age 10 was made compulsory in 1936 and by 1939 90 per cent of German boys aged 14 and over were members.
The Hitler Youth
The League of German Maidens
Its aim was to prepare German boys to be future soldiers
Its aim was to prepare German girls for future motherhood
Boys wore military-style uniforms
Girls wore a uniform of blue skirt, white blouse and and heavy marching shoes
Activities centred on physical exercise and rifle practice, as well as political indoctrination
Girls undertook physical exercise, but activities mainly centred on developing domestic skills such as sewing and cooking
Nazi control of the young through education
As well as influencing the beliefs of young Germans through the Hitler Youth, schools indoctrinated young people into the political and racial ideas of Nazism.
All teachers had to join the Nazi Teachers’ Association, which vetted them for political and racial suitability.
The curriculum was altered to reflect Nazi ideology and priorities:
History - lessons included a course on the rise of the Nazi Party.
Biology - lessons were used to teach Nazi racial theories of evolution in eugenics.
Race study and ideology - this became a new subject, dealing with the Aryan ideas and anti-Semitism.
Physical Education - German schoolchildren had five one-hour sports lessons every week.
Chemistry and Mathematics - were downgraded in importance.
Again, the aim was to brainwash children so that they would grow up accepting Nazi ideas without question.
Describe employment and living standards in Nazi Germany
The Nazis promised to stop the suffering many Germans had felt since the end of World War One and make the economy strong again. Unemployment would disappear and Germany would become an autarky – though neither of these things truly happened.
How Hitler increased employment
He began a huge programme of public works, which included building hospitals, schools, and public buildings such as the 1936 Olympic Stadium. The construction of the autobahns created work for 80,000 men.
Rearmament was responsible for the bulk of economic growth between 1933 and 1938. Rearmament started almost as soon as Hitler came to power but was announced publicly in 1935. This created millions of jobs for German workers.
The introduction of the National Labour Service (NLS) meant all young men spent six months in the NLS and were then conscripted into the army. They were no longer counted in the unemployment figures.
Invisible employment
Although Germany claimed to have full employment by 1939, many groups of people were not included in the statistics, including:
The 1.4 million men in the army at this time. There were also a number of men working on public works schemes.
Jews who were sacked and their jobs given to non-Jews.
Women who were encouraged to give up their jobs to men.
Autarky
Hitler wanted Germany to become an autarky – to produce everything that it needed. Certain materials like rubber were needed more as Germany geared up for war, and it was hoped that inventions would mean that this product could be produced synthetically (man-made) instead of needing to try and get it by trading. In 1937, Hermann Göring was made Economics Minister with the job of making Germany self-sufficient in four years. However, the measures he introduced, such as tighter controls on imports and subsidies for farmers to produce more food, were not successful. By the outbreak of World War Two Germany was still importing 20 per cent of its food and 33 per cent of its raw materials.
Changes in the standard of living
Despite the loss of freedom, life improved in Germany for many ordinary people who were prepared to conform and look the other way.
Nazi economic policies had different effects on different groups in society:
Big businesses - When trying to get into power, the Nazis had promised to tackle monopolies – the tendency of one company to hold all the interests in one area of business and dominate the market. By 1937 monopolies controlled over 70 per cent of production and the Nazis had links to major companies such as Krupp steel and IG Farben (which produced chemicals). Both of these areas would be important for rearmament, and from 1935 onwards major industrial companies definitely benefited. Profits rose by 50 per cent between 1933 and 1939.
Small business - Rules on opening and running small businesses were tightened, which resulted in 20 per cent of them closing.
Farmers - Having been one of the main sources of their electoral support during their rise to power, farmers benefitted under the Nazis. The Hereditary Farm Law of 1933 prevented farms from being repossessed from their owners, which gave farming families greater security. By 1937, agricultural prices had increased by 20 per cent and agricultural wages rose more quickly than those in industry. However, historians do disagree somewhat about the levels to which life in rural regions improved under the Nazis – not all of their promises were met.
Industrial workers
Pre-1933 the Nazis had lacked support amongst the workers, who tended to vote for the communists or the Social Democratic Party. However, given the needs of rearmament it was important that the workers were controlled and productive. To this end, the Nazis set up three organisations for workers:
The Labour Front. This was a Nazi organisation that replaced Trades Unions, which were banned. It set wages and nearly always followed the wishes of employers, rather than employees.
Strength Through Joy. This scheme gave workers rewards for their work - evening classes, theatre trips, picnics, and even very cheap or free holidays.
Beauty of Labour. The job of this organisation was to help Germans see that work was good, and that everyone who could work should. It also encouraged factory owners to improve conditions for workers.
Those working in the rearmament industries aside, living standards did not really improve for German workers under the Nazis. From 1933 to 1939 wages fell, the number of hours worked rose by 15 per cent, serious accidents in factories increased and workers could be blacklisted by employers if they attempted to question their working conditions.
Describe the persecution of the minorities.
Hitler and the Nazis had firm views on race. They believed that certain groups were inferior and were a threat to the purity of the Aryan race. There were many groups who were targeted for persecution, including Slavs (Eastern Europeans), gypsies, homosexuals and the disabled - but none more so than the Jews.
Nazi racial beliefs
The Nazis’ racial philosophy taught that Aryans were the master race and that some races were ‘untermensch’ (sub-human). Many Nazi scientists at this time believed in eugenics, the idea that people with disabilities or social problems were degenerates whose genes needed to be eliminated from the human bloodline. The Nazis pursued eugenics policies vigorously.
Policy of persecution
Sterilisation - In order to keep the Aryan race pure, many groups were prevented from reproducing. The mentally and physically disabled, including the deaf, were sterilised, as were people with hereditary diseases.
Euthanasia - Between 1939 and 1941 over 100,000 physically and mentally disabled Germans were killed in secret, without the consent of their families. Victims were often gassed - a technique that was later used in the death camps of the Holocaust.
Concentration camps - Homosexuals, prostitutes, Jehovah’s Witnesses, gypsies, alcoholics, pacifists, beggars, hooligans and criminals were often rounded up and sent away to camps. During World War Two 85 per cent of Germany’s gypsies died in these camps.
The Nazis’ persecution of the Jews
The group most heavily targeted for persecution by the Nazis were the Jews of Germany. The outbreak of World War Two brought the horror of mass killings and the Final Solution, but the period 1933 saw a gradual increase in persecution, reaching a turning point during Kristallnacht in November 1938:
1933
Nazis organised a boycott of Jewish businesses.
Books by Jewish authors were publicly burnt.
Jewish civil servants, lawyers and teachers were sacked.
Race science lessons were introduced, teaching that Jews were sub-human.
1935
The Nuremberg Laws formalised anti-Semitism into the Nazi state by:
Stripping Jews of German citizenship.
Outlawing marriage and sexual relations between Jews and Germans.
Taking away from Jews all civil and political rights.
1938
Jews could not be doctors.
Jews had to add the name Israel (men) or Sarah (women) to their name.
Jewish children were forbidden to go to school.
Kristallnacht - 9 November. The SS organised attacks on Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues in retaliation for the assassination of the German ambassador to France by a Jew.
Many Jews saw the events of Kristallnacht as a turning point. Up until then there had been a progressive erosion of their rights but Jews had not been physically threatened or attacked. When their businesses and homes were destroyed and their synagogues were burnt down, many concluded that their time in Germany was up. Those who were able to fled and a scheme to evacuate Jewish children to Britain, called the Kindertransport, began.
1939
Jews were forbidden to own a business, or even a radio
By the outbreak of World War Two in September 1939, the Jews were stateless, their employment options in Germany were severely restricted and they feared for their safety.
