Nazi policies towards women

Question 1

Women, marriage and the family - The Law for the Encouragement of Marriage, 1933

Answer 1

Loans were provided to encourage young couples to marry. Also encouraged wives to stay at home and bring up children, since loans were only available if the wife stopped work. Encouraged childbirth - for each child born, 1/4 of the loan was written off.

Question 2

Women, marriage and the family - Divorce laws

Answer 2

If a wife would not (or could not) have children, this could be used as grounds for divorce by the husband.

Question 3

Women, marriage and the family - The Mother’s Cross

Answer 3

Encouraged childbirth - award (medals) given to women for the number of children they had. Hitler Youth were ordered to salute wearers of gold medals.

Question 4

Women, marriage and the family - Lebensborn (Fountain of Life)

Answer 4

Encouraged childbirth - provided nurseries to women who had children with SS men.

Question 5

Women and employment

Answer 5

Propaganda - posters showed women as wives and mothers, Nazi speeches encouraged women to leave work and become housewives
Policies - women were banned from professional posts (teachers, doctors, civil servants, judges, lawyers), schoolgirls were trained for motherhood/housework (ironing, cooking), grammar schools preparing women for higher education (universities) were banned.

Question 6

The appearance of women in Nazi Germany

Answer 6

Women were encouraged to wear modest clothes, with their hair tied back. They were discouraged from dyeing their hair or wearing makeup.

Question 7

How effective were Nazi policies towards women?

Answer 7

Mixed success - fewer women went to university, birth rate increased, unemployment amongst German men fell, but many women didn’t support Nazi ideas about womanhood.
These changes were minor/temporary - by the end of 1930s, German industry was expanding so fast that women were needed

Question 8

Nazi Policies towards women

Answer 8

1934 - Nazis appointed a Reich Women’s Leader, Gertrud Scholotz-Klink, to oversee all policies relating to women.
She insisted that all women’s organisations be forced to merge with a new Nazi organisation for women, called the German Women’s Enterprise (DFW).