Women in Nazi Germany

Question 1

What did Hitler believe about the family structure?

Answer 1

It should be a traditional one: Men to be in charge and go to work; women to stay at home and nurture the family

Question 2

What did Hitler mean by the “natural order”?

Answer 2

Men at work; women at home with the kids.

Question 3

How did Hitler want to use families?

Answer 3

• To increase the population size
• To ensure the population was pure Aryan

Question 4

Hitler thought women’s lives should revolve around the three ‘Ks’. What were they?

Answer 4

Kinder, Kuche, Kirche

(Children, Kitchen, Church)

Question 5

What was a woman’s primary responsibility?

Answer 5

To have children

Question 6

Why did Hitler want women to stay at home?

Answer 6

1) so they could focus on having more Aryan children
2) he needed their jobs for unemployed men

Question 7

How did Hitler discourage young women from working?

Answer 7

At school, their training was how to be a housewife

Question 8

Between 1900 and 1933, what had been happening to birth rates?

Answer 8

They had been falling because more women had been seeking careers

Question 9

How did the Nazis encourage marriage?

Answer 9

Marriage loans of 1000 marks, and they were allowed to keep 250 marks for each child they had.

Question 10

How did the Nazis reward women for having children?

Answer 10

With the Motherhood Cross

bronze - 5 children
silver - 6 children
gold - 8 children

Question 11

How did the Nazis support working families?

Answer 11

They introduced weekly welfare payments that increased for each child

Question 12

Who provided classes for mothers in home-craft and parenting?

Answer 12

A Nazi organisation called the German Women’s Enterprise

Question 13

What was the Lebensborn programme?

Answer 13

Some unmarried Aryan women were selected to sleep with SS men to try and create pure Aryan children

Question 14

Approximately how many children were born through the Lebensborn programme?

Answer 14

Approximately 20,000

Question 15

What happened to birth rates during the period 1933-39?

Answer 15

They increased from 15 per 1000 to 20 per 1000.

There was also an increase in children outside marriage

Question 16

How were women expected to dress?

Answer 16

In a simple, peasant style: plain clothes, flat shoes, their hair in a bun.

There were not allowed make-up, to wear trousers or short skirts.

Question 17

Why was dieting discouraged?

Answer 17

Because it was thought thin women would have trouble giving birth

Question 18

When did the Nazis have to begin to change their policies towards women?

Answer 18

1937 (if you forget this, in an exam write: ‘in the late 1930s’)

Question 19

Why did the Nazis have to perform a u-turn on women?

Answer 19

The demands of industry - especially rearmament industries - could not be met by just men

Question 20

What was ‘the duty year’?

Answer 20

From the late 1930s, women were forced to do a compulsory year of work - normally on a farm or in a family home.

Question 21

When offered the chance, why did so few women rush back to work?

Answer 21

They were not attracted by the low wages and poor working conditions

Question 22

By the outbreak of the war, why was the Nazis’ policy towards women very confusing?

Answer 22

It wanted women both to work in factories etc. AND have children to increase the birth rate

Question 23

Although women were not allowed to join the German army, they were allowed to be auxiliaries (support) to the German armed forces. How many women were doing this work by 1945?

Answer 23

By 1945 there were nearly 500,000 female auxiliaries in the German armed forces

Question 24

What did the Nazis make it difficult to obtain in Germany?

Answer 24

contraception

Question 25

What was illegal from 1933?

Answer 25

Abortions - although later this was changed if mothers had a ‘defect’

Question 26

When famous actor, Marlene Dietrich, was pictured wearing trousers, what did a Nazi newspaper headline say?

Answer 26

“No true German woman wears trousers”

Question 27

What was the Marriage Law of 1938

Answer 27

A law that made divorce easier

e.g. if a man already had 4 children with a woman, he could divorce and re-marry so he could have more children with a new woman

Question 28

Where women allowed to be members of the Reichstag?

Answer 28

No

Question 29

How many female civil servants were sacked in 1933?

Answer 29

19,000

Question 30

Did Hitler’s policies win him support among women?

Answer 30

From many, especially in the working class, yes: they had disapproved of the moral decline of the 1920s and liked the Nazis’ stricter standards