Women, Workers and the Youth in Nazi Germany Flashcards
What was the meaning of Volksgemeinschaft, and what connotations did it have?
- People’s community
- It had racial connotations, so it was actually a community of ‘racially pure’ people
What slogan did the Nazis adopt to show their expectations of the role women had, and why?
- Kinder, Küche, Kirche (Children, Kitchen, Church)
- This slogan had existed pre-Weimar, and so the Nazis showed that they wanted women to return to traditional roles
What did the Nazis want women to do?
- They wanted them to have many ‘pure’ Aryan children
What were 4 expectations the Nazis had of women?
- They expected them to choose the ‘right partner’ to have children with
- They expected them to be responsible consumers (since they did the domestic shopping), which included not buying from Jewish shops
- For them to not be involved in politics
- For them to have a ‘natural’ look
What were 5 policies the Nazis introduced to reduce behaviour that had become common among women in Weimar (particularly New Women)?
- Contraception was severely restricted
- Higher taxes for childless couples
- Abortion was illegal and there were harsh punishments in place
- University enrolment for women limited to 10%
- Punishments for perming hair, and slimming and smoking discouraged
What 3 policies did the Nazis introduce to increase the number of traditional families? When were they introduced?
- 1933
- The Law for the Reduction of Employment; limited women’s employment
- Marriage loan scheme; a quarter of the loan was cancelled after each child born
- Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases; made it possible for those with mental and physical disabilities to be sterilised, secretly extended to include non-German groups
Give 2 examples of how the Law for the Reduction of Unemployment limited women’s employment.
- Top female civil servants and doctors were dismissed
- Female teachers could no longer teach in secondary schools
What 2 laws did the Nazis pass to limit inter-racial marriage? When were they passed?
- 1935
- Marriage Law; couples needed a certificate showing their genetic and racial fitness to be able to get married
- Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour; forbade marriage between Germans and Jews, gypsies and black people
What was the Lebensborn programme? Who created it?
- A programme created by Himmler to increase the number of ‘Aryan’ children born
When was the Lebensborn programme created?
- 1935
Give 3 features of the Lebensborn programme.
- It provided sexual partners from the BDM for the SS (in hopes that these women would then get pregnant)
- It offered adoption services for unmarried Aryan women who would have terminated their pregnancy otherwise, and these children would then be given to ‘suitable’ infertile couples
- During WW2 SS officers were told to abduct children with Aryan features from occupied territories, and they were then ‘Aryanised’ by German foster parents
What was the BDM?
- Bund Deutscher Mädel: the League of German Girls
- It was the older female Nazi youth group
What other group existed for women in Nazi Germany, and what was its purpose?
- The NSF: Nationalist Socialist Women’s Union
- It had been created in 1931 to attract female support for the Nazi Party
What change was made to the Marriage Law, and when?
- Under the change, divorce was made easier to obtain in the cases of infertility, having an abortion or refusing to have a baby
- 1938
What was introduced in 1939 to encourage women to have more children?
- The Mother’s cross was given to women with more than 3 children
- 4-5: bronze
- 6-7: silver
- 8+: gold
When did attitudes towards women working change, and what were 2 reasons why?
- During WW2
- There was more pressure on production
- Men were being conscripted
How did the percentage of women working change in WW2 compared to WW1?
- In WW1, there was an increase of 76% from 1913 to 1918
- For WW2, it went up by 27% between 1933 and 1939, but by just 2% during the war
Give 2 reasons why the percentage of women working during WW2 did not rapidly increase.
- Previous Nazi propaganda had been that effective
- Germany used people from occupied territories (including women) and prisoners of war to replace the men who had been conscripted
What were 2 measures introduced by the government to facilitate women returning to work in WW2?
- There were 31,000 crèches and kindergartens by the end of 1942
- There were paid incentives
What proportion of the Germany’s agricultural and war production workforces were foreign by 1944?
- 1/3