KQ4 - Social policies

• Under the Law for the Re-establishment of a Professional Civil Service (1933), a number of teachers were dismissed on the grounds of political unreliability or because they were Jewish.
• Teachers were pressurised into joining the National Socialist Teachers' League (NSLB), but most teachers were willing to comply with the regime's demands.
• Vetting of textbooks was undertaken by local Nazi committees after 1933.
• Political indoctrination permeated every area of the school curriculum, with the aim to promote 'racial health' leading to an increasing emphasis on physical education.
• Military-style drills became a feature of Physical Education lessons.
• Geography was used to develop awareness of the concepts of Lebensraum (living space), blood and soil and German racial superiority.
• Between 1933 and 1939, the number of students attending university decreased due to the Nazis' emphasis on physical education and political indoctrination.
• Women were restricted to 10 per cent of the available university places, while Jews were restricted to 1.5 per cent, their proportion within the population as a whole.
• Under the Law for the Re-establishment of a Professional Civil Service, about 1200 university staff were dismissed on racial or political grounds, amounting to around 15 per cent of the total.
• In November 1933, all university teachers were made to sign a 'Declaration in support of Hitler and the National Socialist State®.
• Students had to join the German Students' League (DS), although some 25 per cent managed to avoid doing this.
• Students were also forced to do four months' labour service and two months in an SA camp.
• Labour service would give students experience of real life, considered by the Nazis to be more important than academic learning.
• Hitter Youth was created in 1926 and initially had little success.
• When the Nazis came to power in 1933, all other youth organisations, except those linked to the Catholic Church, were either banned or taken over by the Hitler Youth.
• In 1936, a Law for the Incorporation of German Youth gave the Hitler Youth the status of an official education movement, equal in status to schools and the home.
• The Hitler Youth became the only officially permitted youth organisation after Catholic youth organisations were banned in 1936.
• Membership of the Hitler Youth was made compulsory in 1939.
• The opportunity to participate in sports and camping trips away from home made the organisation attractive to millions of German boys, many of whom grew up in the 1930s with no experience of any other system.
• By the late 1930s, however, as the organisation became more bureaucratic and rigid, there were signs that enthusiasm was beginning to wane.
• There were reports of poor attendance at weekly parades.
• Boys resented the harsh punishments imposed for minor infringements of the rules.
• League of German Girls, was the female equivalent of the Hitler Youth
• Its motto - 'Be faithful, be pure, be German' - was part of a process of preparing girls for their future role as housewives and mothers in the Volksgemeinschaft
• Membership became compulsory in 1939.
• In the BDM, girls were taught that they had a duty to be healthy since their bodies belonged to the nation
• Girls needed to be fit for their future role as child bearers
• Formation dancing and group gymnastics served the dual purpose of raising fitness and developing comradeship
• Annual summer camps were highly structured, every minute being taken up with sports, physical exercise and route marches, as well as indoctrination, flag-waving and saluting
• In the Faith and Beauty groups, young women were instructed in baby care and social skills such as ballroom dancing.
• From 1934, girls were expected to do a years work on the land or in domestic service.
• The aim of this scheme was to put girls in touch with their peasant roots and give them practical experience in child care.
• The scheme was very unpopular with girls from the cities and many tried to avoid it.
• In 1939, this scheme was made compulsory for all young women up to the age of 25.
• All young women up to the age of 25 had to do a year's unpaid work with the Reich Labour Service before they could get paid employment.
• • Marriage loans were introduced for women who left work and married an Aryan man. For each child born, the amount of the loan that had to be repaid was reduced by a quarter.
  • The Nazis awarded medals to women for donating a baby to the Führer.Those with four or five children received a bronze medal, six or seven qualified for silver, and eight for gold.
  • Birth control was discouraged. Abortion was severely restricted.
  • Women were encouraged to adopt a healthy lifestyle, with plenty of exercisE
• The German Women's League (DFW) was set up in 1933 to coordinate all women's groups under Nazi control. It had a domestic science department, which gave advice to women on cooking and healthy eating. By 1939, the DFW had over 6 million members, seventy per cent of whom were not members of the Nazi Party.
• The National Socialist Women's Organisation (NS-F) was an elite organisation to promote the nation's lovelife, marriage, the family, blood and race? It was primarily an organisation for propaganda and indoctrination among women to promote the Nazi ideology that women should be child-rearers and homemakers.
• The Reich Mother's Service (RMD) was a branch of the DFW for training physically and mentally able mothers, to make them convinced of the important duties of motherhood, experienced in the care and education of their children and competent to carry out their domestic tasks. By March 1939, 1.7 million women had attended its motherhood training services.
• German Labour Front, was established on 6 May 1933, under the leadership of Robert Ley, to coordinate workers into the National Socialist regime. The DAF took over the assets of the banned trade unions and became the largest organisation in the Third Reich. Although membership of the DAF was not compulsory, its membership grew rapidly since it was the only officially recognised organisation representing workers.