Women

• The place of women

  • In the 1920s, before the Nazis took over Germany, women had many rights and freedoms that women in other countries did not have
  • For example, they had the right to vote and if they worked for the government, their pay was equal to men's.
  • Many women attended university and became lawyers and doctors
  • However, the Nazis had very different views about the role of women
  • They were worried about the declining number of births in Germany during the Weimar period, which was a result of career-driven women having fewer children
  • In 1900 there had been over two million births per year but this had dropped to under one million by 1933
  • The Nazis felt that a low birth rate and lower population didn't fit with their plans to expand Germany's territory and settle Germans in other areas of Europe
• A woman's duty

  • Nazis felt it was a woman's patriotic duty to stay at home, have lots of children and support their husbands
  • Hitler even said women should stick to the three Ks - Kinder, Kirche and Kuche (children, church and cooking)
  • Women were not seen as equal to men
  • Within months of Hitler coming to power, many female doctors, teachers, lawyers and judges were sacked
  • Getting a job was discouraged, as it might get in the way of producing children
  • Women were even banned from jury service because the Nazis said they were unable to think without emotion
• Controlling women

  • The Nazis tried to interfere in other aspects of women's lives
  • In many cities, women were banned from smoking because it was 'unladylike'
  • Wearing trousers or high heels was also discouraged for the same reason
• Women and birth

  • The only thing that women were actively encouraged to do was to have children
  • Loans were given out to newly married couples (the equivalent of a year's wages) to encourage them to have children
  • On the birth of a first child, they would keep a quarter of the money
  • On the birth of another, they could keep the second quarter, and so on
  • The Nazis banned contraception and abortion too
  • Even slimming was discouraged because it was not thought to be good for getting pregnant
  • Every year, on 12 August (the birthday of Hitler's mother), the Motherhood Medal was rewarded to women who had the most children
  • Mothers with eight children received the 'Gold Cross'
  • The Nazis also set up the Lebensborn movement as an attempt to increase the birth rate
  • An estimated 8,000 children were born in Germany as a result of this
• Women's organisations

  • The Nazis promoted their views on women through the organisations they set up
  • The German Women's League coordinated all adult women's groups in the country, and representatives travelled around giving advice on cooking, childcare and healthy eating
  • By March 1939, 1.7 million women had attended one of its motherhood training courses
  • Another group, The Nazi Women's Organisation, was set up to develop an elite female group dedicated to Nazi beliefs and ideas
• Were the Nazi birth policies a success?

  • The birth rate in Germany did increase
  • There were around 970,000 babies born in Germany in 1933 - and this had risen to 1.413 million by 1939
  • Yet despite what the Nazis said about a woman's role and her place in the workplace, the reality was different
  • The Nazis needed women back at work because more men were joining the army, and workers were needed to run factories
  • As more men were killed after the Second World War began in 1939, it became vital for thousands of women to take on the role of main wage earner and mother
  • Unlike Britain however, women were still not called up to work