Social

• Social opposition

  • Before, Political prisoners in German Judicial System could have fair trials & be let off lightly. People’s court (1934), Judges had to appeal to Nazi ideology, so political crimes were punished harshly to appease Hitler
  • Before, Religion had a sig following & disliked Hitler making himself appear God-like. Signed the concordat (1933) to limit Catholic opposition & banded w/ Protestants to create Reich church in  1936
• Mother and children programmes

  Creches and kindergartens

  End of 1938- 10,800 of these

  Nazis saw this as 1st chance to influence children’s upbringing

  Early indoctrination
• Housing

  1939- NSV had 1 mil+ voluntary workers & 500,000 blockwardens responsible for 30-60 households

  Control over peoples housing (and subsequently privacy), every aspect of personal life
• Winter Aid programme

  Distributes food & clothing parcels, running soup kitchens/emergency centres

  2 mil RM donated (some by Nazi headquarters)

  Hitler made speeches urging people to contribute, so wasn’t entirely Nazi controlled
• Blockwarden

  • Often in SA uniform asking for donations

  Some factories took ‘voluntary’ donations from wages

  Hard to refuse contributing due to intimidation
• Summary of National Socialist People's Welfare/NSV (1933)

  Divided the needy into those who ‘deserved’ help and those who didn’t

  Aims were to create a healthy nation, not to care for welfare & individuals

  Many viewed NSV officers & volunteers as Nazi snoopers who hoped to catch people breaking regulations e.g., listening to foreign radio
• 1931- SS Marriage order, members only marry Aryan women (amended in -36, SS men (married or not) have 4 children/Aryan woman

  • encouraged eugenics
• 1933- All married women in civil service w/wage-earning husband dismissed, & wages of rest lowered

  • restricted women economically
• 1933- Law to reduce unemployment (interest free marriage loan to Aryans- each child reduced loan by 25%)

  • encouraged eugenics & celebrated motherhood
• 1933- Law for the prevention of offspring with hereditary diseases (sterilize those w/mental/physical disabilities, extended to w w/illegitimate children, alcoholics & secretly to radial ‘undesirability’

  • encouraged eugenics
• 1935- Law for the protection of hereditary health of the German people (fitness-to-marry certificate to prove neither couple is genetically/racially ‘impure’

  • encouraged eugenics
• 1936- Women excluded in law, except in admin posts

  • restricted women economically
• 1936- Mothers cross introduced (awarded on mother’s day)

  • celebrated motherhood
• 1937- Increasing war goods production, women can work & still get marriage loan

  • restricted women economically
• 1937- Marriage law extends grounds for divorce including infertility, abortion & refusing to have baby

  • celebrated motherhood
• Reichstag


  German parliament
• Work & Politics

  1. Reichstag emptied of women

  2. Women had own organisation (NSF)

  3. German Workers Enterprise - wide-based movement organising activities for non-party members
• Lebensborn programme

  1936 programme that selected Nazi members (usually SS) and encouraged them to mate with as many 'racially pure' women, many from BDM
• Marriage loans

  Given as encouragement for 'racially pure' couples to breed
• Eugenics

  Nazis believed in Darwin + Galton, encouraged 'pure' German couples to breed
• Loans


  Only given if couple had license saying they're fit and racially acceptable
• Motherhood

  1. Help with school fees & transport fares provided for 'suitable' families

  2. Suitable poor families given up to RM100 for each child

  3. Lebensborn had own hospitals & clinics
• Childcare

  1. Homes for children born on Lebensborn programme, then adopted by 'fit' Germans having trouble conceiving

  2. Once 3rd Reich started expanding, took 'suitable' children from families in other lands & put them into homes
• Impact of Nazi policies on women

  1. Married women lost their jobs

  2. Could only earn through spouses & marriage loans

  3. Had time for children & housework

  4. Women teaching secondary had to teach primary school children

  5. Seen as more motherly with younger children

  6. Viewed as less powerful & intelligent

  7. Civil servants had to work in a women's section

  8. More isolated at work surrounded by other women

  9. Wives and mothers found higher status & level of healthcare

  10. More convinced to conceive as it's safe, healthy and rewarded

  11. Mothers of soldiers who died in active service given more support & rewarded

  12. Mother's day was made a national holiday

  13. Celebrated motherhood
• Contrast to women in Weimar Germany

  -Single women still found work-> usually domestic work, retail, or as secretaries (similar to Weimar Germany)

  -Highly skilled doctors expected to work in ‘suitable’ jobs such as in maternity clinics-> limited in the profession

  -Mothers expected to eat well, be fit and not smoke-> opposite of the ‘new woman’

  -Organisation to monitor mothers to Nazi standards-> women cared for more but also under more control
• WWII impact on women

  • Vacuum left by serving men meant women allowed to return to their jobs (More responsibility)
  • Women (even married) urged to join war work, more childcare provided (end of 1942- NSV had 31,000 kindergartens) (More responsibility & more control)
  • Women refused to work despite Nazi calls. In WWI, 76% increase in f employment, but only 2% in 1939
  • After 1940, women had to cope with bombing in response to Blitz, & living w/o electricity, water or a roof. Food & essential supplies= patchy (More responsibility)
  • Oct 1940- women allowed to join armed forces doing clerical/support jobs (BDM had to serve for 6 months.1941- compulsory military service introduced, & 1944- women trained to operate anti-aircraft guns & work in signal stations close to frontline (More control)
• Nazi control of education- censorship

  • textbooks censored/burned/mutilated, booklets printed for new areas (e.g. race purity
  • 1935- central directors censored education & all subjects
  • 1935- all textbooks had to be approved
• Nazi control of education- outside schools

  • Boys= Little folk (6-10), Youngsters (10-14), Hitler Youth (14-18)
  • Girls= Young Girls (6-10), BDM (14-17), Faith and Beauty (17-20)
  • 1933- Nazi Youth movement with separate groups set up
  • expected to report teachers/family opposing Nazi teachings
• Nazi control of education- Nazi view of children

  • Schools= place to indoctrinate children
  • Valuable resources to educate becoming Nazis
  • Way to report those opposing Nazi teachings
• Nazi control of education- actions on state schools

  • structure stayed in place
• Nazi control of education- actions on fee-paying schools

  • private primary education abolished, but secondary and university remained (Only for 'pure' Germans)
• Nazi control of education- Nazi mandates for all students

  • Taught eugenics
  • had to join Nazi Student Union
• Nazi control of education- NSLB

  1929- National Socialist Teachers League set up

  1933- 6,000 members
• Nazi control of education- Teachers

  • undesirable teachers purged (1933), 1937- 97% joined NSLB
  • 1935- Nazi control appointments
  • Less respect- 8,000 vacancies by 1938
  • Courses had to absorb ideas expected to be taught
• Nazi control of education- Focuses of curriculum

  • indoctrinate children into eugenics & racial purity
  • Physical fitness (for fighting & childbirth)- 15% curriculum, 1936- 2 hours a day
  • History- Volksgemeinshaft, Biology- eugenics, Maths- houses for disabled
  • Taught loyalty to Hitler & Germany
  • Anti-intellectual (no respected for teachers by admin/pupils)
• Nazi control of education- outcomes for boys and girls

  • Boys- NAPOLAS opened (1933) trained elite group as government administrators
  • Significant increase in amount of sport for both sexes
• Nazi actions on culture

  • Destroyed Jewish books, Art, music & theatre by ‘undesirables’ censored
  • May 1933-Nazis organised mass burnings of 25,000 ‘unsound’ books (also held by towns), Expressionism censored, Intellectual (e.g. philosophy works) censored
  • Censored Helen Keller works (deaf-blind & championed right to the disabled)
  • All Quiet on the Western Front banned (anti-war), any books w/ ‘unacceptable’ message burned
• Nazi methods to push culture- art

  • Censorship- 1933, RKK set up to control all creative arts
  • Propaganda- Strength through Joy trips to cultural places, idealised simple rural farmer, showed art at factories, 1937- degenerate art shown to educate on art to despise, acceptable= nationalist realistic art
• Nazi methods to push culture- buildings

  • Inspiration- grandiose Greco-Roman design, yearly rallies (1933-8), Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg
  • Intended impact- Olympics (stadium held 10,000+ & Hitler on special stand), create work and impression 3rd Reich is powerful and established, enormous flags with swastikas
• Nazi methods to push culture- holidays

  • Aim- festivals for important Nazi dates, rewrite Nazi history and success
  • Examples- Large cities, parades increasingly military after 1935 (soldiers, tanks, armoured vehicles), Parades (people expected to cheer) ended in propagandist speeches, mother's day (for Hitler's mum)