Life for women

• Gleischaltung


  Bringing into line or creating control and conformity
• The Nazis used social policies to make sure that all parts of society supported the Third Reich
• Ideal Nazi woman


  • Aryan, with blonde hair and blue eyes
  • Traditional, with no make-up, hair in plaits, flat shoes, and plain clothes
• Women's role in German society (Nazi view)


  Look after the home and bear children for the Third Reich
• Attitudes to women shaped by the three 'K's

  • Kinder (children)
  • Küche (Kitchen)
  • Kirche (Church)
• Law for the Encouragement of Marriage

  Gave married couples a loan of 1,000 marks
• The number of marriages did increase, but this may have been due to wider improvements to the economy rather than just the marriage loans
• Pro-natalist policy


  Nazis wanted women to have lots of children to increase the Aryan race
• Motherhood Cross


  Incentive to have children: bronze for 4, silver for 6, gold for 8
• The birth rate did increase from 15 babies per 1,000 in 1932 to 19 babies per 1,000 in 1938, but it is difficult to tell how much of this was down to the Nazis
• Women discouraged from working


  • From 1933, women banned from having professional jobs
  • Propaganda stressed that women were not to steal jobs from men
• Despite this policy, female employment rose by 2.4 million between 1933 and 1939 as women were cheap labourers
• German Women's Enterprise (DFW)


  Ran classes and radio shows to teach women how to run their home
• From 1937, girls in grammar schools were forbidden to prepare for university
• Women were expected to be full-time mothers and housewives, but many found it difficult to balance this role with their other responsibilities.
• The Nazis believed that the family was the foundation of society, so they encouraged people to have more children.
• In 1934, Hitler introduced the Law for the Encouragement of Marriage, which gave tax breaks to married couples with four or more children.