Women in Nazi Germany

• All Nazi leaders were men and they were a very male-dominated organisation
• Hitler had a traditional view of the role of the German wife as wife and mother

  • many women agreed with him
• In traditional rural areas and small towns, many women felt that the proper role of a woman was to support her husband
• There was a resentment towards working women in the early 1930s since they were seen as keeping men out of jobs

  • created a lot of pressure for women to conform to the Nazi’s ‘traditional balance’ between men and women
  • ‘No true german women wears trousers in public” said a Nazi newspaper headline when the film star Marlene Dietrich appeared wearing trousers in public
• Alarmed at the falling birth rate, Hitler offered financial incentives for married couples to have at least four children

  • get a ‘gold cross’ for having eight children and given a privilegeed seat at Nazi meetings
• Posters, radio broadcasts and newsreels celebrated the idea of motherhood and homebuilding

  • German Maidens’ League reinforced these ideas, focusing on good physica health and househeekping skills
  • Reinforced at school
• With all these encouragements, the birth rate did increase from 15 per thousand in 1933 to 20 per thousand in 1939

  • an increase in pregnancies outside marriage
  • girls were looked after in state maternity hostels
• There were some prominent women in Nazi Germany

  • Leni Riefenstahl - a high-profile film producer
  • Gertrude Scholz-Klink - head of the Nazi Women’s Bureau but was excluded from important discussions e.g. the one to conscript female labour in 1942
• Many working-class girls and women gained the chane to travel and meet new people through the Nazi Women’s Organisation

  • however, overall, opportunities for women were limited
• Married professional women were forced to give up their jobs and stay at home with their families, which many resented as a restriction on their freedom
• Discrimination against women applicants for jobs were encouraged
• In the late 1930s, the Nazis had to do an about-turn as they suddenly needed more women workers because the supply of unemployed men was dryning up

  • many women had to struggle with both family and work responsibilities
• During the crisis years of 1942-45 when German industry was struggling to cope with the demand for war supplies, Nazi policy on women was still torn between their traditional stereotype of the mother, and the actual needs of the workplace

  • e.g. there was no chance for German women to serve in the armed forces as there was in Allied countries
• Life revolved around the 3 Ks

  • kinder (children)
  • küche (kitchen)
  • kirche (church)
• Hitler said women were “eqaul but different from men”

  • expected women tos tay at home to look after the children and the house as they were to secure the Aryan race
• Promoted importance of a traditional family

  • men in charge
  • women to serve and nurture
  • this was the natural order
• Hitler wanted to use families to increase size of the populatin and to ensure pure Aryans
• Hitler said woman’s role was to be mothers and not to work outside the home
• 2 reaons for making women not work

  • raise aryan children
  • needed jobs for the unemployed
• Law for the Reduction of Unemployment - gave women financial incentives to stay at home

  • Trained girls to be housewives and discouraging them from getting higher education
  • purged civil service and proffesions of the women
  • barred women from being judges in 1936
  • didn’t allow them to do jury service or be Reichstag dputies because Hitler believed they couldn’t think “logically”
• Single women were under pressure to give their jobs to unemployed men

  • allowed to work but pursued “caring” jobs
• Women expected to copy traditional peasant fashions

  • plain clothing
  • flat shoes
  • hair in plaits or buns
  • couldn’t wear makeup, trousers, short skirts, dye or perm their hair, or smoke in public
• Discouraged from staying slim or dieting becuase thin women had trouble giving birth
• Hitler wanted to increase amount of Aryan marriages and raise the birth rate

  • June 1933 - law of encouragement of marriage where money was given to marry and for every they had
• Motherhood cross

  • bronze - 4 children
  • silver - 6 children
  • gold - 8 children
  • could get tax incentives and welfare benefits, cheap theatre tickets, jump queues etc.
• Starting family allowances helped low income families
• Taxed single men and childless families heavily
• 1938 - Marriage law

  • divorce was easier
  • men encouraged to divorce and remarry for more children
• Contraception was difficult to obtain
• 1933 - abortion made illegal

  • later was allowed if the mother had a ‘defect’ that could be passed down
• Used propaganda and peer pressure
• Ensured pure Aryans

  • legalised sterilisations and abortions for those with ‘disabilities’ and were considered ‘undesirables’
  • encouraged women to have babies with Aryan SS men in lebensborn home
  • demanded proof of racial purity before a marriage and could go ahead under a new law in 1935
  • passing law for protection of German Blood & Honour of 1935 - forbade marriages between Aryans and Jews, POCs and Roma