Women in Nazi Germany

Women in Nazi Germany ● Nazi propaganda promoted the importance ● In public, Hitler said women were of a stable, traditional family with the wife/ “equal but different from men”, mother at its heart. but all evidence suggests that he ● The husband was the head of the family believed that women were inferior and his role was to protect his family; the (not as good as). role of the wife was to serve and nurture ● Nazi policy was that women’s lives the family. should revolve around the three ● Hitler said this was “the natural order” but 'Ks' which were: Kinder, Küche, there was another reason why the Nazis Kirche (Children, Kitchen, Church). wanted women to keep having as many ● For this reason, in Nazi Germany, babies as possible. This was…... women were expected to stay at ● Hitler wanted to increase the size of the home, look after the family and Aryan (German) population to justify his produce children in order to secure planned expansion of Germany into the future of the Aryan race. other countries (weaker) countries such as Poland. The Appearance of Women Source A - The front cover of the monthly magazine produced by the Nazis for ● When it came to appearance, women German women. were expected to recreate the traditional German ‘peasant’ style. ● They were told to wear plain clothes, flat shoes and have their hair in plaits or buns. ● They were not supposed to wear makeup, trousers or short skirts, or dye or perm their hair and they were not to smoke in public. ● They were discouraged from staying slim or dieting, because it was thought that thin women had more trouble giving birth. Nazi Policies about Women and Employment Hitler said a woman’s role was to be a mother. This was for two reasons: 1. He wanted them to raise more Aryan children 2. He wanted to give their jobs to unemployed men Measures which strongly discouraged women from working, including: ● Training girls at school to be housewives and discouraging the idea of them attending university ● Giving women financial incentives to stay at home as part of the Law for the Reduction of Unemployment. ● Sacking all women in the civil service and forbidding the election of female Reichstag deputies (MP) because Hitler did not think they were capable to “think logically or reason objectively” ● Putting single women under pressure to give up their jobs to unemployed men Women were allowed to work but outside the professions and primarily in “caring” jobs, for example nursing and childcare, or low paid jobs in factories and on farms. Also it was assumed they would give up their job when they married. The Impact of Nazi Policies on Female Employment ● The number of women in paid employment dropped between 1933 and 1937; the number of women doing ‘professional’ jobs (doctors, teachers, lawyers, civil servants) fell the most. ● In 1933, 15 % of female teachers lost their jobs and 19,000 female civil servants were sacked; from this time onward only 11% of university places were to be given to women. ● Women who had low paid, unskilled jobs were affected less; it seems the Nazis were happy for these women to remain at work. H ● By 1939, there was a shortage of workers because so many men were involved in O W the armed forces and getting Germany ready for war, so more women were E encouraged back into employment. V ● This led to 50% more women working in industry and many young, single women E R were encouraged to accept badly paid agricultural jobs. However it was still rare for women to be allowed to work in a professional capacity (doctor, lawyer, university professor). The Nazis wanted to Nazi Policies about Marriage and Children increase the amount of Hitler wanted the population of Germany to rise but Aryan marriages and he wanted to make sure that only strong, ‘racially pure’ Aryan children were born. He did this by trying raise the birth rate. to limit the number of ‘less than perfect’ children. These were how he did it: ● legalising sterilisation and abortions if there were hereditary medical complaints in the family. ● passing the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour in 1935, which: a) made marriages between Aryans and Jews, people of colour and gypsies illegal b) demanded proof of racial purity before allowing a marriage to go ahead Nazi Actions to encourage an increase in population ● The Law for the Encouragement of Marriage in June 1933 THE gave all newlyweds a loan of 1,000 marks, and allowed MOTHERHOOD them to keep 250 marks for each child that they had CROSS ● Unmarried women were encouraged to have babies with married Aryan SS men in a special home for unmarried mothers as part of the ‘Lebensborn’ programme ● Women who had a large number of children were rewarded; the Bronze Motherhood Cross was awarded to women who had for 4 healthy children, the Silver for 6 and the Gold for women who gave birth to 8 or more healthy children. If you had a Motherhood Cross you were allowed to jump queues ● The Nazis also rewarded families with 4 or more children financially by measures including the marriage loan, tax incentives and welfare benefits and cheap theatre tickets. Did Hitler’s policies work? ● The number of marriages increased by over 200,000. ● However, the number of divorces also increased, especially after changes to the Marriage Law of 1938. ● About 320,000 men and women were sterilised (stopped from having the physical capacity to reproduce). ● Infant mortality (the number of children under five) dropped; this was partly because of the improved sanitation, education and preventive medicine..

Load more