German Women Recall The Third Reich By Alison Owings Essay

The document serves to support Hitler’s plan to create a community of German people, the Volksgemeinschaft, in which women played a crucial role. Nazi ideology defined the community in opposition to the individualistic society produced by liberal democracies and the false sense of community promoted by the communists. In other words, Hitler aimed to create a German community of people that

Hitler had a very clear idea of women’s role; she was the centre of family life, a housewife and the mother. Their job was to keep the house nice for their husband and family – their lives should revolve round the three ‘ks’, church, children and cooking. This ideal was based around Hitler wanting to achieve his long held goal of Lebensraum to increase the German Aryan population. Strasser argues that ‘National Socialism intended to restore the natural order, and states that this was to accord women the respect they deserved as mothers and housewives’, therefore improving their status. However Carey argues that women’s position did not improve and “throughout the civil war

Hitler used many tactics to control German society during the Nazi era; his outlook on how women should act is embodied in the Speech to the National Socialist Women’s Association. The speech was given by Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, the organization’s leader, with the intent to convince women to take their place in Hitler’s Nazi movement. The emphasis on women’s natural roles in the home, as mothers and wives, and the discouragement of women’s right are manifested in the persuasive language of national identity and involvement. Hitler uses Scholtz-Klink to fight for the minds of German women in a speech that asks for feminist ideals to be cast aside all for the good of the country.

“Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich” by Alison Owings displays interviews with women who lived in Germany during the 1930s to 1940s. The two women in this book, Liselotte Otting and Freya von Moltke discuss their feelings about the Nazi government and their actions, most importantly how they felt about genocide of the Jewish population. Both women discussed their attitude and behavior toward during this time.

In 1939, World War II began when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party invaded Poland, causing six million Jewish people to fear for their lives. This fear began when all people had to complete a census and carry an identification card. Second, the Jews had to wear the Star of David and they were forced into ghettos. Third, they were taken to the concentration and death camps. In The Diary of Anne Frank, “Violins of Hope,” and “Resistance During the Holocaust” we see different ways of acting; actively or passively resisting Nazi rule. These stories demonstrate how people can best respond to tyranny; by actively resisting because it breaks the war machine, brings some hope, and can lead to the withdrawal of opposing forces.

In the aftermath of World War II, German civilians become the target of hatred due to the Holocaust. The mass rapes that happened to German women during the occupation of Berlin are not remembered due to the hatred of the German population as a whole. In her diary A Woman in Berlin, Anonymous catalogues her perspective of the mass rapes. In order to cope effectively with the rapes and to survive, Anonymous manipulates her sexual assaults to become a method of obtaining necessary goods because she, like other women, could not depend on men.

The memoirs have placed the main focus on the comparison of German Jewish women's lives and that of German Christian women's lives. Using

Emphasized Femininity During World War II World War II was considered a start for women’s liberation. On the surface, it appears so; women entered the work force in large numbers and performed tasks previously considered masculine. This is just face value, when looking deeper, it is clear that women entered the labour force not because of a right to work or a struggle for gender equity but for the war effort. Supposed gains were lost at the end of the war because the attitude towards women’s role in society had not become more egalitarian. In fact, gender roles were even more strictly enforced.

Why women? In 1933, Germans began their discrimination against the Jews; men, women, homosexuals, and children alike. Many testimonies, memoirs and historical documents hold the facts of the damage the Nazis inflicted, the amount of Jews that suffered and died, and the lives it changed all around the world. But female victims have their own unique story to tell through a different lens that brings about a whole new horror of its own. It underlines the strength that women hold that marks them as true warriors of survival.

In his speech to the National Socialist Women’s League on September 8th 1934, Hitler delineated the roles that German men and women should have in society. He proclaimed and he defined that a woman’s world should be limited to “just her husband, her family, her children, and her home”. The rights of German women were greatly repressed since Nazi ideology regarding gender was extremely traditionalist. For the National Socialists, women were to occupy traditional roles of support and care, all in service of creating a master race. For an “Aryan” woman living in Nazi Germany, “to be a wife and mother” should be her highest

The Third Reich is one of the most notorious eras of German History. Hitler's reign is remembered as tumultuous times filled with violence, bigotry, and racism. A male-controlled society, the Third Reich relegated women to secondary roles, forcing them into lesser jobs and making them primarily focus on the home. Many traditional studies of the Third Reich ignore women or merely acknowledge them superficially. Once women began to receive a place in the histories, it was only as laborers and mothers. The study of women during the Third Reich took time to evolve. This study focuses on showing the evolution of the scholarship of women during the Third Reich; it utilizes eight texts (one with two parts): four journal articles and four monographs

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler took power as chancellor of Germany (Anne Frank Biography). What people did not know was that soon one of the world’s darkest times was on the verge of taking hold. In the next decade, approximately six million Jews died, along with others that Hitler deemed unworthy enough to live. He claimed that he was only making the country stronger by getting rid of those with “bad genes”. There were an uncountable number of strong figures during this period of time, known as the “Holocaust”, and they have all made a great impact on the way that we now view the Holocaust. One of these heroines, is Anne Frank, who has inspired the world with her first-hand knowledge of the Holocaust, allowing us to see the events through the eyes of a child.

Anne Frank, one of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust gained fame after the publication of The Diary of a Young Girl. She documents her life in hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. She once said, “If we bear all this suffering and if there are still Jews left, when it is over, then Jews, instead of being doomed, will be held up as an example.” Life in the concentration camps was worse for Jewish women than it was for men. They faced even more difficulty and were being treated more cruelly. During the Holocaust, the government frequently subjected women, both Jewish and non-Jewish, to brutal persecution that was sometimes unique to the gender of the victims. Women had to go to drastic measures to survive while incarcerated. Nazi’s ideology was called the “Final Solution”, this was the complete annihilation of all Jews. All of this made the Holocaust brutal for women.

Where Stephenson covers women's farm labor superficially, Clifford R. Lovin's 1986 article "Farm Women in the Third Reich" focuses solely on the subject. Lovin argues there was a need for this study in order to have a "better understanding of women and of agriculture in the Third Reich" and that a work such as this will "provide some insights into the relationship between ideology and economic policy, between romanticism and practicality."

Women in Nazi Germany is based upon the Nazi regime’s attitudes, policies, and ideologies concerning the role of women in the public and private sphere. Stephenson argues that the women of Nazi Germany should be studied in depth, including the support they gave to the regime, the treatment they received, and the different roles they played. However, she argues they should not be studied separately from the other happenings at the time, but instead, they should be incorporated into the history just as the men are. This book reviews their roles, functions, and how they were controlled by the Nazi leadership, and also their lives in pre-Nazi Germany.