Women's Role In Nazi Germany

During the war it was up to the women to replace the men that went off to fight, some women chose to take over the jobs while some chose to stay and take care of their family. The women were forced to work and and to have children but the government did not have any luck (“ War Impact on Life in Germany”). The German government was trying to increase the birth rate because they did not know how long the war was going to last and if they would need more soldiers. The women had to deal with so much stress everyday. Just watching their children going to school could have been the last time they every saw them. The fathers where only allowed to come home and visit twice a year.

When thinking of Nazi and third Reich one basically thinks of a very male dominated movement. Perhaps it is because such violent actions in which are associated with the Nazi movement. Or the fact that Hitler is the face of the movement and his views are very clear of women. “Man’s world was the state, women’s the home, and the two worlds complemented each other; women ought not attempt to penetrate the world of men”. Rupp points out where it was not only not their place

Naziism had a huge impact on German youth during Hitler’s reign of power over the state. The life of a German child changed dramatically during the 1920’s and 30’s, especially for

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.

In the book Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich by Alison Owings, we are provided with plenty of women who describe their lives before, during and after Hitler received power. This book provides us with different views of the time era and as well as how the impact of Hitler affected every woman differently through social class, age, marital status and etc. This paper will explore the lives of three German women who seem to be in the Grey area during the over control of Hitler but mostly with the killings of the Jews. This paper will further explore the complicity and the different levels of resistance that these three women had during this time era which is 1933-1945. The three women that will be discussed in this paper are Margarete (Margrit) Fischer, Ellen Frey, and Christine (Tini) Weihs. When looking into the lives of all three women these women it seems as though women didn’t have much of a responsibility for the events that were happening around them. Although these women seemed to be complaint to a certain degree with the events there were going on around them. These women would have been complaint due to the fear of what happened to Germans when they stood against the events that took part.

Women were immensely affected by the policy of Volksgemeinschaf as Nazi Party had conservative aims when it came to the role of

“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 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.

When examining the work of women in the resistance we see all the big and small things that individuals did to stop the Nazi’s mass killings. Women from all races, countries, and social class did what they could to resist the Nazis (8). The task that they performed day in and day out for four years are unmeasurable. They performed many tasks that only women were capable of due to their status as inferiors. They were responsible for small task like sabotage in German factories, slightly more dangerous task like carrying messages and pamphlets (4), they also helped smuggle Jews and political prisoners across borders (6). Finally, women fought inside the concentration Camps where they physically fought the Nazis and attempted to destroy these Camps (10). It is incredible to see how women from all over participated in both the big and small shows of resistance. There were countless British and American operatives, French noblewomen, Jewesses from all over Europe, and even German

Boys were taught about military service and girls about housekeeping. Both did camping and other activities to unite with others and serve Germany together. Parents were encouraged to have many children such that more youths could join this scheme. Secondly Germans were also brainwashed into discrimination against Jews and other minorities via the media such that the atrocities against them were justified. They also, through broadcasts and newspapers (heavily censored by Nazis), rallies and march parties like the annual Nuremberg rally, developed pro-Nazi sentiments. Joseph Goebbels, Minister for Enlightenment & Propaganda, placed loudspeakers everywhere such that Germans all heard Hitler's speeches and controlled all forms of art. Hitler also promised law and order unlike in Bolshevism, economic expansion and a ‘Greater Germany' instead of one undermined by the Treaty of Versailles (he tore it up). Germans also took pride in the latest technological advancements in Germany and their state-of-the-art stadium for the 1936 Olympics, where they enjoyed a sterling performance, which Goebbels used to prove the notion of Aryan superiority. Thirdly religion was also controlled with all churches branching out from one central Reich Church that revered Nazi policies. Priests and nuns who disagreed were imprisoned. Hitler even had the audacity to suggest an alternative

The outbreak of WWI saw a number of unexpected changes take place within the common social strata. These changes were prompted by the fact that a new wave of social-thinking was taking shape and eventually affected the manner by which the society reflected itself. While men formed political parties, engaged in planning war schemes and creating economic strategies, women also played an essential and significant role during wartime Europe. WWI women can

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.

Aldous Huxley, author of the famous dystopian works 'Brave New World’, commented that “Propaganda gives force and direction to the successive movements of popular feeling and desire; but it does not do much to create these movements”. The decree instating the new Ministry defined its task as the spreading of “enlightenment and propaganda within the population concerning…the national reconstruction of the German Fatherland”. It sought to Nazify German culture, wiping away the Weimar decadence of the 1920s with traditional values, societal sense of racial worth, ‘Führerprincip’ and concentration of German culture, purging it of degeneracy and Üntermenschen. Joseph Goebbels had two primary objectives: To ensure nobody in Germany could see or hear anything hostile or damaging to the Party and ensure that Nazi ideology was encouraged in the most persuasive possible manner. Nazi propaganda promoted ideology by demonising the enemies of the Nazi Party, especially Jews and communists, but also capitalists and intellectuals, it maintained the personality cult around Adolf Hitler, and promoted campaigns for eugenics and Pan-Germanism.