HOW SUCCESSFULLY DID THE NAZI'S IMPOSE THEIR IDEOLOGY ON GERMAN WOMAN?

How far did women benefit from Nazi rule?

• Expected to have large families not only to increase the population (from a declining birth rate), but to also provide soldiers

• Kinder, Kuche, Kirche – children, kitchen, and church

• Not unusual at this time, many other European countries were trying to increase their birth rate

• Can be argued that the increased importance of motherhood heightened the status of woman; however, they were denied other educational and employment opportunities

• Married woman were prevented from entering many of the professions between 1933 and 1936, while the number of girls allowed to enter higher education was limited in 1934 and further extended in 1937

• Grammar school education was abolished for girls and they were forbidden to study Latin

• June 1933- interest-free loans were offered to women to marry and give up work

• Labour exchanges- encouraged to discriminate in favour of men

• Percentage of women in employment- fell from 37% in 1932 to 31% in 1937

• May have been inevitable as male unemployment was their major concern and this fell from an all-time high in 1932 to virtually full employment by 1937/38

• Women were also expected to live up to the Nazi ideal and become the perfect mother

• No dieting excessively, be fit, healthy and not to smoke

• No makeup, full skirts, flat shoes and be a good cook

• Motherhood’s cross – bronze, silver and gold depending on the number of children the woman had

• Strict anti-abortion law

• Limited contraception

• Maternity benefits

• Family allowance

• Policy of Lebensborn (1935)- unmarried mothers of ‘good racial background’ were cared for, and Aryan girls were made pregnant by members of the SS

• Policies did not result in an increased birth rate

• 1933-1939: married couples still made use of natural forms of contraception because the number of births per marriage remained low- only around two per marriage compared to the wanted four per marriage

• 1937- shortage of labour, Four Year Plan exacerbated the issue

• Women were encouraged to work in factories and were also allowed to re-enter the professions, as seen in the increase in the number of female doctors

• Number of working women rose from 5.7 million in 1937 to 7.1 million in 1939

• Change in policy had been forced onto the Nazis because of their obsession with rearmament and not because there was any real change of attitude

• 1942- 52% of the labour force

• Increasing birth rate policy: limited success because the regime failed to get the four children from each marriage that it strived to get

• Limited due to their policies, such as mother crosses or propaganda, or could be due to the improving economy

NAZI WOMEN’S ORGANISATION

• Some women were excluded from government, but a number of women’s organizations within the party were established that provided some limited employment opportunities: National Socialist Womanhood, German Women’s Enterprise

• Mother’s schools- offered courses in household management and motherhood skills

• Women’s section – did the same

• Women’s organisations were used to propagate anti-feminist ideology through a range of cultural, educational and social programs

• Attempts within the National Socialist Womanhood to increase opportunities for women resulted in its organisers being discredited

• Feminist historians have been very critical of policies that reduced the status of women

• Changes in society and the increasing employment of women meant that their views were out of touch with reality and became increasingly contradictory