Section A: Nazi policies towards women 

Nazi views on women and the family 

 

  1. The Nazis believed that women’s role was the traditional one of mother and housewife, while the man provided for the family.  

  1. They should stay at home and raise a family rather than professions such as medicine or the law. 

  1. They should also adopt a natural appearance with simple plaited hair, long skirts and no make-up. 

  1. In 1934, the Nazis appointed a Reich Women’s leader, Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, who merged all existing women’s organisations into the German Women’s Enterprise (DFW). This had 6 million members by 1939. 

  1. By 1939, 1.7 million women had attended DFW courses on childcare, cooking and sewing. 

 

Women, marriage and the family 

 

  1. The Nazis wanted to reverse the fall in the German birth rate from 2 million births a year in 1900 to 1 million by 1933. 

  1. The Law for the Encouragement of Marriage in 1933 gave loans of 1,000 marks newly married couples if the woman gave up her job. For each child born, a quarter of the loan was written off. 

  1. In 1938, the divorce laws were changed so the inability to have children was grounds for divorce. 

  1. The Mother’s Cross was awarded to women who have lots of children: bronze for four children, silver for six, and gold for eight.  

  1. Hitler Youth were expected to salute wearers of the gold Mother’s Cross. 

  1. If a family had a tenth child, they were encouraged to call it Adolf, and Hitler became the godfather. 

  1. The Lebensborn (Fountain of Life) programme was set up in 1935. At first, this provided nursery and financial help for women who had children with SS men, but from 1938 it encouraged breeding ‘genetically pure’ children between Aryan single women and SS men.  

  1. 540 babies were born under this programme between 1938-41. 

 

Women and employment 

 

  1. Nazi propaganda revived the concept of the ‘three Ks’, an idea dating from the Kaiser’s time, which encouraged ‘Kinder, Kuche, Kirche’ (children, kitchen and church). 

  1. Women were banned from professions such as teaching, medicine and the civil service, 360,000 had left these professions by the end of 1934.  

  1. From 1936, women could not be judges or lawyers, and grammar school was closed to girls from 1937. 

  1. Girls attending university falling from 17,000 in 1932 to 6,000 by 1939. 

 

Results of Nazi policies towards women 

 

  1. Nazi policies meant fewer women went to University, the birth rate increased and unemployment amongst men fell. 

  1. However, not all women were convinced,  while the Reich women’s leader, Gertrude Scholtz-Klink was disliked for her rigid and old fashioned ideas. 

  1. Some Nazi policies were reversed as rearmament and the build up to war led to women returning to work.  

  1. In 1937 women with marriage loans were allowed to work again, so by 1939, 7 million women were in work, compared to 5 million in 1933.