Women in the Third Reich
Women played a vital role in Adolf Hitler's plan to create an ideal German Community (Volksgemeinschaft) and he most certainly had clear ideas about a woman’s role within the Third Reich. The Führer’s ideology of how a woman should be, contrasted severely with the ideology during the Weimar Republic. Women within the Weimar Republic were self-confident, strong and most importantly: they were emancipated. When Hitler became Chancellor, however, things changed for the worse; it was as if women were to go back to the old, conservative way they lived under the Kaiser… with a few changes.
The Nazi model woman was definitely not equal to the Nazi model man. I shall make an example by inventing a Nazi model woman: Gudrun Müller. Gudrun Müller is 25 years old and lives in Dresden. She is tall, blond, healthy, beautiful, thin and robust all at once, thus perfectly fulfilling Hitler’s standards of beauty and able to bear an Aryan child, which was the most important job of a woman in Nazi Germany. Gudrun does not work, even though she would love to become a lawyer. The first reason why she is not able to be one is that she is missing a university degree. As a young girl already, her teachers taught her that going to the university was a “men’s thing” and, being a good student, she believed them. Furthermore, women within the Third Reich were generally not allowed to work in the army, government or judiciary. When having to choose between marriage and a career, women had to choose marriage (Gudrun made the choice to marry Hans Müller, knowing that it is best for her). Gudrun has- as all other women her age- to follow the slogan of Germany: Kinder und Küche, (“Children and kitchen”). This is similar to Kaiser Wilhelm’s slogan, with the only difference that Hitler was against Wilhelm’s “Kirche” (church) within the slogan. She never wears make-up, trousers or high-heeled shoes, as it is strictly prohibited. Dying one’s hair as a female was also “illegal” (however, Gudrun has no need to dye her hair, having the “perfect hair colour”).
During the day, she takes care of the household and her toddler, Horst. She used to be passionate about gymnastics (one of the traditional and recommended activities), but with her little Horst and the NS-Frauenschaft, she is lacking time to pursue her hobby. As a student, Gudrun had to know the date and place of birth of the Führer and the “big picture” of his life, the history of Nazism and the living collaborators of Hitler. When having some free time, Gudrun met up with the Bund Deutscher Mädel (translated: League of German girls) in order to learn about her role in the Third Reich, do some traditional out-door activities and to be trained for certain employment (social work, cleaning) or farming (helping with harvest). Every Wednesday evening, for girls from 15 to 20 years old, the " home parties " took place, for discussing art and culture. The League was particularly regarded as instructing girls to avoid Rassenschande (racial defilement), which was treated with great importance for young females. Now, as an adult, she is member of the NS-Frauenschaft, the political organisation for Nazi women. She is being taught how to cook and keep a “warm, welcoming home”. Gudrun obeys her husband and teaches her little Horst how to become a capable and courageous man, worthy to look Hitler in the eyes. Her plans for the future are to give birth to (at least) four more children; she will then receive the Cross of Honour of the German Mother. And, after all, she is aware that sexuality is only here for reproductive goals (and with abortion and contraception being illegal, having more than four children is not unusual). Yes, Gudrun Müller knows it all… And she cannot wait to meet the Führer, to shake his hand and to look him in the eyes, knowing that she is what he wants every woman to be: a proper German wife and mother, able to bear and educate proper Aryan children.
Strangely, it was rare that women were against Hitler being an anti-feminist and taking away most of their rights. In the contrary, they believed it necessary in order to achieve the dream of the Aryan race. Most of them simply thought: men are here to work and I am here to have beautiful Aryan babies. Countless women voted for Hitler to become Chancellor, even if they were completely aware of his conservative ideology of “Kinder und Küche ”. Hitler owed part of its electoral success to female voters and that Hitler succeeded in his social rise in part thanks to the protection of influential women[i]. However, the Führer still decided that only men were able to vote properly; he thus soon prohibited women’s suffrage. Hitler also believed that banning women’s rights was best for them, as giving them rights would only “place women in situations where they cannot strengthen their position with regard to men and with society – but it would only weaken them“ and added that “it is a catastrophe that women's organizations, women's communities and women's societies intervene in a domain that destroys all feminine charm, all the feminine majesty and grace”[ii]. Hitler was very clever by saying that women were charming, majestic and graceful; it made women feel special and distracted them from the fact that he was actually taking away everything they had fought for. Besides, lots of women saw Hitler as extremely attractive and he was described as adapting his speeches to "the tastes of women who, since the beginning, count among his most fervent admirers“[iii]. The erotisation of the Führer also played a big part of his popularity among the female sex. The fact that he was unmarried and that he represented a masculine ideal for Germans led to this phenomenon of “erotisation”, making the majority of women crazy about him.
Nevertheless, a few women took their courage and tried to fight Hitler. Scientists, lawyers, doctors, judges or teachers did not want to give up their jobs in order to stay at home. In protest against Hitler's anti-feminist policies, they joined left-wing opposition groups[iv]. If caught, however, they faced being sent to concentration camps as political prisoners. The White Rose was a non-violent, intellectual resistance group, consisting of students (many of them being young women) from the University of Munich[v]. Sophie Scholl was one of the members; she wanted girls to be emancipated and was executed for distributing feminist flyers. She was, of course, only one of many women who tried winning back their rights. However, with Hitler being the Führer, winning seemed hopeless, especially because he did everything in his power to make emancipation impossible.
Different policies aimed at women existed within the Third Reich. “Pronatalism” was one of many, encouraging childbearing and glorifying parenthood[vi]. Nazis believed that the population had to grow, as it was too small for their purposes. This is why women had to have babies (baby boys were preferable, however, because Nazis needed manpower), especially because Germany’s birth rate was falling – during the Weimar Republic, big families became old-fashioned. Nazis thus needed to persuade women to have more children and they did this by using a variety of methods: Financial incentives to have children were offered, massive propaganda campaigns were started all around Germany, abortion became illegal and the NS-Frauenschaft offered training-courses who taught the skills of motherhood. However, policies such as the “pronatalism” did not have a great impact on Germany’s birth rate and families remained rather small (with a few exceptions).
In the late-1930s, the Nazi regime did an about-turn in its attitude to women and paid work[vii]. Gaps were caused by the compulsory military service and they needed to be filled. Women thus were allowed to work anew – not in official positions but in the factories and within the Wehrmacht (army). In the army, women were being used as auxiliaries. In 1945, 500,000 women were working as auxiliaries (about half of them were volunteers, and the other half had to make their year of Kriegshilfdienst, or war effort)[viii]. As Wehrmachtshelferin (female auxiliary), a woman usually worked as typist, operator of listening equipment, volunteer nurse at the German Red Cross or as telephone, telegraph or transmission operator. These jobs were not official ones and women were only employed because the Nazi government had no other choice. Employment did, in this case, not mean freedom and emancipation.
Hence, it is clear that women’s main role within the Third Reich was to bear children; they were thus definitely not emancipated. Both men and women had their separate roles and together, they had to achieve Hitler’s dream of the Aryan Race. Young girls were already taught at school and in the BDM that having an official position or going to the university is men’s business, and that they should rather stay within their role of stay-at-home-mother, taking care of the household. Policies aimed at women to give birth to more children, however, did not make a big change (considering that birth rates remained rather low). Many women appreciated Hitler in any case, no matter how he treated them. It is certainly a great example of how a dictator can manipulate its folk.
[i] Fabrice d'Almeida, La Vie mondaine sous le nazisme, 2008, chapter "Naissance de la haute société nazie"
[ii] Völkischer Beobachter, September 15, 1935, available at the Wiener Library
[iii] Albert Zoller, Hitler privat, Düsseldorf, 1949
[iv] “Nazi Germany – The Role of Women“ by historyonthenet.com
[v] Article White Rose from Wikipedia
[vi] Women, education & young people in Nazi Germany hand-out
[vii] “Women in Nazi Germany“ by Wikipedia
[viii] “Women in Nazi Germany“ by Wikipedia
[i] Fabrice d'Almeida, La Vie mondaine sous le nazisme, 2008, chapter "Naissance de la haute société nazie"
[ii] Völkischer Beobachter, September 15, 1935, available at the Wiener Library
[iii] Albert Zoller, Hitler privat, Düsseldorf, 1949
[iv] “Nazi Germany – The Role of Women“ by historyonthenet.com
[v] Article White Rose from Wikipedia
[vi] Women, education & young people in Nazi Germany hand-out
[vii] “Women in Nazi Germany“ by Wikipedia
[viii] “Women in Nazi Germany“ by Wikipedia
An exciting interview with Gisela Müller, "grand-daughter of former NS-Frauenschaft leader Gertrud Scholtz-Klink", about the NS-Frauenschaft!