Women in Nazi Germany were undoubtedly recognized as the ‘home-makers’ and mother figures of the household. However, although politically non-existent, during the period leading up to the Second World War, women were intensely involved within the Nazi Regime, regardless of whether they supported the regime or not. Thus, demonstrating a transformative perception of women and their roles within the Nazi regime. Although Nazi ideology promoted the female as the care takers, their incorporation in key roles throughout the regime directly went against their ideology and proved the significance of German Women in the Nazi’s quest to abolish German threats and to assist in their progression to their rise to prominence. Commonly perceived as inferior and weaker in contrast to male figures, they were often given the ‘lesser role’. During the Third Reich, women were excluded from political life and no women held a high position in Nazi Germany. Hitler proved to be a firm believer in keeping women in the home and used to bring children into the world for the fulfilment of the master race. With the implementation of several programs and legislations regarding women and the future of Germany. These programs, deliberately enforced, demoted women to the duty of motherhood and caretaker of the upcoming generation of the Third Reich while concurrently leading the private lives of the German women. The Nazis required women to stay stagnant in their ‘private sphere’, meaning in the kitchen and at home. Agendas expelled German women from political movements and senior education. Nazi men expressed their perception of the role of women in the Third Reich, though they contradicted the role of motherliness through the progression of the Nazi age. Despite the Nazi ideal of women as mothers who stayed in the ‘private sphere’, both the Nazis and Hitler required women to fulfill greater positions within the regime, and the German women indeed fulfilled these roles.
With the implementation of several programs and reward systems put in place by the dictatorial force of Adolf Hitler during the early stages of the Nazi era, women had something to work towards for recognition for their efforts to fit the role of a compliant home-maker, care-taker and motherly figure for their spouses and children. These reward systems, specifically, the Cross of Honor of the German Mother, was presented by the Nazis on the 16th of December, 1938. Simply put forward to encourage Aryan women to birth more children in his mission to develop a strong, regimented all German society comprised of masculine men. The German Reich desired a vigorous and increasing population and fortified couples to have big families. Once German girls turned 18 years old, they were automatically qualified for an organization named ‘Faith and Beauty’, this branch trained German girls to understand the importance and develop into ideal mothers for the betterment of the German race. One specific constituent of that ideal was fertility. Further signifying the emphasis on the importance for females to be able to conceive which Hitler constantly preached. In honor of Hitler’s mother, Hitler awarded a gold medal to women who birthed seven children, a silver medal to women with six children, and finally a bronze medal to women who had five children. Thus, the Mothers Cross, recognized the efforts of the German mothers in developing offspring to aid the Nazis in their rise to power. The Cross honored German women for their extraordinary value to the German state.
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Marriage laws enforced by Hitler during the Nazi regime showcase the importance of a mother figure in constructing an efficiently run household. Hitler was on a mission to increase the number of Aryan marriages to fulfill his desire of an increase in birth rates for the German regime. Hitler also enforced divorce policies, making it easier to get a divorce by the Marriage Law of 1938. For instance, if a man and woman already have four children together, the man gained the right to divorce that women in order to re-marry and produce more children. On June, 1933, Hitler implemented the Law for the Encouragement of Marriage, this distributed a loan of one thousand marks, and permitted them to retain 250 marks for every child they had. Tactics involving charging heavy tax fees to single men and families with no children, illegalizing abortion in 1933, using forceful propaganda to initiate the glorified characteristics of what made up the ideal German woman, and women employment significantly dropped. In 1933, just 11 percent of university spots were distributed to women, 15 percent of female teachers were stood down, and 19,000 female civil servants were dismissed. Constant notions clarified by Hitler enforcing that, “the world of the woman is a smaller world for her world is her husband, her family, her children, her home”. Thus, reinforcing the notion of Hitler’s admiration of keeping women in the home and fulfilling their primary goal of conceiving offspring and later raising them to comply and conform to the standards and ideals of the Nazi regime.
However, these policies proved to be contradictory as Hitler later enforced new policies prior to the Second World War that eased the pressure off women to take on the role of a submissive wife to their spouse and a care taker for their children. Elizabeth Heineman argues in her book, ‘What Difference Does a Husband Make?’, that marital status under the Nazis and later in the FRG and the GDR informs the conflicting differences of marital status that was built upon erratic political and ideological contexts. Heineman argues that new policies were implemented in West Germany that relieved the burdens off women to have a family and spouse to care and nurture for. The GDR promoted the concept of women in the workforce and devalued the common role of the full-time housewife. Nevertheless, Heineman also stresses on the fact that ideals of marital status regarding women were different in West and East Germany and the perception of women’s marital status were reliant on a series of political agendas. Although, marital status outlined women’s position and involvements Heineman discovers that combat made the experience of single women greatly dramatic in the West of Germany, but proved to be of lesser importance to the lives of German women in East Germany. This was due to the fact that women were already involved in the labour force and worked full time, making it less risky for women in East Germany to get a divorce than women in the West. This proves that the perception of women in Germany was progressively changing through Hitler’s enforcement of new policies and his differing perceptions of women for the betterment of the Nazi regime and his political agenda.
Whilst the Nazis glorified the magnificent role of motherhood for women, they did not dismiss them from the racist ideologies that were widespread and practiced by the regime. While the Nazis declared to protect their women from the ‘unfortunate’ reality of racial politics, German women were highly involved in the bigotry of the Third Riche. During Adolf Hitler’s and the Nazis rise to prominence, they consistently preached the qualities of the German race and the necessary annihilation of German rivals. This outlook, imbedded in young women’s learning, ensured their understanding of the significance of the cleanliness of the German’s blood. Women enlisted in the Band of German Maidens and made their way into the East where they aided the Nazis to terminate the Jews and Poles. Women took the role of nurses and were implemented as guards for the Nazi concentration and death camps. Although men were regarded as the leaders of the Nazi movements, women played a crucial role. Racism infused the functions of women in Nazi Germany.
Since the appointment of Hitler as chancellor in 1933, a generous shift in historical depictions has emerged from women being perceived as victims of the confrontational, patriarchal powers of Nazism into a more nuanced examination regarding the ways that women established personal agency, through the widespread notion of anti-feminism driven by the Nazi government. Rather than observing women as disempowered sufferers who endured the cruel Nazi policies that were forced amongst them, recent findings have stated the many differences between numerous factions of women in society, particularly based on social class, religion, and age and how these factions of women were able to achieve a personal benefit inside a sexist regiment.
Modern historiographies have certainly defied several prior statements resulting in a modified historical viewpoint. This innovative historicism comprises of: an inquisitive speculation regarding the entirety of the Nazi regime concerning female resistance to ‘total war’ occupational enterprises; a weakening of the concept of a homogeneity of the experiences of women; and a launch of a broader scale of particular female contribution and collaboration within the Nazi regime. These current findings construct a renewed perception of women throughout the Nazi age, not merely just the objects of an oppressive regime, but as topics who were complicit with the ideologies and policies of the Nazi regime. Recent findings have also shown that women were active, influential participants in molding the applications and direction of the Nazis central policies.
A critical contributor to the re-evaluation of women’s history in the Third Reich is Claudia Koonz, whose influential writing ‘Mothers in the Fatherland’ condemned prior interpretations on women as historical ‘non-agents’. Koonz analytically investigated the ways that women actively participated to the Nazi regime on an individual and collective level. Koonz also states that women supported and encouraged Hitler “from conviction, opportunism and active choice”, and the excessively misogynistic philosophy of Nazism essentially shaped opportunities for females to have agency and built the common dismissal of them, driven by male forces. Koonz also debated, that women appeared to be ‘enablers’ to the cruelty of Nazism through their part as a homemaker. They, “made the world a more enjoyable place to live’’ by creating a facade of civilization in the midst of a brutal dogmatic organization”. In addition to the notion of women as willing contributors to the Nazi scheme, Koonz expressed the means in which pro-Nazi females, like Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, lovingly expressed their involvement within the Nazi women’s organization during the post war period. Contrastingly, Leila Rupp’s assessment of Koonz’s, ‘Mothers in the Fatherland’, admired Koonz’s work as it displayed the shift from an “repressive model” of the historical nature of women, influencing modern historiographies to “challenge the implications of women’s contribution in Nazi civilization”. Thus, Koonz’s writings on women in the Third Reich is specifically notorious for its declaration that “far from staying unaffected by Nazi brutality, women did in fact operate within the center of its regime”.
The rifeness of women prevalent in the Nazi scheme is a major topic discussed by several historian’s, particularly Leila Rupp and Erich Johnson. Collectively, their research has led to significant discoveries that blast the misconception of women as submissive, and paved the way for a newfound, multifaceted understanding of the role of women in Nazi Germany. Johnson’s article regarding the participation of German women in the differing stages of the Nazi legal system suppressed the notion of the normal German female who surrenders to the instruction of men whilst living in constant terror of the Gestapo. Johnson also proves that German women were “crucial participants within the Nazi regulatory apparatus, playing the role as the denouncer and as an eyewitness”. Johnson also disputes that, “majority of German women discovered very little in the Nazi rule to condemn, at least not out in the open”, and he also stated that “several women actively supported the regime through turning people in who diverged against the Nazi system to the Nazi secret state forces”. Johnson states that the German women, “did not recognize the Third Reich as a hell for women and that women were satisfied in working directly within the system”. Whilst women were undoubtedly less politically involved as opposed to the men, they did acquire a crucial role in contributing to justice for the Nazis. German women started to progress in their involvement during the course of the Second World War as women given the part of communal self-policing due to the deficiency of men who were fighting in the war. Johnson states that about one quarter of women made up the denouncers and an estimate of one-fifth of observers in denouncement instances for offences in contradiction of the Nazi state. However, traditional perspectives of females do come into place when deciding to listen and respond to the testaments of numerous women, centralized on their marital status and age by the Nazi authority powers. Hence, some women might have silently tolerated Nazism, Johnson uncovers that a substantial number of women encompassed the policies associated by the Nazi Regime and actively participated in it.
Class was a major issue in determining the role of women within the Nazi regime and the volume of middle- and upper-class women to evade conformism to the states needs for growth in female labor. This clearly proves that German women undoubtedly had agency inside the Nazi government and were proficient in using it to broaden their individual needs. This is severely apparent in the attentiveness of the middle- and upper-class women to avoid national calls to aid their will to leave the load of physical work to the women of the working class. Nazi ideologies regarding the incorporation of women as homemakers intensely challenged the financial reality of war manufacturing; but, energy to enlist women into work were encouraged by the concurrent idea that, “women were a part of the populace on whom common adversities should not randomly or constantly be imposed”. Aside from the worry over the alienation of women, the Nazis were persistent in avoiding to offend males who had previously articulated disapproval regarding the state’s exertions to forcefully influence their wives to participate in paid and unpaid services. Leila Rupp states that the Nazis uncertainty in convincing every woman to work “was not of an ideological order, but was rooted in the well-founded fear that civil conscription for women would be extremely unpopular, both with women and with men”. Rupp’s portrayal of the upper- and middle-class women parading their ‘affluence and freedom’ depicts a visual of a substantial share of women holding a level of dominance and status in an oppressive, tyrannical, and patriarchal state.
Ultimately, the incorporation and perception of women in Nazi Germany was highly transformative. Women were perceived as the homemaker and caretaker for their children under the dictatorial force of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. The effect of social class, age, and religion are instantly noticeable as key contributors that initiate how women react and respond to the Nazi regime. However, this ideology was consistently contradicted to fulfill Hitler’s efforts to further his quest to achieve racial purity, imperial defeat, and total war which assisted the regime in their rise to prominence in the twentieth century. Although the Nazis initiated failure for their German women, several of them still actively did their part for the success of the Nazis and their beloved regime. The Nazi ideology of women as caretakers and mothers did not delineate who they were. Some women passionately uplifted the Nazis regime, although some were silently tolerating Nazism and some women protested against it, but all German women held various vital roles within the Nazis regimen. There was a shift from women being perceived as oppressed by the Nazi dictatorial forces to a nuanced interpretation of females as agents who certainly molded the progression of history through their choices and their actions during Nazi era.
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