Explain the Nazi policies towards Women
The Nazi’s had a very specific idea of how women should behave and look.
The Nazi’s wanted women to look very motherly and respectable. Josef Goebbels in 1929 said that ‘a woman is to be beautiful’. He then goes on to say that ‘a woman’s world is her family, her children and her home.’ This is also famously known as the three K’s; Kinder, Kirche, Küche.
In a rule book written for the ‘League of German Maidens’, it states that women are not allowed to use make-up, smoke and has a duty to keep fit and healthy. Women in the Third Reich were expected to be ‘perfect’ wives. To be perfect they had to be young, healthy, undemanding, unemployed and never wear vanity items such as high-heels, jewellery or wear revealing clothing. Most importantly they wanted them to be pure Aryans, with pale skin, big hips, blonde hair and blue eyes. A woman like this was considered to have perfect genes to pass onto their children.