Adolf Hitler had the most old fashioned opinion of women. He’s new plans for Germany included nothing advance for women. He stated at a Nuremberg Party rally in 1934:
“If the man’s world is said to be the state, his struggle, his readiness to devote his powers to the service of the community, then it may be said that the woman’s is a smaller world. For her world is her husband, her children, her home. The two worlds are not antagonistic. They complement each other, they belong together just as women and men belong together”
He simply did not accept women as equals. Hitler once defined women’s freedom and independency as a Jewish idea to weaken the community. He also remarked:
“I detest women who dabble in politics. And if their dabbling extends to military matters, it becomes utterly unendurable. In no local section of the party has a woman ever had the right to hold even the smallest post.”
Hitler, January 1942
Although there were some female parties allowed such as Leipzig Women’s Group, they were watched by men and were not allowed to join the main party. In 1931, Gregor Strasser, an SA leader, ordered by Hitler went to shut down the separate women’s parties and bought them all into the NSF (national socialistic womanhood). This kept the woman under control because the group was controlled by the male party.
Hitler had one main concern that the birth rate in Germany was dropping. One of the reasons for this was because after the war, most of the men had past away so there were fewer marriages. But also there was more availability for women to get contraception. This allowed women to limit their families. This annoyed Hitler as he wanted women to want to be mothers and be proud.
After 1933, most Germans were taking in Hitler’s views. Women started to give up work, went home to become “mothers for the greater good of the nation”. The NSF claimed to help give women what they needed, but was controlled by the Nazi’s so it was easier to limit what a woman could do. The universities started to take in fewer women, there were fewer jobs that needed a woman, and the civil service closed its doors to all women. But it wasn’t such a struggle, women who gave up their jobs were rewarded with special grants.
Now that their were restrictions on where women could work, the Nazi’s used propaganda to promote the woman’s place at home and the ideal German woman. This picture shows one of the Nazi’s favourite themes, to show a nursing mother who’s milk gave life to her child and the nation. Mothers day in May 1934 was turned into a national celebration which the whole family shared. Mothers who normally would have worked but stayed at home on this Sunday were given a special mother’s cross medal. Fathers were given paid leave from work and school children wrote poems and painted pictures for their mothers.
This piece of evidence was a Nazi poster used to show what the ideal German woman should be like in appearance and act. The source was produced in 1937 and is a primary piece of evidence, so it is reliable. It is what the Nazi’s ideology of a woman should be like so it doesn’t show what life was really like in Germany at the time, it just shows how they wanted I to be. It shows what the role of a woman should be. It shows how a family should be natural and racially pure. The mother is not at work but is at home looking after her children. The family are close and are helping each other. The limitations of the source are that we can only see what the painter was thinking at the time, whereas another painter may have painted it different. We don’t actually see what was going on in society either. They are in a pure environment. There is fresh fruit and flowers. They are all fair skinned and blonde, what the ideal German should look like. The younger boy is working and the little girl is playing with her doll. The mother is breast feeding her baby, this is the purest thing a mother could do for her child. The baby is feeding off it’s mother, the food is pure and fresh. The Nazi’s encouraged large families. This family isn’t huge but fairly big. Birth control and abortion was banned in Germany. Marriage loans and family allowances were given. They also gave medals to women with many children. They forced childless couples to divorce so that they could find someone else. This is what the Nazi’s done to push women into having children. Hitler wanted Germany to be the great country and he believed it started in the home. Women were not allowed to marry a Jew or anyone with and inherited illness such as blindness or epilepsy. Anyone with an illness had to be sterilized. Some women protested but were not paid attention to.
Birth control clinics closed and abortion was an illegal act for the woman and the abortionist. Women protested as abortion was seen as a way to get rid of “undesirables”. These protests were ignored. The Nazi’s encouraged that women, especially mothers, did not wear make up. So they looked pure but also it was seen as a Jewish habit which a good German wouldn’t do. Smoking was also unsuitable for women. People were told that if they saw a woman smoking they should tell her that it didn’t improve her image as a mother. The NSF did a campaign against “masculinization” which included the way women wear their hair and how they dressed which could “blur the differences between the sexes”. The NSF also promoted how what the fuhrer admired in German women was their “ feminine grace and female charm”.
