“Take hold of kettle broom and pan.”
This tells us straight away that Nazis believed that women should be at home. The Nazis believed in the three K’s, “Kinder, Kurche & Kuche,” or Children, Church and Cooking. This rule bound them to the home. In many instances, Nazi women were forced out of jobs for a man to take her place. These were the expectations that women had to live with, and it was viewed as a patriotic Nazi idea.
The other lines of this verse tell women to get a man and leave their job, because “their true life’s work lies at home.”
Nazi women were encouraged to have many children, (“get a man”). A loan of 1000 marks was paid to a couple upon being married. 250 marks was taken off what they owed every time they had a child. A Motherhood cross would be presented to the woman or women who had had a significant number of children in an area. This meant a prestigious medal and a chance to meet Hitler, which women would have loved.
Girls were educated from young ages in the BDM, or ‘league of German maidens.’ It taught them how to be good German women, to have children, how to cook and ergonomics. Nazi values were taught. This links in with the rhyming verse putting forwards Nazi ideas and propaganda to the older generations.
Most women enjoyed this kind of treatment. It meant they were a cornerstone in the German family. They had a job, something in which they were trusted to do. However, a lot of women were put out of jobs as a result of this Nazi idea.
4) Sources E&F are useful to a certain extent to help us find out how people actually felt at that time. However, source E is a biased primary source, but the fact that it is biased in the way it is tells us that not all people felt the same towards the Nazi party, especially that they didn’t all think about the Nazis in a positive way. Different people would have had different views that corresponded with the type of employment that they had. For example: The man in source E could possibly have been a factory owner who lost money as a result of the Nazis, so he thought little of their dictating rule. However, there were a great number of people who would have been thankful because the Nazis gave them a job and home, it would have been like a second chance.
Source E is a source written by a Nazi opposition newssheet. The newssheet is illegal and we can therefore say that it is biased and unfair towards the ruling power. The newssheet being illegal can also suggest that the Nazis were doing everything that these people said, and made it illegal to control what the people thought and saw about the Nazis. Either way, we do not know for certain and so we do not know whether to trust it or not. This source concentrates on the writer’s personal feelings and his turmoil, and from the other sources which I have seen to date I personally believe in what the working man was saying. He also just seems to be a normal man speaking his mind. Source F on the other hand is another primary source written by a professional American writer. It does not concentrate on the writer’s personal feelings and there is no indication of it being biased or any sort of propaganda. However we do not know for certain that he has learnt what he has written from his own personal experiences. His writing talks about ‘invisible unemployment,’ i.e: unemployed people that are not counted as unemployed. These reports match what I have read about in other sources and it comes from a reliable source, therefore I trust this source and I believe I can rely on it.
5) Source A shows the unemployment in Germany going down. From 1932 to 1938, It has gone down from most of the population of Germany having no jobs, to An extreme minority being unemployed in 1938. Source F tells us about ‘invisible unemployment,’ in fact, so do the other sources in their own specific way. All of the sources D,E&F tell us why people were allowed to be unemployed in this way and still not counted as unemployed. This invisible unemployment was one of the reasons that the unemployed people who fell into the criteria of not being allowed to have jobs were not counted on the unemployment figures.
Source D: This encourages women to stay at home and not work. Linking this in with source F, which says: “wholesale discharge of women…” It then carries on to say; “…none of these are included amongst the official statistics,” as in source A. Immediately, half of the population of Germany that used to be classed as unemployed are no longer unemployed. Put quite simply, this seems to say that the more people who were not unemployed and not counted in the unemployment figure, the lower their unemployment rates would be. This tells us another part of the reason why graph Source A looks like it does. It suddenly dips after the Nazis took power and imposed their rules.
All of the sources D, E&F give us a reason why unemployment goes down from the beginning of nazi rule. Although source E is from a biased illegal opposition newssheet, it does tell us that the Nazis were having such an influence that people were ‘working themselves to the bone,’ although wages kept going down. Source E shows unemployment going down as a result of the Nazis introducing rearmament. Jobs were being created in munitions The prejudiced rhyme which is source D tells us that women stay at home & are not counted in the vote as are, (Source F), “unemployed Jews,” and “women and unmarried men under 25.” Source F also tells us about the reintroduction of conscription, which give men real jobs but are taking them off the labour market. This is the third reason why Source A changes as dramatically as it does after the Nazis took power.
6) When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Germany was not in a very good state. I believe for this reason that by the employment of people like Schaacht to help with the hyperinflation problems etc. the Nazis did help with Germany’s rebuilding and economic success. Before the Nazis took power, the German people were against the Treaty of Versailles. They felt unstable. Hitler vowed to tear up the treaty and in the end he ignored it, which helped Germany back to its feet. Hitler’s support for Germany and the German people was also a big reason for his popularity before WW2. He had a very nationalistic view of the country and believed that Germany should be for Germany and had power in itself, and could be self-sufficient. The people obviously loved this. After the Governments they had had and the treaty that they had been forced to oblige by, blaming Germany for things that made them lose all of their pride in being a German, suddenly this leader had come and told them they should be proud of their country and that they could be great, rising out of everything they had been through to become a better country even than they had known in the past. Source A shows the unemployment figures 1933-1939. There is a very clear dip in the figures through these years. Now people would have trusted the Nazis more. They had jobs, and some sort of stability in their work. They felt secure in their leadership as well as their jobs. Their government was now not a coalition government that was unstable and failing in keeping control, but one that had power and control over the people, a strong leader that they were passionate about. This is largely due to Hitler’s willingness to help and the way that he tried to rule the country, using the people’s thoughts etc. He re-introduced conscription, (Source B), to help bring Germany together, building Autobahns. This gave people some sort of paid work at least. He promised the German people jobs, food and bread. All of these promises he fulfilled. He said that each German family would have a home and even their own car, a “Volkswagen,” or people’s car. The brand still exists today. Women were treated like a cornerstone in Germany. They were given specific jobs to do, and the propaganda in source “D” shows us this. Most women were happy with this sort of treatment, however, some lost their jobs.
However, there were many reasons why German people were not happy with Hitler’s leadership. He sometimes forced people into doing things, and his punishment was very harsh, i.e. concentration camps, or even the execution of youths. There were many people outside and inside Germany that felt that the things that Hitler did were somewhat immoral, however, on the economic side of things he brought Germany back to it’s feet with schemes like the Dawes plan. Although many people felt hatred towards Adolf Hitler when it was found what he was doing in the Second World War and just before, you only need to look at source g to see what other people felt about him. David Lloyd George PM, speaking in 1936, says:
“I have seen the famous German leader and also the great changes he has made. Whatever one may think of his methods - and they certainly aren’t those of a parliamentary country – there can be no doubt that he has achieved a marvellous change in the spirit of the people, and in their economic and social outlook.”
Although David Lloyd George thought his methods were perhaps crude, he thought he was a marvellous leader responsible for bringing Germany back together economically and socially.
