The women were seen and broadcast by politicians as Germany’s back bone and by giving them this praise as well as giving them a very important role made the women fall in line of getting them out of the workplace and in with the three k’s: Kurder – child; Hirsh –church; Kurche – Kitchen .These were stressed by posters and propaganda all around Germany encouraging and ensuring women knew what they were doing. By jammins these morals into their minds it ment they would not defer from the Nazis plans.
The three main policies Germany held to achieve these were; women out of work and in the home. They succeeded in this by giving a women a very important role to achieve that was broadcast all around Germany, this also reduced male unemployment, this also meant their jobs could be done ‘more efficiently’ and this also got ex soldiers who were handicapped from WWI and incapable of war but capable of going back to work. The second was helping families with their mortgages this had multiple advantages the first being it encouraged women to have children so that they did not have to have pay for their house as 1 child equaled a quarter of the mortgage was paid, 2 = half, 3 = three quarter and four means all of the mortgage is paid off, this gave them an achievable and very beneficial goal.
The second being the money that was formerly spent on the mortgage was now spent on feeding and clothing the children. The last of the most important and influential policies to get Germany as dominant as it previously had been, was the mothers cross, which was annually held on August 12th which was Hitler’s mums birthday, this date giving the award more of a warm feel and meaning to it.
This award symbolized how many children you had given birth to, to be a fantastic German women. Bronze was 4, silver was 6, and gold was 8. Not only did this reward women for their efforts, but it gave them status and created a sense of competition between families, these three policies substantially helped Hitler with his main aims.
The reason these laws and policies along with many others were seen as contemporary and contradictory was because in 1937 Germany was on brink of war and so women had to go back to work and men had to go off to war. This was a major clash of Nazi views and showed just how laws were used for the present. In 1938 Hitler introduced divorce laws which meant if your wife could not have children, even if this was because it was a result from an STI your husband had given to you. This created a massive spread of disease.
They also abolishing the mortgage loans which meant women were forced to go back to work to sustain their families and introduced a compulsory service year, this year got women back into the mind set of a working life style and thus made the transition easier. Women would generally have to go work on farms and work with no pay in terrible conditions and after living in their snug houses made this very hard. However in 1939 there were less women in work than in the Great depression, despite a vast increase in female employment, the Nazis also needed more. This was made worse by employers because they wanted foreign workers who they could exploit and were physically adapted for this type of labor.
Despite the changeover from home to workplace the Nazis still wanted as many children as possible, Hitler also introduced a system called the lebensborn programme where by racially pure SS men could make a women pregnant and she could donate this child to Hitler. Cleverly these acts led Germanys employment and population levels up however they did not meet Germanys needs along with the contemporary laws and confusion led Germany to lose the second World war.