Women in the Third Reich
Encyclopedia
Women in the Third Reich lived within a regime characterized by a policy of confining women in the roles of mother and spouse and excluding them from all positions of responsibility, notably in the political and academic spheres. The policy of Nazism
contrasts starkly with the evolution of emancipation under the Weimar Republic
, and is equally distinguishable from the patriarchal and conservative attitude under the German Empire
. The regimentation of women at the heart of satellite organizations of the Nazi Party, as the or the , had the ultimate goal of encouraging the cohesion of the "people's community" .
The Nazi model woman did not have a career, but she was responsible for the education of her children and for housekeeping. Women only had a limited right to training revolving around domestic tasks, and were, over time, restricted from teaching in universities, from medical professions and from parliament. With the exception of Reichsführerin Gertrud Scholtz-Klink
, no women were allowed to carry out official functions, however some exception stood out in the regime, either through their proximity to Adolf Hitler
, such as Magda Goebbels
, or by excelling in particular fields, such as filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl
or aviator Hanna Reitsch
.
While some women played an influential role at the heart of the Nazi system or filled official posts at the heart of the Concentration camps, others were engaged in the German resistance
and paid with their lives, such as Libertas Schulze-Boysen
or Sophie Scholl
.
, the status of women was one of the most progressive in Europe. The Weimar Constitution
of January 19, 1919 proclaimed their right to vote (articles 17 and 22), equality of the sexes in civic matters (art. 109), non-descrimination against female bureaucrats (art. 128), maternity rights (art.19) and spousal equality within marriage (art. 119). Clara Zetkin
, a figurehead of the German feminist movement, was a Member of Parliament in the Reichstag
from 1920 to 1933 and even presided over the assembly in the role of Dean. But Weimar did not represent a huge leap forward for women's liberation. They remained under-represented in the parliaments, motherhood was promoted as women's most important social function, abortion was still prosecutable (§ 218 of the Criminal Code), and workers did not achieve substantial economic progress such as equal salaries. With the emergence of consumerism
, businesses and government had an increasing need for labour; although work became a route to emancipation for women, they were often restricted to clerical work as secretaries or sales staff, where they were generally paid 10% to 20% less than male employees, under various pretexts, such as that their understanding of domestic tasks freed them from certain household expenses.
Since January 1921, the doctrine of the Nazi party was clear and made no secret of its desire to exclude women from the political life of Germany as well as certain spheres of the party (notably the party executive as well as executive committees. While the Nazi party decreed that " women could be admitted to neither the Party executive nor to the Administrative Committee ", this did not prevent numerous women from becoming party members. The Nazi doctrine elevated the role of German men, emphasizing their combat skills and the brotherhood among male compatriots. While most of the other parties under the Weimar Republic ran female candidates during elections and some were elected, the Nazi party refused. In 1933, Joseph Goebbels
justified this position by explaining that " it is necessary to leave to men that which belongs to men ". Germany went from having 37 female Members of Parliament out of 577, to none, after the German election, November 1933.
's attaining power as Chancellor marked the end of numerous women's rights, even if the Nazi party owed part of its electoral success to female voters and that Hitler succeeded in his social rise in part thanks to the protection of influencial women. Hitler's socializing within affluent circles and with socialites (such as Princess Elsa Bruckmann
, wife of the editor Hugo Bruckmann
or Helene Bechstein, wife of industrialist Edwin Bechstein) allowed the Nazi party from the beginning to obtain certain financing, such as when Gertrud von Seidlitz donated to them 30,000 marks in 1923
In 1935, during a speech to the National-Socialist Women's Congress, Hitler declared, with regard to women's rights : The fact that Hitler was unmarried and that he represented a masculine ideal for many Germans led to a phenomenon of the erotisation of Hitler. In April 1923, an article appeared in the Munchener Post stating "women adore Hitler "; he was described as adapting his speeches to "the tastes of women who, since the beginning, count among his most fervent admirers".
The setback forced women from public life, in a society that was beginning to consider them men's equals, allowing the Nazis to stem what they viewed as the decadence of the Weimar Republic. In their eyes, the regime had in effect appeared as Jew-ridden as feminized, more or less tolerating the homosexual metropolis that Berlin had become, the veritable antithesis of Aryan verility. Heinrich Himmler
declared as much to the SS-Gruppenführer, on February 18, 1937 :
Officially, the status of women changed from "equal rights" to an "equivalence" beween men and women . Historian Pierre Ayçoberry points out that "this offensive offered the double advantage of pleasing their male colleagues worried by this competition, and returned to private life more than 100,000 people proud of their success, the majority of whom were voters who supported the political left". This policy created worry among the militants in the NSDAP, who were concerned that it would harm the number of female graduates, a reservoir needed for future party ranks.
Women's associations, notably communist and socialist groups were banned, and in some rare cases members were arrested or assassinated. All associations were requested to turn in Jewish members, such as the Union of Protestant Women, the Association of Household and Countryside, the Women's German Colonial Society Union and the Union of Queen Louise. But rapidly, the majority of the associations disbanded or chose among themselves to disappear, such as the BDF (Bund Deutscher Frauenverein), established in 1894 and which disbanded in 1933 to avoid being controlled. Only one women's association persisted under the regime (the association of Gertrud Bäumer
, Die Frau, or Woman), until 1944, but placed under the guardianship of the Reich Minister of People's Education and of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels
. Rudolf Hess
established the Deutsches Frauenwerk which, with the women's branch of the Nazi party, the NS-Frauenschaft, had the purpose of becoming a mass organization for the regime.
In 1936, a law was passed banning certain high-level positions in the judicial system to women (notably judge and prosecutor, through Hitler's personal intervention ) and the medical field. Female doctors were no longer allowed to practise, until their loss had a harmful effect on health needs and some were recalled to work; also dissolved was the Association of Medical Women, which was absorbed into its male counterpart.) Under the Weimar Republic, only 1% of university posts were filled by women. On June 8, 1937, a decree stipulated that only men could be named to these posts, if it was not in a social field. Nonetheless, on February 21, 1938 " in an individual and exceptional capacity " following lobbying by Gertrud Scholtz-Klink
, one female scientist Margarete Gussow obtained a post in astronomy. Mathematician Ruth Moufang
was able to receive her doctorate, but could not obtain the right to teach and was forced to work for national industry. Emmy Noether
, another mathematician, was terminated from her post by virtue of the law German law for the Restoration of the Public Service of April 7, 1933, for having been active in the 1920s in the USPD
and the SPD
. Physics researcher Lise Meitner
, who directed the Department of Physics at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Society, was able to remain in her post until 1938, but this was only due to her Austrian nationality, which ended with the Anschluss
); she then left for the Netherlands, and then Sweden. In the scientific field, there were almost no nominations of women; in 1942, a woman was not permitted to direct a scientific institute, despite the fact that no male candidate had applied. The exile of women from political life was total: they could not sit in either the Reichstag, the regional parliaments or municipal counsels.
There was no substantial resistance to this control, the bourgeois women's associations thinking, much as a large part of the population did, that the Nazi government was only temporary and that they could nonetheless make their influence valued, the historian Claudia Koonz pointing out the popular proverb of the era that " soup is never eaten hot if one does not cook it ", and that they were obtaining an " acceptable arrangement ". Women traditionally opposed to Naziism, who could not accept this vision, lined up to emigrate, or were arrested as opponents of males.
even attacking anti-lipstick propaganda campaigns Völkischer Beobachter
and attacking the most zealous ideologues.
), racially pure and physically robust. She did not work, living in the cult of motherhood and following the slogan of the former emperor William II of Germany: Kinder, Küche, Kirche
, meaning "Children, kitchen, church". In a document published in 1934, The Nine Commandments of the Workers' Struggle, Hermann Goering less bluntly summarizes the future role of German women: "Take a pot, a dustpan and a broom and marry a man". This was anti-feminism in the sense that the Nazis considered political rights granted to women (access to high-level positions for example) as incompatible with the nature of reproduction, the only role within which they could blossom and best serve the interests of the nation. Thus, Magda Goebbels
declared in 1933 : " German women were excluded from three professions: the army, as elsewhere in the world; the government; and the judiciary. If a German girl must choose between marriage or a career, she will always be encouraged to marry, because that is what is best for a woman ". It is not possible to make a mental leap to the conservative and patriarchal societies that prevailed for example during the Second Empire; in effect, the totalitarian character of the regime moved away from the concept that had been made of women being put on a shelf by society. On the contrary, they were expected to participate at the ground level in the roles of mother and spouse. The fact that the regimentation of women (Bund Deutscher Mädel then Frauenschaft
) being so organized, did not permit relegating women to what they could do in the 19th century. Without a doubt, a conservative electorate and a fringe part of the population very critical of the image of the emancipated woman from the 1920s found a certain satisfaction in the new regime. But the goals were different, asking each woman to take part in the building of the " Reich of 1000 years " Female liberation found itself therefore necessarily limited, and Heide Schlüpmann was correct to say in Frauen und Film, that the films of Leni Riefenstahl
(the official film director of the regime) "value quite a negation of female sexuality and only offer women a deceptive autonomy".
SS members, who constituted the physical standard desired by the regime, beginning with a 1932 ordinance, the so-called Lebensborn
, were required to father at least four chidren. Women were even abducted and incarcerated by force at institutions for procreation. But this policy did not truly bear fruit, and it was more the natalist policy of the State for the nation (financial support for new children, decorations, severe penalties against abortion).
: women were to be blonde, beautiful, tall, thin and robust all at once. This image was spread as much through advertising as through official art, then through ancient art, and more specifically through Greco-Roman statues. Academic Monique Moser-Verrey notes: "a revival, during the course of the Thirties, of mythological themes such as the Judgement of Paris
, the Rape of Europe and the Rape of Leda."
Monique Moser-Verrey notes however:
and Frauenarbeitsdienst. Adolf Hitler declared, on April 12, 1942, that the schools of the Reich must gather "boys and girls from all classes" to meet "all the youth of the Reich". The education manual Das kommende Deutschland notes that: It was also required that they know the geography of Germany, its hymns as wells as the clauses of the Treaty of Versailles
.
The education of girls also meant political education; there already existed elite schools of political studies, the Napola (Nationalpolitische Anstalten), one for girls opened in 1939 in Vienna
and another in 1942 in Luxembourg
. These institutions did not have a purpose of enabling women to re-enter political life but endow the best with the cultural baggage required to occupy posts related to the management of women's affairs. This concerned a very small minority. However, on June 5, 1942, the MInister of Finance Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk, a conservative politician, threatened to cut grants to the second school, if it did not become a simple internship for adolescents, rejecting all political education for girls. Adolf Hitler decided otherwise on June 24, 1943, promising the construction of three new Napola.
When the Hitler Youth
was devoted to organizing the extra-curricular life of male adolescents, the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM), occupied adolescents from 14 to 18 years. Founded in 1934, the movement was needed after the law of December 1, 1936. It was led from 1934 to 1937 by Trude Mohr
, then from 1937 to 1945 by the psychologist Jutta Rüdiger
. Young girls were trained for certain employment (social work, cleaning) or farming (Ernteeinsatz, helping with harvest) and practised sports ; but shockingly, as the education manual Das kommende Deutschland shows, the physical performance demanded was sometimes the same as those of the boys (for example, to run 60 meters in less than 12 seconds). Every Wednesday evening, for girls from 15 to 20 years old, the " home parties " took place, for discussing art and culture. Vacation camps (held for one week during Summer), in Germany or abroad, were organized. There also existed a required six-month work service, the Reichsarbeitsdienst der weiblichen Jugend (National Young Women's Work Service), completed in 1941 with six extra months in the Kriegshilfsdienst (for the war effort). For young women aged 18 to 25 years old wishing to find work, in 1938 the Pflichtjahr was instituted, one year of obligatory service in farming or domestic work.
The regimentation of these youth, that continues into adulthood is not really conservative, but rather revolutionary: to not confine future women to an ill-defined role in the home as in the past, instead they are being educated like boys in the cult of the Fatherland, for once they become adults, they will become ideal German women. Thus, they are held firmly within the family fold.
, who had the title of Reichsführerin ; elle appelle the members "my daughters" and acquired a strong influence over them and a certain credibility. Her views on women were obviously in agreement with those of Adolf Hitler, but she still defended access to some positions of responsibility. She did not participate in major meetings of the party but was invited to the party congress.
School textbooks were edited beginning in 1934, often under the supervision of the doctor Johanna Haarer, an author notably for The German Mother and Her First Baby, which was widely published, and promoting the driving role of the German mother in building the regime, or "Mother, tell me about Adolf Hitler (Mutter, erzhäl von Adolf Hitler), to lead women to indoctrinate their children in Nazi values :
Housekeeping training was promoted through Frauenwerk (German Women's Work), which opened thematic courses for "ethnically pure" women. It is notable, however, that although there were numerous courses for domestic training, gymnastics and music, they deserted those oriented towards antireligious teaching.
The NS-Frauenschaft "played no political role and did not oppose the loss of hard-won women's rights. It defended the role of the mother of the family at home, conscious of their duties at the heart of the community. Provided, containing women within the private sphere does not hide their responsibilities under the Third Reich ; we know today that the Frauenbewegung [(women's movement)] thought the place of a woman in society was at the heart of a community that excluded Jews and performed a civilizing mission in occupied Eastern Europe to preserve the race".
says: Yet, referring to the decree of January 1943, calling for the mobilization of German women aged 17 to 45, she said in September of that year, at a conference in Bad Schlachen:
In his Sportspalast speech, delivered on February 18, 1943 at the Berlin Sports Hall, Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels called on German women to work and to be sober in their commitment:
The mobilisation of women in the war economy always remained limited: the number of women practising a professional activity in 1944 was virtually unchanged from 1939, being about 15 million women, in contrast to Great Britain, so that the use of women did not progress and only 1,200,000 of them worked in the arms industry in 1943, in working conditions that were difficult and often poorly treated by their bosses, who deplored their lack of qualification.
army, of the Luftwaffe
or the Kriegsmarine
. About half of them were volunteers, the others performing obligatory service connected to the war effort (Kriegshilfsdienst). They took part, under the same authority as prisoners of war (Hiwi
s), as auxiliary personnel of the army (Behelfspersonal) and they were assigned to duties not only within the heart of the Reich, but to a lesser extent, to the occupied territories, for example in the General government
of occupied Poland
, in France
, and later in Yugoslavia
, in Greece
and in Romania
.
They essentially participated :
, but in contrast it was only confined to voluntary work in Emergency Service (Notdienstverpflichtung). SS Women belonged either to the SS-Helferinnen or the SS-Kriegshelferinnen. The former were trained in a special school (see below), others were trained for a shorter time. They were in charge of auxiliary transmissions (telephone, radio operators, stenographers) in the SS and sometimes in camps (these were the Aufseherin, see next section). There was an internal hierarchy in the women's wing of the SS, which had no influence on the male troops, although the titles designated to the women sometimes had an influence upon the owners.
A Reichschule SS (in full, the Reichsschule fïir SS Helferinnen Oberenheim) was the training centre for the SS
, reserved for women, and opened in Obernai in May 1942, on the order of Heinrich Himmler
. The training was more difficult than that for women enrolled in the German army, the Wehrmacht
. In effect, they met certain physical criteria, being destined to serve as model wives conforming to the physical standards determined by the regime: they must be aged 17 to 30 years and measure more than 1.65 metres tall, while over the long term, the enrollment criteria were relaxed (the age limit was raised to 40 years and minimum height dropped to 1.58 metres), having even gone as far as to accept 15 Moslem students. Having been in a privileged status, war widows were favoured before the admissions were opened up to other social classes. The school closed in 1944 due to the advance of the Allies.
. They were guards, secretaries or nurses. They arrived before the start of the war, some of them being trained from 1938 in Lichtenburg. This took place due to the need for personnel following the growing number of political prisoners after the Kristallnacht
on November 8 and 9, 1938. After 1939, they were trained at Camp Ravensbrück near Berlin
. Coming mostly from lower- or middle-class social origins, they previously worked in traditional professions (hairdresser, teacher, for example) but were, in contrast to men who were required to fulfill military serve, the women were driven by a sincere desire to reach the female wing of the SS, the SS-Gefolge. Of the 55,000 total number of guards at all the Nazi camps, there were 3,600 women (approximately 10% of the workforce), however, no woman was allowed to give orders to a man.
They worked at the Auschwitz and Majdanek
camps beginning in 1942. The following year, the Nazis began the conscription of women because of the shortage of guards. Later, during the war, women were also assigned on a smaller scale in the camps Neuengamme
Auschwitz (I, II and III), Plaszow lossenbürg] ], Gross-Rosen Vught
and Stutthof
, but never served in the death camps of Belzec
, Sobibór
Treblinka or Chelmno
. Seven Aufseherinnen served at Vught
, 24 were at Buchenwald, 34 at Bergen-Belsen
, 19 at Dachau
, 20 at Mauthausen
, three at Mittelbau-Dora
, seven at Natzweiler-Struthof, twenty at Majdanek
200 at Auschwitz and its sub-camps, 140 at Sachsenhausen
, 158 at Neuengamme
, 47 at Stutthof
, compared with 958 who served at Ravensbrück, 561 at Flossenbürg
and 541 at Gross-Rosen. Many supervisors worked in the sub-camps in Germany
, some in France
, Austria
, Czechoslovakia
and Poland
.
There was a hierarchy within the Aufseherin, including the following higher ranks:
Under the same threats as men who were Jews or Romani
, women belonging to these communities were equally discriminated against, then deported and for some exterminated. In many concentration camps there were sections for female detainees (notably at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen
) but the camp at Ravensbrück, opened in May 1939, distinguished itself as a camp solely for women, by 1945 numbering about 100,000 prisoners. The first women's concentration camp had been opened in 1933 in Moringen
, before being transferred to Lichtenburg in 1938.
In concentration camps, women were considered weaker than men, and they were generally sent to the gas chambers more quickly, whereas the strength of men was used to work the men to exhaustion. Some women were subjected to medical experiments.
Some took the path of the Resistance, such as the Polish member Haïka Grosman, who participated in the organization for aid for the ghetto of Białystok, during the night of August 15 to 16, 1943. On October 7, 1944, members of the Sonderkommando, 250 prisoners responsible for the bodies of persons after gassing, rose up ; they had procured explosives stolen by a Kommando of young Jewish women (Ella Gartner, Regina Safir, Estera Wajsblum and Roza Robota
) who worked in the armament factories of the Union Werke. They succeeded in partially destroying Crematorium IV.
In addition to the resistors forced into their commitment because of their risk of being deported and exterminated because of their race, some were also committed against the German Nazi regime. Women represented approximately 15% of the Resistance. Monique Moser-Verrey notes however:
The student Communist Liselotte Herrmann
protested in 1933 against the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor and managed to get information to foreign governments about the rearmament of Germany. In 1935 she was arrested, sentenced to death two years later and executed in 1938. She was the first German mother to suffer the death penalty since the beginning of the regime. Twenty women from Düsseldorf, who saw their fathers, brothers and son deported to the camp Börgermoor, managed to smuggle out the famous The Song of the deportees and make it known. Freya von Moltke
, Mildred Harnack-Fish and Libertas Schulze-Boysen
participated in the Resistance
group Kreisau Circle
and Red Orchestra; the last two were arrested and executed. The 20 year old student Sophie Scholl
, a member of The White Rose was executed February 22, 1943 with her brother Hans Scholl
and Christopher Probst, for posting leaflets. The resistor Maria Terwiel
helped to spread knowledge of the famous sermon condemning the mentally ill given by Clemens von Galen, Bishop of Munster, as well as helping Jews escape to abroad. She was executed on 5 August 1943. We can also note the successful protests of women, called the Rosenstraße
, racially "Aryan
" women married to Jews who, in February 1943, obtained the release of their husbands.
Women also fought for the Resistance
from abroad, like Dora Schaul, a Communist who had left Germany in 1934 and involved from July 1942 with clandestine networks, Deutsch Arbeit (German Labour) and Deutsche-Feldpost (My German countryside), from the School of Military Health in Lyon
. Hilde Meisel
attempted in 1933 to galvanize British public opinion against the Nazi regime. She returned to Germany during the war but was executed at the bend of a road.
and Magda Goebbels
, wife of the Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels
. Magda Goebbels became known by the nickname "First Lady of the Third Reich": she represented the regime during State visits and official events. Her marriage to Goebbels on December 19, 1931 was considered a society event, where Leni Riefenstahl
was a notable guest. She posed as the model German mother for Mothers Day. Eleonore Baur, a friend of Hitler since 1920 (she had participated in the Beer Hall putsch
) was the only woman to receive the Blood Order
; she also participated in official receptions and was close to Heinrich Himmler
, who even named her a colonel of the SS and permitted her free access to the concentration camps, which she went to regularly, particularly Dachau
. Hitler did not forget that he owed part of his political ascension to women integrated in the society world (aristocrats or industrialists), like Elsa Bruckmann
.
Women were also able to distinguish themselves in certain domains, but they were the exceptions that proved the rule. Thus Leni Riefenstahl
was the official film director of the regime and was given enormous funding for her cinematic productions (Triumph of the Will
, and Olympia (1938 film)
). Winifred Wagner
directed the highly publicized Bayreuth Festival
, and soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
was promoted as the "Nazi diva", as noted by an American newspaper. Hanna Reitsch
, an aviator, distinguished herself with her handling of test aircraft and military projects of the regime, notably the V1 flying bomb.
Although they were not judged as severely as the men driving the regime, some women were prosecuted after the war. Thus, Herta Oberheuser
, a doctor who participated in Nazi medical experiments at the Ravensbrück camp from 1940 to 1943, was the only woman in the dock at the doctors' trial at Nuremberg. She was held responsible for infecting 86 women with viruses and killing children. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison. For her part, Inge Viermetz, was acquitted at the RuSHA
trial.
The denazification
court was prohibited from targeting Winifred Wagner of the Bayreuth Festival. Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl was brought to appear in court in 1948, accused of having not paid Roma
and Sinti
for participating in her film "Tiefland", and for having falsely promised to save them from camps, and is finally discharged.
Some German women interviewed long after the Third Reich, influential or not, confessed that they had not denied the Nazi regime, nor the person of Adolf Hitler, refusing, or not, to acknowledge the crimes committed during those years. Others, like Henriette von Schirach in her book "Der Preis der Herrlichkeit. Erfahren Zeitgeschichte", remained ambiguous, this last challenging a system that passed through "the triumph of vanity".
.
However, the simplicity of this analysis tends to disappear with recent studies. In 1987, historian Claudia Koonz, in "Mothers in in Fatherland, Women, the Family and Nazi Politics" questioned this statement and acknowledged some guilt. Many women admired Adolf Hitler and in fact enabled his electoral successes in the early 1930s. She states as follows: "Far from being impressionable or innocent, women made possible State murder in the name of interests that they defined as maternal." For her, the containing of housewives just allowed them to assert themselves and grasp an identity, especially through women's associations led by Nazi Gertrud Scholtz-Klink
. They therefore helped to stabilize the system. The women took pleasure in politics and eugenics of the state, which promised financial assistance if the birth rate was high, so they would help to stabilize the system. In addition, if Gisela Block denounced the work of her colleague as "anti-feminist", others as Adelheid von Saldern refuse to stop at a strict choice between complicity and oppression and are more interested in how the Third Reich included women in their project for Germany.
), who are active through the organization Stille Hilfe
, and the French citizens Françoise Dior
and Savitri Devi.
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
contrasts starkly with the evolution of emancipation under the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
, and is equally distinguishable from the patriarchal and conservative attitude under the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
. The regimentation of women at the heart of satellite organizations of the Nazi Party, as the or the , had the ultimate goal of encouraging the cohesion of the "people's community" .
The Nazi model woman did not have a career, but she was responsible for the education of her children and for housekeeping. Women only had a limited right to training revolving around domestic tasks, and were, over time, restricted from teaching in universities, from medical professions and from parliament. With the exception of Reichsführerin Gertrud Scholtz-Klink
Gertrud Scholtz-Klink
Gertrud Scholtz-Klink née Treusch was a fervent Nazi Party member and leader of the National Socialist Women's League in Nazi Germany.- Nazi activities :...
, no women were allowed to carry out official functions, however some exception stood out in the regime, either through their proximity to Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, such as Magda Goebbels
Magda Goebbels
Johanna Maria Magdalena "Magda" Goebbels was the wife of Nazi Germany's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels...
, or by excelling in particular fields, such as filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
or aviator Hanna Reitsch
Hanna Reitsch
Hanna Reitsch was a German aviator and the only woman awarded the Iron Cross First Class and the Luftwaffe Combined Pilots-Observation Badge in Gold with Diamonds during World War II...
.
While some women played an influential role at the heart of the Nazi system or filled official posts at the heart of the Concentration camps, others were engaged in the German resistance
German Resistance
The German resistance was the opposition by individuals and groups in Germany to Adolf Hitler or the National Socialist regime between 1933 and 1945. Some of these engaged in active plans to remove Adolf Hitler from power and overthrow his regime...
and paid with their lives, such as Libertas Schulze-Boysen
Libertas Schulze-Boysen
Libertas Schulze-Boysen, born Libertas Viktoria Haas-Heye was a German opponent of the Nazis who belonged to the Red Orchestra resistance group during the Third Reich.- Early years :Schulze-Boysen spent her childhood at her grandfather's estate Philip, Prince of Eulenburg and Hertefeld...
or Sophie Scholl
Sophie Scholl
Sophia Magdalena Scholl was a German student, active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich with her brother Hans...
.
From emancipation to exclusion
Weimar Republic
Under the Weimar RepublicWeimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
, the status of women was one of the most progressive in Europe. The Weimar Constitution
Weimar constitution
The Constitution of the German Reich , usually known as the Weimar Constitution was the constitution that governed Germany during the Weimar Republic...
of January 19, 1919 proclaimed their right to vote (articles 17 and 22), equality of the sexes in civic matters (art. 109), non-descrimination against female bureaucrats (art. 128), maternity rights (art.19) and spousal equality within marriage (art. 119). Clara Zetkin
Clara Zetkin
Clara Zetkin was a German Marxist theorist, activist, and fighter for women's rights. In 1910, she organized the first International Women's Day....
, a figurehead of the German feminist movement, was a Member of Parliament in the Reichstag
Reichstag (Weimar Republic)
The Reichstag was the parliament of Weimar Republic .German constitution commentators consider only the Reichstag and now the Bundestag the German parliament. Another organ deals with legislation too: in 1867-1918 the Bundesrat, in 1919–1933 the Reichsrat and from 1949 on the Bundesrat...
from 1920 to 1933 and even presided over the assembly in the role of Dean. But Weimar did not represent a huge leap forward for women's liberation. They remained under-represented in the parliaments, motherhood was promoted as women's most important social function, abortion was still prosecutable (§ 218 of the Criminal Code), and workers did not achieve substantial economic progress such as equal salaries. With the emergence of consumerism
Consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
, businesses and government had an increasing need for labour; although work became a route to emancipation for women, they were often restricted to clerical work as secretaries or sales staff, where they were generally paid 10% to 20% less than male employees, under various pretexts, such as that their understanding of domestic tasks freed them from certain household expenses.
Since January 1921, the doctrine of the Nazi party was clear and made no secret of its desire to exclude women from the political life of Germany as well as certain spheres of the party (notably the party executive as well as executive committees. While the Nazi party decreed that " women could be admitted to neither the Party executive nor to the Administrative Committee ", this did not prevent numerous women from becoming party members. The Nazi doctrine elevated the role of German men, emphasizing their combat skills and the brotherhood among male compatriots. While most of the other parties under the Weimar Republic ran female candidates during elections and some were elected, the Nazi party refused. In 1933, Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
justified this position by explaining that " it is necessary to leave to men that which belongs to men ". Germany went from having 37 female Members of Parliament out of 577, to none, after the German election, November 1933.
Beginning of the Nazi regime
A discriminatory ideology
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's attaining power as Chancellor marked the end of numerous women's rights, even if the Nazi party owed part of its electoral success to female voters and that Hitler succeeded in his social rise in part thanks to the protection of influencial women. Hitler's socializing within affluent circles and with socialites (such as Princess Elsa Bruckmann
Elsa Bruckmann
Elsa Bruckmann , born Princess Cantacuzene of Romania, was the wife of Hugo Bruckmann, publisher of the racist writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. She held the "salon Bruckmann" and made it a mission to introduce Adolf Hitler to leading industrialists.-References:...
, wife of the editor Hugo Bruckmann
Hugo Bruckmann
Hugo Bruckmann was a German publisher.Born in Berlin, Bruckmann was the younger son of the publisher Friedrich Bruckmann. After his father's death in 1898 Hugo and his brother Alphons became the owners of F. Bruckmann KAG in Munich...
or Helene Bechstein, wife of industrialist Edwin Bechstein) allowed the Nazi party from the beginning to obtain certain financing, such as when Gertrud von Seidlitz donated to them 30,000 marks in 1923
In 1935, during a speech to the National-Socialist Women's Congress, Hitler declared, with regard to women's rights : The fact that Hitler was unmarried and that he represented a masculine ideal for many Germans led to a phenomenon of the erotisation of Hitler. In April 1923, an article appeared in the Munchener Post stating "women adore Hitler "; he was described as adapting his speeches to "the tastes of women who, since the beginning, count among his most fervent admirers".
The setback forced women from public life, in a society that was beginning to consider them men's equals, allowing the Nazis to stem what they viewed as the decadence of the Weimar Republic. In their eyes, the regime had in effect appeared as Jew-ridden as feminized, more or less tolerating the homosexual metropolis that Berlin had become, the veritable antithesis of Aryan verility. Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
declared as much to the SS-Gruppenführer, on February 18, 1937 :
Officially, the status of women changed from "equal rights" to an "equivalence" beween men and women . Historian Pierre Ayçoberry points out that "this offensive offered the double advantage of pleasing their male colleagues worried by this competition, and returned to private life more than 100,000 people proud of their success, the majority of whom were voters who supported the political left". This policy created worry among the militants in the NSDAP, who were concerned that it would harm the number of female graduates, a reservoir needed for future party ranks.
A rapid withdrawal
In 1933, school programs for girls were changed, notably with the goal of discouraging them from pursuing university studies. The five years of Latin classes and three years of science were replaced by courses in German language and domestic skills training. This did not bear productive results; on the one hand, a significant number of girls enrolled in boys' schools, while on the other hand, the " enrollment restrictions " of 10% at the university level were generally ignored. Thus, the measures only decreased the enrollment in medical schools from 20% to 17%.Women's associations, notably communist and socialist groups were banned, and in some rare cases members were arrested or assassinated. All associations were requested to turn in Jewish members, such as the Union of Protestant Women, the Association of Household and Countryside, the Women's German Colonial Society Union and the Union of Queen Louise. But rapidly, the majority of the associations disbanded or chose among themselves to disappear, such as the BDF (Bund Deutscher Frauenverein), established in 1894 and which disbanded in 1933 to avoid being controlled. Only one women's association persisted under the regime (the association of Gertrud Bäumer
Gertrud Bäumer
Gertrud Bäumer was a German politician who actively participated in the Feminist movement. She was also a writer, and contributed to Friedrich Naumann's paper Die Hilfe....
, Die Frau, or Woman), until 1944, but placed under the guardianship of the Reich Minister of People's Education and of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
. Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess was a prominent Nazi politician who was Adolf Hitler's deputy in the Nazi Party during the 1930s and early 1940s...
established the Deutsches Frauenwerk which, with the women's branch of the Nazi party, the NS-Frauenschaft, had the purpose of becoming a mass organization for the regime.
In 1936, a law was passed banning certain high-level positions in the judicial system to women (notably judge and prosecutor, through Hitler's personal intervention ) and the medical field. Female doctors were no longer allowed to practise, until their loss had a harmful effect on health needs and some were recalled to work; also dissolved was the Association of Medical Women, which was absorbed into its male counterpart.) Under the Weimar Republic, only 1% of university posts were filled by women. On June 8, 1937, a decree stipulated that only men could be named to these posts, if it was not in a social field. Nonetheless, on February 21, 1938 " in an individual and exceptional capacity " following lobbying by Gertrud Scholtz-Klink
Gertrud Scholtz-Klink
Gertrud Scholtz-Klink née Treusch was a fervent Nazi Party member and leader of the National Socialist Women's League in Nazi Germany.- Nazi activities :...
, one female scientist Margarete Gussow obtained a post in astronomy. Mathematician Ruth Moufang
Ruth Moufang
Ruth Moufang was a German mathematician.Born to a German chemist Dr. Eduard Moufang and Else Fecht Moufang, she studied mathematics at the University of Frankfurt. In 1931 she received her Ph.D. on projective geometry under the direction of Max Dehn, and in 1932 spent a fellowship year in Rome...
was able to receive her doctorate, but could not obtain the right to teach and was forced to work for national industry. Emmy Noether
Emmy Noether
Amalie Emmy Noether was an influential German mathematician known for her groundbreaking contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics. Described by David Hilbert, Albert Einstein and others as the most important woman in the history of mathematics, she revolutionized the theories of...
, another mathematician, was terminated from her post by virtue of the law German law for the Restoration of the Public Service of April 7, 1933, for having been active in the 1920s in the USPD
Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany was a short-lived political party in Germany during the Second Reich and the Weimar Republic. The organization was established in 1917 as the result of a split of left wing members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany...
and the SPD
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
. Physics researcher Lise Meitner
Lise Meitner
Lise Meitner FRS was an Austrian-born, later Swedish, physicist who worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics. Meitner was part of the team that discovered nuclear fission, an achievement for which her colleague Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize...
, who directed the Department of Physics at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Society, was able to remain in her post until 1938, but this was only due to her Austrian nationality, which ended with the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
); she then left for the Netherlands, and then Sweden. In the scientific field, there were almost no nominations of women; in 1942, a woman was not permitted to direct a scientific institute, despite the fact that no male candidate had applied. The exile of women from political life was total: they could not sit in either the Reichstag, the regional parliaments or municipal counsels.
There was no substantial resistance to this control, the bourgeois women's associations thinking, much as a large part of the population did, that the Nazi government was only temporary and that they could nonetheless make their influence valued, the historian Claudia Koonz pointing out the popular proverb of the era that " soup is never eaten hot if one does not cook it ", and that they were obtaining an " acceptable arrangement ". Women traditionally opposed to Naziism, who could not accept this vision, lined up to emigrate, or were arrested as opponents of males.
The partial recovery of 1937
Noticing the need for women in certain professions and their usefulness in the country's economy, the anti-emancipation policy in terms of the workforce was rapidly blunted. Women were otherwise invited to adhere to Naziism and reassured with the idea that they could be a mother and be employed, Joseph GoebbelsJoseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
even attacking anti-lipstick propaganda campaigns Völkischer Beobachter
Völkischer Beobachter
The Völkischer Beobachter was the newspaper of the National Socialist German Workers' Party from 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from February 8, 1923...
and attacking the most zealous ideologues.
The Nazi feminine ideal
A "new" woman?
The Nazi woman had to conform to the German society desired by Adolf Hitler (VolksgemeinschaftVolksgemeinschaft
Volksgemeinschaft is a German expression meaning "people's community". Originally appearing during World War I as Germans rallied behind the war, it derived its popularity as a means to break down elitism and class divides...
), racially pure and physically robust. She did not work, living in the cult of motherhood and following the slogan of the former emperor William II of Germany: Kinder, Küche, Kirche
Kinder, Küche, Kirche
Kinder, Küche, Kirche , or the 3 K’s, is a German slogan translated as “children, kitchen, church”. At the present time it has a derogative connotation describing an antiquated female role model...
, meaning "Children, kitchen, church". In a document published in 1934, The Nine Commandments of the Workers' Struggle, Hermann Goering less bluntly summarizes the future role of German women: "Take a pot, a dustpan and a broom and marry a man". This was anti-feminism in the sense that the Nazis considered political rights granted to women (access to high-level positions for example) as incompatible with the nature of reproduction, the only role within which they could blossom and best serve the interests of the nation. Thus, Magda Goebbels
Magda Goebbels
Johanna Maria Magdalena "Magda" Goebbels was the wife of Nazi Germany's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels...
declared in 1933 : " German women were excluded from three professions: the army, as elsewhere in the world; the government; and the judiciary. If a German girl must choose between marriage or a career, she will always be encouraged to marry, because that is what is best for a woman ". It is not possible to make a mental leap to the conservative and patriarchal societies that prevailed for example during the Second Empire; in effect, the totalitarian character of the regime moved away from the concept that had been made of women being put on a shelf by society. On the contrary, they were expected to participate at the ground level in the roles of mother and spouse. The fact that the regimentation of women (Bund Deutscher Mädel then Frauenschaft
Frauenschaft
The NS-Frauenschaft was the women's wing of the Nazi party. It was founded in October 1931 as a fusion of several nationalist and national-socialist women's associations....
) being so organized, did not permit relegating women to what they could do in the 19th century. Without a doubt, a conservative electorate and a fringe part of the population very critical of the image of the emancipated woman from the 1920s found a certain satisfaction in the new regime. But the goals were different, asking each woman to take part in the building of the " Reich of 1000 years " Female liberation found itself therefore necessarily limited, and Heide Schlüpmann was correct to say in Frauen und Film, that the films of Leni Riefenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
(the official film director of the regime) "value quite a negation of female sexuality and only offer women a deceptive autonomy".
Prohibitions and obligations
The wearing of makeup was generally prohibited, and a certain modesty was demanded of women, contrasting with the Weimar Republic period, which experienced more freedom on a moral level. In 1933, meetings of the NSBO (National Sozialistischer Betriebs Obman, the women's section of the German Workers' Front) proclaimed that women " painted and powdered were forbidden at all meetings of the NSBO. Women who smoked in public – in hotels, cafés, in the street and so on – will be excluded from NSBO ". Activities considered more or less traditional were limited to recommended places: music, manual labour, gymnastics. Sexuality was banned, unless for a reproductive goal; liberated young women were considered "depraved" and "antisocial". Mothers were encouraged to have children: thus was created the "Ehrenkreuz der Deutschen Mutter" (in English: Cross of Honour of the German Mother) for mothers having brought into the world more than four children. A "German Mothers' Day" was also created; during that of 1939, three million mothers were decorated. Concerning abortion, access to services was quickly prohibited, until in 1935, the medical profession became obliged to report stillbirths to the Regional Office for State Health, who would further investigate the natural loss of a child; in 1943 the ministers of the Interior and Justice enacted the law " Protection of Marriage, Family and Motherhood ", which made provisions for the death penalty for mothers convicted of infanticide.SS members, who constituted the physical standard desired by the regime, beginning with a 1932 ordinance, the so-called Lebensborn
Lebensborn
Lebensborn was a Nazi programme set up by SS leader Heinrich Himmler that provided maternity homes and financial assistance to the wives of SS members and to unmarried mothers, and also ran orphanages and relocation programmes for children.Initially set up in Germany in 1935, Lebensborn expanded...
, were required to father at least four chidren. Women were even abducted and incarcerated by force at institutions for procreation. But this policy did not truly bear fruit, and it was more the natalist policy of the State for the nation (financial support for new children, decorations, severe penalties against abortion).
Physical standards
Physically, the Third Reich promoted standards of beauty called, AryanAryan
Aryan is an English language loanword derived from Sanskrit ārya and denoting variously*In scholarly usage:**Indo-Iranian languages *in dated usage:**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers...
: women were to be blonde, beautiful, tall, thin and robust all at once. This image was spread as much through advertising as through official art, then through ancient art, and more specifically through Greco-Roman statues. Academic Monique Moser-Verrey notes: "a revival, during the course of the Thirties, of mythological themes such as the Judgement of Paris
Judgement of Paris
thumb |right |460px |[[The Judgment of Paris |The Judgment of Paris]], [[Peter Paul Rubens]], ca 1636...
, the Rape of Europe and the Rape of Leda."
Monique Moser-Verrey notes however:
Regimentation of women
Young women and education
The education of girls was not neglected and boys and girls were placed on the same footing at school. Girls were encouraged to pursue secondary school but little by little university courses were closed to them. They were required to fulfill, beginning in 1935, a work period of six months for the benefit of the service of women's work, the ReichsarbeitsdienstReichsarbeitsdienst
The Reichsarbeitsdienst was an institution established by Nazi Germany as an agency to reduce unemployment, similar to the relief programs in other countries. During the Second World War it was an auxiliary formation which provided support for the Wehrmacht.The RAD was formed during July 1934 as...
and Frauenarbeitsdienst. Adolf Hitler declared, on April 12, 1942, that the schools of the Reich must gather "boys and girls from all classes" to meet "all the youth of the Reich". The education manual Das kommende Deutschland notes that: It was also required that they know the geography of Germany, its hymns as wells as the clauses of the Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
.
The education of girls also meant political education; there already existed elite schools of political studies, the Napola (Nationalpolitische Anstalten), one for girls opened in 1939 in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and another in 1942 in Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
. These institutions did not have a purpose of enabling women to re-enter political life but endow the best with the cultural baggage required to occupy posts related to the management of women's affairs. This concerned a very small minority. However, on June 5, 1942, the MInister of Finance Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk, a conservative politician, threatened to cut grants to the second school, if it did not become a simple internship for adolescents, rejecting all political education for girls. Adolf Hitler decided otherwise on June 24, 1943, promising the construction of three new Napola.
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...
was devoted to organizing the extra-curricular life of male adolescents, the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM), occupied adolescents from 14 to 18 years. Founded in 1934, the movement was needed after the law of December 1, 1936. It was led from 1934 to 1937 by Trude Mohr
Trude Mohr
-Early life:She was born in 1902 to a German nationalist family. She never completed gymnasium, and joined the German nationalist youth movement by the 1920s, becoming a BNM leader...
, then from 1937 to 1945 by the psychologist Jutta Rüdiger
Jutta Rüdiger
Dr Jutta Rüdiger , German psychologist, was head of the Nazi Party's female youth organisation, the League of German Girls from 1937 to 1945.-Early career:...
. Young girls were trained for certain employment (social work, cleaning) or farming (Ernteeinsatz, helping with harvest) and practised sports ; but shockingly, as the education manual Das kommende Deutschland shows, the physical performance demanded was sometimes the same as those of the boys (for example, to run 60 meters in less than 12 seconds). Every Wednesday evening, for girls from 15 to 20 years old, the " home parties " took place, for discussing art and culture. Vacation camps (held for one week during Summer), in Germany or abroad, were organized. There also existed a required six-month work service, the Reichsarbeitsdienst der weiblichen Jugend (National Young Women's Work Service), completed in 1941 with six extra months in the Kriegshilfsdienst (for the war effort). For young women aged 18 to 25 years old wishing to find work, in 1938 the Pflichtjahr was instituted, one year of obligatory service in farming or domestic work.
The regimentation of these youth, that continues into adulthood is not really conservative, but rather revolutionary: to not confine future women to an ill-defined role in the home as in the past, instead they are being educated like boys in the cult of the Fatherland, for once they become adults, they will become ideal German women. Thus, they are held firmly within the family fold.
The NS-Frauenschaft
Women could be members of the Nazi Party, but newcomers to the party were only admitted if they were "useful" (nurses or cooks for example). They numbered 5% of women in 1933 and 17% in 1937. But since October 1931 the NS-Frauenschaft (NSF) existed, the political organization for Nazi women, that sought above all to promote the ideal of the model woman of the Third Reich ; at its foundation, it was responsible for training in housekeeping. Young women joined when they were 15 years old. On 31 December 1932, the NSF counted 109,320 members. In 1938, it had 2 million, corresponding to 40% of the total number of party members. The NSF was directed by Gertrud Scholtz-KlinkGertrud Scholtz-Klink
Gertrud Scholtz-Klink née Treusch was a fervent Nazi Party member and leader of the National Socialist Women's League in Nazi Germany.- Nazi activities :...
, who had the title of Reichsführerin ; elle appelle the members "my daughters" and acquired a strong influence over them and a certain credibility. Her views on women were obviously in agreement with those of Adolf Hitler, but she still defended access to some positions of responsibility. She did not participate in major meetings of the party but was invited to the party congress.
School textbooks were edited beginning in 1934, often under the supervision of the doctor Johanna Haarer, an author notably for The German Mother and Her First Baby, which was widely published, and promoting the driving role of the German mother in building the regime, or "Mother, tell me about Adolf Hitler (Mutter, erzhäl von Adolf Hitler), to lead women to indoctrinate their children in Nazi values :
Housekeeping training was promoted through Frauenwerk (German Women's Work), which opened thematic courses for "ethnically pure" women. It is notable, however, that although there were numerous courses for domestic training, gymnastics and music, they deserted those oriented towards antireligious teaching.
The NS-Frauenschaft "played no political role and did not oppose the loss of hard-won women's rights. It defended the role of the mother of the family at home, conscious of their duties at the heart of the community. Provided, containing women within the private sphere does not hide their responsibilities under the Third Reich ; we know today that the Frauenbewegung [(women's movement)] thought the place of a woman in society was at the heart of a community that excluded Jews and performed a civilizing mission in occupied Eastern Europe to preserve the race".
Second World War
During the Second World War, temporarily contradicting their past claims the National Socialists changed policy and allowed women to join the German army. Adolf Hitler had earlier affirmed in a speech to activists of the NS-Frauenschaft on September 13, 1936: Later during the war, women did not fight in combat, but were regarded as auxiliary military personnel, responsible for logistical and administrative areas, that lacked personnel due to the number of men sent into combat. Other women also worked in factories or military education. Military members of the Reichsbahn (National Company of Railways) or the Feuerwehr (firefighters), they wore uniforms appropriate to the era, especially with a skirt. Gertrud Scholtz-KlinkGertrud Scholtz-Klink
Gertrud Scholtz-Klink née Treusch was a fervent Nazi Party member and leader of the National Socialist Women's League in Nazi Germany.- Nazi activities :...
says: Yet, referring to the decree of January 1943, calling for the mobilization of German women aged 17 to 45, she said in September of that year, at a conference in Bad Schlachen:
In his Sportspalast speech, delivered on February 18, 1943 at the Berlin Sports Hall, Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels called on German women to work and to be sober in their commitment:
- "What use are beauty salons that encourage a cult of beauty and that takes up an enormous amount of our time and energy? They are wonderful during times of peace, but are a waste of time in a time of war. Our wives and our daughters will be able to welcome our victorious soldiers without their beautiful peacetime adornments"
- "It is why we hire men that do not work in the war economy and women do not work at all. They cannot and will not ignore our request. The duties of women are huge. This is not to say that only those included in the law can work. All are welcome. The more who join the war effort, the more we free up soldiers for the front."
- "For years, millions of German women have worked with brio in war production and they patiently wait to be joined and assisted by other women."
- "Especially for you women, do you want the government to do everything in its power to encourage German women to put all their strength into supporting the war effort, and to let me leave for the front when possible, helping the men at the front?"
- "The great upheavals and crises of national life show us who the real men and women are. We no longer have the right to speak of the weaker sex, since both sexes show the same determination and the same spiritual force."
The mobilisation of women in the war economy always remained limited: the number of women practising a professional activity in 1944 was virtually unchanged from 1939, being about 15 million women, in contrast to Great Britain, so that the use of women did not progress and only 1,200,000 of them worked in the arms industry in 1943, in working conditions that were difficult and often poorly treated by their bosses, who deplored their lack of qualification.
In the army (Wehrmacht)
In 1945, there numbered 500,000 women auxiliairies in the German army (Wehrmachtshelferinnen), who were at the heart of the HeerHeer
Heer is German for "army". Generally, its use as "army" is not restricted to any particular country, so "das britische Heer" would mean "the British army".However, more specifically it can refer to:*An army of Germany:...
army, of the Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
or the Kriegsmarine
Kriegsmarine
The Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Nazi regime . It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany.The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly...
. About half of them were volunteers, the others performing obligatory service connected to the war effort (Kriegshilfsdienst). They took part, under the same authority as prisoners of war (Hiwi
Hiwi (volunteer)
Hiwi is a German abbreviation. It has two meanings, "voluntary assistant" and "assistant scientist" .- :...
s), as auxiliary personnel of the army (Behelfspersonal) and they were assigned to duties not only within the heart of the Reich, but to a lesser extent, to the occupied territories, for example in the General government
General Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
of occupied Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and later in Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
, in Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and in Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
.
They essentially participated :
- as telephone, telegraph and transmission operators,
- as administrative clerks typists and messengers,
- in anti-aircraft defense, as operators of listening equipment, operating projectors for anti-aircraft defense, employees within meteorologyMeteorologyMeteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries...
services, and auxiliary civil defense personnel - in military health service, as volunteer nurses with the German Red Cross or other voluntary organizations
In the SS
The SS-Gefolge was the women's wing of the men's SSSchutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
, but in contrast it was only confined to voluntary work in Emergency Service (Notdienstverpflichtung). SS Women belonged either to the SS-Helferinnen or the SS-Kriegshelferinnen. The former were trained in a special school (see below), others were trained for a shorter time. They were in charge of auxiliary transmissions (telephone, radio operators, stenographers) in the SS and sometimes in camps (these were the Aufseherin, see next section). There was an internal hierarchy in the women's wing of the SS, which had no influence on the male troops, although the titles designated to the women sometimes had an influence upon the owners.
A Reichschule SS (in full, the Reichsschule fïir SS Helferinnen Oberenheim) was the training centre for the SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
, reserved for women, and opened in Obernai in May 1942, on the order of Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
. The training was more difficult than that for women enrolled in the German army, the Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
. In effect, they met certain physical criteria, being destined to serve as model wives conforming to the physical standards determined by the regime: they must be aged 17 to 30 years and measure more than 1.65 metres tall, while over the long term, the enrollment criteria were relaxed (the age limit was raised to 40 years and minimum height dropped to 1.58 metres), having even gone as far as to accept 15 Moslem students. Having been in a privileged status, war widows were favoured before the admissions were opened up to other social classes. The school closed in 1944 due to the advance of the Allies.
In the camps
Women were within the ranks of the Nazis at the concentration camps : these were the Aufseherin and generally belonged to the SSSchutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
. They were guards, secretaries or nurses. They arrived before the start of the war, some of them being trained from 1938 in Lichtenburg. This took place due to the need for personnel following the growing number of political prisoners after the Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...
on November 8 and 9, 1938. After 1939, they were trained at Camp Ravensbrück near Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. Coming mostly from lower- or middle-class social origins, they previously worked in traditional professions (hairdresser, teacher, for example) but were, in contrast to men who were required to fulfill military serve, the women were driven by a sincere desire to reach the female wing of the SS, the SS-Gefolge. Of the 55,000 total number of guards at all the Nazi camps, there were 3,600 women (approximately 10% of the workforce), however, no woman was allowed to give orders to a man.
They worked at the Auschwitz and Majdanek
Majdanek
Majdanek was a German Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland, established during the German Nazi occupation of Poland. The camp operated from October 1, 1941 until July 22, 1944, when it was captured nearly intact by the advancing Soviet Red Army...
camps beginning in 1942. The following year, the Nazis began the conscription of women because of the shortage of guards. Later, during the war, women were also assigned on a smaller scale in the camps Neuengamme
Neuengamme
The Neuengamme concentration camp, a Nazi concentration camp, was established in 1938 by the SS near the village of Neuengamme in Bergedorf district within the City of Hamburg, Germany. It was in operation from 1938 to 1945. By the end of the war, more than half of its estimated 106,000 prisoners...
Auschwitz (I, II and III), Plaszow lossenbürg] ], Gross-Rosen Vught
Vught
Vught is a municipality and a town in the southern Netherlands. It is a town where lots of commuters live and has recently been named "Best place to live" by the Dutch magazine Elsevier.-Politics:...
and Stutthof
Stutthof concentration camp
Stutthof was the first Nazi concentration camp built outside of 1937 German borders.Completed on September 2, 1939, it was located in a secluded, wet, and wooded area west of the small town of Sztutowo . The town is located in the former territory of the Free City of Danzig, 34 km east of...
, but never served in the death camps of Belzec
Belzec
Bełżec is a village in Tomaszów Lubelski County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina called Gmina Bełżec. It lies approximately south of Tomaszów Lubelski and south-east of the regional capital Lublin.During World War II it was the site of the Nazi Bełżec...
, Sobibór
Sobibór extermination camp
Sobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor...
Treblinka or Chelmno
Chelmno
Chełmno is a town in northern Poland near the Vistula river with 20,000 inhabitants and the historical capital of Chełmno Land. Situated in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship since 1999, Chełmno was previously in Toruń Voivodeship ....
. Seven Aufseherinnen served at Vught
Vught
Vught is a municipality and a town in the southern Netherlands. It is a town where lots of commuters live and has recently been named "Best place to live" by the Dutch magazine Elsevier.-Politics:...
, 24 were at Buchenwald, 34 at Bergen-Belsen
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle...
, 19 at Dachau
Dachau
Dachau is a town in Upper Bavaria, in the southern part of Germany. It is a major district town—a Große Kreisstadt—of the administrative region of Upper Bavaria, about 20 km north-west of Munich. It is now a popular residential area for people working in Munich with roughly 40,000 inhabitants...
, 20 at Mauthausen
Mauthausen
Mauthausen is a small market town in Upper Austria, Austria. It is located at about 20 kilometers east of the city of Linz, and has a population of 4,850 .During World War II, it became the site of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp complex....
, three at Mittelbau-Dora
Mittelbau-Dora
Mittelbau-Dora was a Nazi Germany labour camp that provided workers for the Mittelwerk V-2 rocket factory in the Kohnstein, situated near Nordhausen, Germany....
, seven at Natzweiler-Struthof, twenty at Majdanek
Majdanek
Majdanek was a German Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland, established during the German Nazi occupation of Poland. The camp operated from October 1, 1941 until July 22, 1944, when it was captured nearly intact by the advancing Soviet Red Army...
200 at Auschwitz and its sub-camps, 140 at Sachsenhausen
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD...
, 158 at Neuengamme
Neuengamme
The Neuengamme concentration camp, a Nazi concentration camp, was established in 1938 by the SS near the village of Neuengamme in Bergedorf district within the City of Hamburg, Germany. It was in operation from 1938 to 1945. By the end of the war, more than half of its estimated 106,000 prisoners...
, 47 at Stutthof
Stutthof concentration camp
Stutthof was the first Nazi concentration camp built outside of 1937 German borders.Completed on September 2, 1939, it was located in a secluded, wet, and wooded area west of the small town of Sztutowo . The town is located in the former territory of the Free City of Danzig, 34 km east of...
, compared with 958 who served at Ravensbrück, 561 at Flossenbürg
Flossenbürg
Flossenbürg is a municipality in the district of Neustadt an der Waldnaab in Bavaria in Germany. The state-approved leisure area is located in the Bavarian Forest and borders the Czech Republic in the east. During World War II, the Flossenbürg concentration camp was located here.- History :The...
and 541 at Gross-Rosen. Many supervisors worked in the sub-camps in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, some in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
and Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
.
There was a hierarchy within the Aufseherin, including the following higher ranks:
- Rapportaufseherin (head Aufseherin)
- Erstaufseherin (first guard)
- Lagerführerin (head of the camp)
- Oberaufseherin (senior inspector), a post only occupied by Anna Klein and Luise Brunner
Female members of discriminated minorities
Romani
Romani relates or may refer to:- Nationality :*The Romani people**their Romani language*The Latin term for the ancient Romans, see Roman citizenship*The Italian term for inhabitants of Rome...
, women belonging to these communities were equally discriminated against, then deported and for some exterminated. In many concentration camps there were sections for female detainees (notably at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle...
) but the camp at Ravensbrück, opened in May 1939, distinguished itself as a camp solely for women, by 1945 numbering about 100,000 prisoners. The first women's concentration camp had been opened in 1933 in Moringen
Moringen
Moringen is a town in the district Northeim, in the southern part of Lower Saxony, Germany. The town consists of the center Moringen and eight surrounding villages.-History:The town and its villages were founded over a thousand years ago....
, before being transferred to Lichtenburg in 1938.
In concentration camps, women were considered weaker than men, and they were generally sent to the gas chambers more quickly, whereas the strength of men was used to work the men to exhaustion. Some women were subjected to medical experiments.
Some took the path of the Resistance, such as the Polish member Haïka Grosman, who participated in the organization for aid for the ghetto of Białystok, during the night of August 15 to 16, 1943. On October 7, 1944, members of the Sonderkommando, 250 prisoners responsible for the bodies of persons after gassing, rose up ; they had procured explosives stolen by a Kommando of young Jewish women (Ella Gartner, Regina Safir, Estera Wajsblum and Roza Robota
Roza Robota
Roza Robota , referred to in other sources as Rojza, Rozia, or Rosa, was the leader and one of four women hanged in the Auschwitz concentration camp for their role in the Sonderkommando revolt of October 7, 1944.-Biography:Born in Ciechanów, Poland, to a middle class family, Rosa had one brother...
) who worked in the armament factories of the Union Werke. They succeeded in partially destroying Crematorium IV.
Women against the Third Reich
The student Communist Liselotte Herrmann
Liselotte Herrmann
Liselotte Herrmann was a German Communist resistance fighter during the Third Reich.- Early years :...
protested in 1933 against the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor and managed to get information to foreign governments about the rearmament of Germany. In 1935 she was arrested, sentenced to death two years later and executed in 1938. She was the first German mother to suffer the death penalty since the beginning of the regime. Twenty women from Düsseldorf, who saw their fathers, brothers and son deported to the camp Börgermoor, managed to smuggle out the famous The Song of the deportees and make it known. Freya von Moltke
Freya von Moltke
Freya von Moltke was a participant in the anti-Nazi resistance group, the Kreisau Circle, with her husband, Helmuth James Graf von Moltke...
, Mildred Harnack-Fish and Libertas Schulze-Boysen
Libertas Schulze-Boysen
Libertas Schulze-Boysen, born Libertas Viktoria Haas-Heye was a German opponent of the Nazis who belonged to the Red Orchestra resistance group during the Third Reich.- Early years :Schulze-Boysen spent her childhood at her grandfather's estate Philip, Prince of Eulenburg and Hertefeld...
participated in the Resistance
Resistance during World War II
Resistance movements during World War II occurred in every occupied country by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation, disinformation and propaganda to hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns...
group Kreisau Circle
Kreisau Circle
The Kreisau Circle was the name the Nazi Gestapo gave to a group of German dissidents centered on the Kreisau estate of Helmuth James Graf von Moltke. The Kreisauer Kreis is celebrated as one of the instances of German opposition to the Nazi regime...
and Red Orchestra; the last two were arrested and executed. The 20 year old student Sophie Scholl
Sophie Scholl
Sophia Magdalena Scholl was a German student, active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich with her brother Hans...
, a member of The White Rose was executed February 22, 1943 with her brother Hans Scholl
Hans Scholl
Hans Fritz Scholl was a founding member of the White Rose resistance movement in Nazi Germany.-Biography:...
and Christopher Probst, for posting leaflets. The resistor Maria Terwiel
Maria Terwiel
Maria Terwiel was a German resistance fighter in the Third Reich. She belonged to the Red Orchestra resistance group.- Life :...
helped to spread knowledge of the famous sermon condemning the mentally ill given by Clemens von Galen, Bishop of Munster, as well as helping Jews escape to abroad. She was executed on 5 August 1943. We can also note the successful protests of women, called the Rosenstraße
Rosenstrasse protest
The Rosenstrasse protest was a nonviolent protest in Rosenstraße in Berlin in February and March 1943, carried out by the non-Jewish wives and relatives of Jewish men who had been arrested for deportation. The protests escalated until the men were released...
, racially "Aryan
Aryan
Aryan is an English language loanword derived from Sanskrit ārya and denoting variously*In scholarly usage:**Indo-Iranian languages *in dated usage:**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers...
" women married to Jews who, in February 1943, obtained the release of their husbands.
Women also fought for the Resistance
Resistance during World War II
Resistance movements during World War II occurred in every occupied country by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation, disinformation and propaganda to hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns...
from abroad, like Dora Schaul, a Communist who had left Germany in 1934 and involved from July 1942 with clandestine networks, Deutsch Arbeit (German Labour) and Deutsche-Feldpost (My German countryside), from the School of Military Health in Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
. Hilde Meisel
Hilde Meisel
Hilde Meisel was a German socialist and journalist who published articles against the Nazi regime in Germany. While in exile in England, she wrote under the pseudonym Hilda Monte, calling for German resistance to Nazism in magazines, books and in radio broadcasts...
attempted in 1933 to galvanize British public opinion against the Nazi regime. She returned to Germany during the war but was executed at the bend of a road.
High society and circles of power
Although under the Third Reich women did not have political power, a circle of influence did exist around Adolf Hitler. Within this circle, Hitler became acquainted with the British Unity MitfordUnity Mitford
Unity Valkyrie Mitford was a member of the aristocratic Mitford family, tracing its origins in Northumberland back to the 11th century Norman settlement of England. Unity Mitford's sister Diana was married to Oswald Mosley, leader of British Union of Fascists...
and Magda Goebbels
Magda Goebbels
Johanna Maria Magdalena "Magda" Goebbels was the wife of Nazi Germany's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels...
, wife of the Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
. Magda Goebbels became known by the nickname "First Lady of the Third Reich": she represented the regime during State visits and official events. Her marriage to Goebbels on December 19, 1931 was considered a society event, where Leni Riefenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
was a notable guest. She posed as the model German mother for Mothers Day. Eleonore Baur, a friend of Hitler since 1920 (she had participated in the Beer Hall putsch
Beer Hall Putsch
The Beer Hall Putsch was a failed attempt at revolution that occurred between the evening of 8 November and the early afternoon of 9 November 1923, when Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff, and other heads of the Kampfbund unsuccessfully tried to seize power...
) was the only woman to receive the Blood Order
Blood Order
The Blood Order , officially known as the Decoration of 9 November 1923 , was one of the most prestigious decorations in the Nazi Party...
; she also participated in official receptions and was close to Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
, who even named her a colonel of the SS and permitted her free access to the concentration camps, which she went to regularly, particularly Dachau
Dachau
Dachau is a town in Upper Bavaria, in the southern part of Germany. It is a major district town—a Große Kreisstadt—of the administrative region of Upper Bavaria, about 20 km north-west of Munich. It is now a popular residential area for people working in Munich with roughly 40,000 inhabitants...
. Hitler did not forget that he owed part of his political ascension to women integrated in the society world (aristocrats or industrialists), like Elsa Bruckmann
Elsa Bruckmann
Elsa Bruckmann , born Princess Cantacuzene of Romania, was the wife of Hugo Bruckmann, publisher of the racist writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. She held the "salon Bruckmann" and made it a mission to introduce Adolf Hitler to leading industrialists.-References:...
.
Women were also able to distinguish themselves in certain domains, but they were the exceptions that proved the rule. Thus Leni Riefenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
was the official film director of the regime and was given enormous funding for her cinematic productions (Triumph of the Will
Triumph of the Will
Triumph of the Will is a propaganda film made by Leni Riefenstahl. It chronicles the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, which was attended by more than 700,000 Nazi supporters. The film contains excerpts from speeches given by various Nazi leaders at the Congress, including portions of...
, and Olympia (1938 film)
Olympia (1938 film)
Olympia is a 1938 Nazi propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl documenting the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, Germany. The film was released in two parts: Olympia 1. Teil — Fest der Völker and Olympia 2. Teil — Fest der Schönheit . It was the first documentary feature...
). Winifred Wagner
Winifred Wagner
Winifred Wagner was an English woman married to Siegfried Wagner, Richard Wagner's son. She was the effective head of the Wagner family from 1930 to 1945, and a close friend of German dictator Adolf Hitler....
directed the highly publicized Bayreuth Festival
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...
, and soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, DBE was a German-born Austrian/British soprano opera singer and recitalist. She was among the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century, much admired for her performances of Mozart, Schubert, Strauss, and Wolf.-Early life:Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike...
was promoted as the "Nazi diva", as noted by an American newspaper. Hanna Reitsch
Hanna Reitsch
Hanna Reitsch was a German aviator and the only woman awarded the Iron Cross First Class and the Luftwaffe Combined Pilots-Observation Badge in Gold with Diamonds during World War II...
, an aviator, distinguished herself with her handling of test aircraft and military projects of the regime, notably the V1 flying bomb.
Women after the fall of the Third Reich
After the collapse of the Third Reich, many German women nicknamed the Women of the Ruins participated in the rebuilding of Germany en déblayant les ruines issues des destructions dues à la guerre. In the Soviet occupation zone, more than two million women were victims of rape. One of them would publish a memoir recalling this experience: Eine Frau in Berlin (A Woman In Berlin).Although they were not judged as severely as the men driving the regime, some women were prosecuted after the war. Thus, Herta Oberheuser
Herta Oberheuser
Herta Oberheuser was a physician at the Ravensbrück concentration camp from 1940 until 1943.-Medical experiments:She worked there under the supervision of Dr...
, a doctor who participated in Nazi medical experiments at the Ravensbrück camp from 1940 to 1943, was the only woman in the dock at the doctors' trial at Nuremberg. She was held responsible for infecting 86 women with viruses and killing children. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison. For her part, Inge Viermetz, was acquitted at the RuSHA
RuSHA
The Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt-SS , , was the organization responsible for "safeguarding the racial 'purity' of the SS" within Nazi Germany....
trial.
The denazification
Denazification
Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering...
court was prohibited from targeting Winifred Wagner of the Bayreuth Festival. Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl was brought to appear in court in 1948, accused of having not paid Roma
Roma people
The Romani, who are known collectively in the Romani language as Romane or Rromane and also as Romany, Romanies, Romanis, Roma or Roms, are an ethnic group living mostly in Europe, who trace their origins to the Indian Subcontinent...
and Sinti
Sinti
Sinti or Sinta or Sinte is the name of a Romani or Gypsy population in Europe. Traditionally nomadic, today only a small percentage of the group remains unsettled...
for participating in her film "Tiefland", and for having falsely promised to save them from camps, and is finally discharged.
Some German women interviewed long after the Third Reich, influential or not, confessed that they had not denied the Nazi regime, nor the person of Adolf Hitler, refusing, or not, to acknowledge the crimes committed during those years. Others, like Henriette von Schirach in her book "Der Preis der Herrlichkeit. Erfahren Zeitgeschichte", remained ambiguous, this last challenging a system that passed through "the triumph of vanity".
German women, accountable?
The question of the culpability of the German people in their support of Nazism has long overshadowed the women, who had little political power under the regime. Thus, as explained by the German historian Gisela Block, who was involved with the first historians to highlight this issue, by asking women at the time of the Third Reich. In 1984, in "When Biology Became Destiny, Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany", she wrote that women who are enslaved economically and morally, cannot exercise their freedom by being confined in the home and placed under the rule of their husbands. Thus, we associate studies on the subject during the 1980s mainly with perceptions that women were victims of "machismo" and a "misogynist" fascismFascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
.
However, the simplicity of this analysis tends to disappear with recent studies. In 1987, historian Claudia Koonz, in "Mothers in in Fatherland, Women, the Family and Nazi Politics" questioned this statement and acknowledged some guilt. Many women admired Adolf Hitler and in fact enabled his electoral successes in the early 1930s. She states as follows: "Far from being impressionable or innocent, women made possible State murder in the name of interests that they defined as maternal." For her, the containing of housewives just allowed them to assert themselves and grasp an identity, especially through women's associations led by Nazi Gertrud Scholtz-Klink
Gertrud Scholtz-Klink
Gertrud Scholtz-Klink née Treusch was a fervent Nazi Party member and leader of the National Socialist Women's League in Nazi Germany.- Nazi activities :...
. They therefore helped to stabilize the system. The women took pleasure in politics and eugenics of the state, which promised financial assistance if the birth rate was high, so they would help to stabilize the system. In addition, if Gisela Block denounced the work of her colleague as "anti-feminist", others as Adelheid von Saldern refuse to stop at a strict choice between complicity and oppression and are more interested in how the Third Reich included women in their project for Germany.
Neo-Nazism
There are many militant neo-Nazis or defenders of former Nazis, such as the Germans Helene Elisabeth von Isenburg or Gudrun Himmler (daughter of Heinrich HimmlerHeinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
), who are active through the organization Stille Hilfe
Stille Hilfe
Die Stille Hilfe für Kriegsgefangene und Internierte abbreviated Stille Hilfe is a relief organization for arrested, condemned and fugitive SS members, similar to the veterans' association, set up by Helene Elizabeth Princess von Isenburg in 1951...
, and the French citizens Françoise Dior
Françoise Dior
Marie Françoise Suzanne Dior, also known as Françoise de Caumont La Force, Françoise Dior-Jordan, and Françoise Dior-de Mirleau , was a French socialite and post-war Nazi underground financier...
and Savitri Devi.