Nazi era
See also:
Women in Nazi Germany
Historians have paid special attention to
Nazi Germany's efforts to reverse the gains that women made before 1933, especially during the
liberal Weimar Republic.
[20] It appears the role of women in Nazi Germany changed according to circumstances. Theoretically, the Nazis believed that women must be subservient to men, avoid careers, devote themselves to
childbearing and child-rearing, and be a helpmate of the traditional dominant father in the traditional family.
[21] However, before 1933, women played important roles in the Nazi organization and were allowed some autonomy to mobilize other women. After
Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, the activist women were replaced by bureaucratic women who emphasized feminine virtues, marriage, and childbirth. As Germany prepared for war, large numbers were incorporated into the public sector and with the need for full mobilization of factories by 1943, all women were required to register with the employment office. Women's wages remained unequal and women were denied positions of leadership or control.
[22]
In 1934, Hitler proclaimed, "[A woman's] world is her husband, her family, her children, her house."
[23] Women's highest calling was
motherhood. Laws that had protected women's rights were repealed and new laws were introduced to restrict women to the home and in their roles as wives and mothers. Women were barred from government and university positions. Women's rights groups, such as the moderate BDF, were disbanded, and replaced with new social groups that would reinforce Nazi values, under the leadership of the Nazi Party and the head of women's affairs in Nazi Germany,
Reichsfrauenführerin Gertrud Scholtz-Klink.
[24]
In 1944–45, more than 500,000 women volunteers were uniformed auxiliaries in the
German armed forces (Wehrmacht). About the same number served in civil aerial defense, 400,000 volunteered as nurses, and many more replaced drafted men in the wartime economy.
[25] In the Luftwaffe, they served in combat roles helping to operate the anti—aircraft systems that shot down Allied bombers.
[26]
