Farm Women In The Third Reich Summary

His basic themes in this work were anti-Semitism, Germany’s need to conquer “living space,” and the necessity of a leader-dictator (Führer) with unlimited power.

“Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich” by Alison Owings displays interviews with women who lived in Germany during the 1930s to 1940s. The two women in this book, Liselotte Otting and Freya von Moltke discuss their feelings about the Nazi government and their actions, most importantly how they felt about genocide of the Jewish population. Both women discussed their attitude and behavior toward during this time.

Before World War II, women were expected to get married, raise kids, do housework, and obey their husbands. This all changed when World War II came around. The men were busy at war, so someone had to take over their jobs. The government considered having children across the country fill in, but society chose the women to do it instead. The government depicted work only as a necessity, only temporarily, not as a way to change a women’s rights or freedom.

Before the war women had to fit into a stereotype of “the perfect family” (“A Change in”). Prior to 1941 only 30% of women worked for 10 years and only 50% worked for 5 years (Discovery Education). Women were encouraged not to work, because it broke “the perfect family” stereotype (“The Women of”) (“A Change in”). Even husbands did not want their

Friedan also notes that this is helped along by the fact that many of the women who work during the war filling jobs previously filled by men faced dismissal, discrimination, or hostility when the men returned, and that educators blame over-educated, career-focused mothers for the maladjustment of soldiers in World War II. Yet as Friedan shows, later studies find that overbearing mothers, not careerists, are the ones who raised maladjusted children. It is interesting to apply the notion of the feminine mystique to modern culture and see that it often still exists. Though there are many women who are getting jobs, there are still a lot of families that fit the mold of the traditional family with the breadwinner and the bread baker with bunch of kids running around.

Dating back throughout history woman were often considered to be too soft or docile to work. In the early 1800’s, as well as the 1950’s, it was thought that woman should not only be pure in heart, mind and body, but that they should be submissive to their husbands and not work outside the home, this was known as the Cult of Domesticity (Keister & Southgate, Inequality: a contemporary approach to race, class and gender, 2012, p. 228).

Burleigh is further substantiated by Heyman who states that ‘women lost most of the new positions in the labour force they had occupied during the wartime year”. This suggests that women were easy and cheap to employ and when no longer needed they were dismissed so men could return to their old positions, thus showing the decline in their status. Women were unhappy about being forced into their homes and were treated like servants rather than respected for this role. Victor Klemperer, a diarist whose journals, published in Germany in 1995, detailed his life under Nazi rule during the third Reich. He states, ‘a son even the youngest today laughs in his mothers face. He regards her as the natural servant’.This shows how the next generation saw women’s role as worthless therefore decreasing their status. Victor Klemperer experienced this first hand and wrote them in his diaries and from his own memories so can be considered as credible source. Furthermore women were removed from many jobs as time went on. This therefore left them with no other choice but to have children. “Moreover, in the economy as a whole two thirds of married women were still not registered as employed on the eve of the war in 1939. If they did work, it was often as unregistered, part time cleaners

While the new woman is an independent and self-reliant person, the Nazis’ and other German civilians view womanhood as producing the ideal offspring to support the fatherland. Elsa Herrmann believed that the new woman was independent and powerful. Previously women were in charge of cleaning, cooking, and taking care of the children. Day in and day out the household chores were her responsibilities. In This Is the New Woman, Elsa explains, “Then she collapsed completely, like a good racehorse collapses when it has maintained its exertions up to the very

Women working men’s jobs were not as welcomed in society as they were in factories. People held on to the belief that women should be house wives and not have to do much in the way of work. The man should provide for the family, and the women should take care of the family. Many of the women who worked were lower class and had to help provide for their families, or were the only providers for their families. Women who worked men’s jobs were looked down upon and thought to be no better than dirt. Although women working in factories were still women, men did not show them the same respect as they did a woman working as a secretary or teacher.

Early into her speech to the National Socialist Women’ Association she infers that the only reason women understand the hardships of Germany that were caused by the first World War is through their relation to men. She continues to assume that the most value women have to Germany is through their relation to men as well. As Scholtz-Klink discusses women’s services such as the Reichs-Maternity School she explains that the main goal of the school is to raise awareness of the Nationalist Socialist State aims while also bringing joy to mothers the reason

As found by Gervase and Kidd, women who did have jobs often had an increased societal and domestic status and influence. (Gervase, Tati; Kidd, Rachel) This statement shows that while there still wasn’t equality between men and women in the 1930’s, women had begun on a

The 1930’s did not seem very equal for men and women, the roles of what they were expected to do in their jobs and in society were not the same (Woloch). The women’s responsibilities went further than just the work day, they had plenty of things to do at home

Woman northern industrial workers were many of times forced out of their homes. From the Voice of Industry, “factory powers in this village of forcing poor girls from their quiet homes to become their tools and, like Southern slaves… they are stowed in a wagon, which may find a similarity only in the manner in which slaves are fastened in the hold of a vessel.” They were forcefully taken out of their homes and stowed in a wagon like animals. People should not be treated like anything other than respectful human beings. This document compares slaves to women industrial worker because of all the similarities they have chiefly because of the way they were treated. This document also shows what people were told about women that worked in factories and what actually happens to these women. This helps to show that the forcefulness used on these women was

In the world of migrant workers in 1930s America, the main roles of women was to help and serve men, and were mostly regarded as either domestic housewives, or highly sexualized objects to be used and discarded. Women were traditionally and commonly thought of as the homemakers that took care of the home and children in this time.

Women in Nazi Germany is based upon the Nazi regime’s attitudes, policies, and ideologies concerning the role of women in the public and private sphere. Stephenson argues that the women of Nazi Germany should be studied in depth, including the support they gave to the regime, the treatment they received, and the different roles they played. However, she argues they should not be studied separately from the other happenings at the time, but instead, they should be incorporated into the history just as the men are. This book reviews their roles, functions, and how they were controlled by the Nazi leadership, and also their lives in pre-Nazi Germany.