Attitudes towards Women and Ethnic Minorities in the Weimar Republic

Question 1

List 3 aspects of what life was like for women in Germany before WW1.

Answer 1

• They couldn’t vote
• Single women could study, but could not take exams to qualify in a profession
• Married women had no legal status at all; a man had to do their legal business for them

Question 2

What were 2 impacts war had on women’s lives?

Answer 2

• They took men’s places on farms and in factories; by the end of the war, 75% of women of working age worked
• 1.6 million men had been killed, so many women who would not be able to find husbands were now part of the population

Question 3

List 7 aspects of the Weimar Constitution that gave women more rights.

Answer 3

• They had the same rights as men
• They could vote
• They could stand for office
• Marriage was an equal union
• They would have the same access to education as men did
• They would have equal opportunities as men to be appointed as civil servants
• They would be paid equally in professions

Question 4

How popular were these reforms amongst women? Give 2 examples.

Answer 4

• Very popular, as:
• female voter turnout was 90% at the first elections
• In total, there were 112 elected to the Reichstag between 1919 and 1932

Question 5

What issue did the Weimar Constitution not address?

Answer 5

• The legal status of women from the Civil Code hadn’t changed

Question 6

Which parties supported the extension of women’s rights, and what limitation was there to their support?

Answer 6

• The SPD and KPD
• They still assumed that women would play domestic roles, and so helped them by, for example, improving maternity benefits

Question 7

How did right-wing groups view the increase in women’s rights?

Answer 7

• As a form of cultural decay

Question 8

What 3 changes were there for women in relation to work after WW1?

Answer 8

• There were more jobs, so the numbers of women working increased (although the proportion of women who were working was the same as before the war)
• There were many more ‘white blouse’ jobs available after the war; jobs that were traditionally done by women, such as in shops
• More had professional jobs: as women could qualify as lawyers, there were 36 of them by 1933, and in 1925 there were 2,500 female doctors, and this almost doubled by 1933

Question 9

List 6 reasons why it was still difficult for women to work during the Weimar Era.

Answer 9

• The government’s policy was that women should give up their jobs to men after the war
• Women were paid, on average, 33% less than their male counterparts in sectors such as office work
• Trade unions opposed female workers and for them to have equal pay
• Professional women faced discrimination and hostility at their workplace
• Married women had to either find childcare or work part-time as the school day ended at lunchtime
• Married women were discriminated against in particular as they were ‘double earners’ while men fought hard to be paid enough to support their family on their own

Question 10

What were ‘New Women’, and what was different about them?

Answer 10

• They were young, educated and unmarried women who wanted independence, and typically worked in ‘white blouse’ jobs in cities
• They chose to abandon traditional female behaviour, and therefore wore short skirts, had short hair, smoked, drank and used contraception to have sexual freedom
• They were the focus of magazine articles and films, and were a lot like the American ‘flapper’

Question 11

How were ‘New Women’ presented in the media?

Answer 11

• Both positively and negatively
• They were sometimes the focus of magazine articles and films, and presented as confident and emancipated
• However, they were also seen as immoral and their behaviour was presented as a source of ruin

Question 12

What were 3 common reactions to the ‘New Woman’?

Answer 12

• Politicians and the press criticised them, and urged them to marry and settle down
• Conservatives saw their behaviour as completely unsuited to motherhood
• Traditionalists saw this as part of the destruction of Germany, along with the 1918 surrender, abolition of the monarchy, and the Treaty of Versailles

Question 13

What else did women campaign for during the Weimar Era?

Answer 13

• Sexual reform

Question 14

List 4 aspects of sexual reform women were campaigning for.

Answer 14

• Sexual freedom
• More accessible divorce
• Easy access to contraception
• The right to abortion under certain circumstances, such as rape

Question 15

What were 2 reasons why many believed women should return to being wives and mothers? Give figures.

Answer 15

• The birth rate was falling, and the divorce rate was increasing
• 128 live births per 1000 women in 1911, compared to 59 in 1933
• 27 divorces per 100,000 inhabitants in 1913, compared to 65 in 1932

Question 16

What was life like for working women during the Depression? Give 4 details.

Answer 16

• The rise in unemployment led to more hostility against working women
• Fewer women were unemployed as they were cheaper to employ, although the relative surplus of employed women were part-time workers
• In May 1932, Chancellor Brüning passed a decree that allowed married women in government to be dismissed if their husbands were employed
• The same thing was happening in private industries

Question 17

After the war, what were the main ethnic minorities in Germany?

Answer 17

• Jews
• Poles
• Gypsies

Question 18

In what 3 ways were ethnic minorities generally viewed in Germany?

Answer 18

• They weren’t always seen as equal, specifically by elite groups such as landowners and the army, but other groups such as city-based liberals were more welcoming
• Different groups had their own exclusive clubs and associations
• However, there was partial integration such as intermarriage (in 1915, one-third of all married Jews were married to non-Jews)

Question 19

How were ethnic minorities generally treated in Germany?

Answer 19

• They were mostly accepted
• However, there were some forms of discrimination such as being paid lower wages and being less likely to be hired

Question 20

What legislation existed that concerned ethnic minorities, and what was the problem with it?

Answer 20

• Article 113 of the Weimar Constitution said that groups that spoke a different language couldn’t be stopped from using it or preserving their national identity in other ways, such as how they ran schools
• It was not always implemented and did not control the other laws Länder made against ethnic minorities

Question 21

What percentage of the German population was Jewish, and where did they tend to live?

Answer 21

• 1%
• Two-thirds of them lived in cities and one-third lived in Berlin

Question 22

What types of jobs did Jewish people tend to have? Give 4 figures on this.

Answer 22

• Middle-class jobs
• 75% of Jewish men had professional jobs, compared to 25% of the rest of the population
• 80% of department stores were ran by Jewish businesses
• However they were sometimes overrepresented by the media, as although only 1% of senior bankers were Jewish, some of them received a lot of media attention
• 20% of Jewish people were impoverished

Question 23

How did the economic status of Jewish people change during the 1920s and 30s?

Answer 23

• Middle-class Jews lost their savings during hyperinflation in 1923
• As unemployment rose, Jews were less likely to be hired and more likely to be laid off

Question 24

What was the legal status of Jews in Germany? Give 2 details.

Answer 24

• Since 1871, Jews had had the same rights as Christians in theory
• According to the constitution, they had the full rights of citizenship

Question 25

In what 3 ways did Jews continue to be discriminated against?

Answer 25

• Jewish people were completely excluded from the judiciary before 1914
• Judges tended to be traditional nationalists, and many of them were antisemitic, so they did not always uphold the rights of Jews
• The appointment of 5 Jews to cabinet positions (including Walther Rathenau) in the Weimar Republic led to criticism

Question 26

What happened to Walther Rathenau, and how did the government respond?

Answer 26

• He was assassinated in 1922, shortly after his appointment as Foreign Minister
• The government banned some antisemitic organisations as a result as he was Jewish

Question 27

Name and give 4 details about one group that was banned in 1922.

Answer 27

• The League of German Defence and Defiance was one of the most influential racist groups
• It argued that Jewish people were working hard to destroy Germany, firstly through betraying them in the war, then by forcing Germany to accept democracy and a very different style of government
• It used the stereotype that Jews were radicals that wanted to destroy Germany with a communist revolution that had been popular in the 19th century as senior members of the Spartacists and SPD were Jewish, and Karl Marx’s family had been as well
• It had more than 200,000 members before it was banned
• After it was banned, many of its members joined the Nazis

Question 28

What impact did the Depression have on antisemitism?

Answer 28

• More people turned to extreme parties, a lot of which were antisemitic

Question 29

What did some Jews do in response to the Depression and the blame they received for it?

Answer 29

• They set up organisations such as the Reich Federation of Jewish Front Soldiers to fight anti-Semitism
• This group in particular stressed how Jews had fought for Germany in the war- 85,000 had, and 12,000 of them had died

Question 30

How popular was the constitution among Jews, and why?

Answer 30

• Most of them supported it
• This is because despite the ongoing anti-Semitism, a democratic government was much more likely to protect them than a traditional nationalist regime

Question 31

How and why were Gypsies discriminated against? Give 2 examples.

Answer 31

• They moved around, and therefore didn’t contribute to the country by working or paying taxes
• States such as Bavaria passed laws to try to control them, for example:
• In 1926, Bavaria passed laws trying to get adults from Gypsy communities into work and their children into school, and these laws were adopted by other states as well
• In 1927, Bavaria said all Gypsies should carry identification cards

Question 32

How many Poles lived in Germany, why, and why were they discriminated against? What happened as a result?

Answer 32

• In 1925 there were 700,000
• After the war the border between Germany and Poland had been redrawn, leaving many people on the wrong side
• Germans were hostile towards Poles as they had fought against each other in the war
• Between 1925 and 1930, 30,000 Poles left the country

Question 33

How many black people lived in Germany during the Weimar period?

Answer 33

• 3000
• Most of them had come to Germany from former German colonies in Africa

Question 34

Why were black people seen in an increasingly negative light during the Weimar Republic?

Answer 34

• The French army that occupied the Ruhr in 1923 had units from Madagascar and Senegal
• The German press claimed that France had done this intentionally to humiliate Germany
• Due to the arrival of these troops, 500 mixed race children were born and were denounced as ‘Germany’s shame’

Question 35

In what ways were black people seen positively in the Weimar Republic? What limitation was there to this?

Answer 35

• From 1924 there was a big demand for black musicians, singers and dancers in jazz clubs
• Black musicians found moving to Germany attractive as there was no racial segregation, and they could earn 4 times as much as they could in the USA
• However, nationalists were against jazz as they claimed it was primitive