Social Policies Flashcards
(34 cards)
How did Nazis exercise their control of teachers?
Under the Law for Re-establishment of a Professional Civil Service (1933), a number of teachers were dismissed on the guards of political unreliability or because they were Jewish.
Teachers were pressured into joining the Nationalist Socialist Teachers’ League (NSLB) but most teachers were willing to comply with the regime’s demands. The historian Joachin Fest has claimed that the ‘teaching profession was one of the most politically reliable sections of the population’.
Vetting of textbooks was undertaken by local Nazi committees after 1933. From 1935, central directives were issued by the Ministry of Education covering what could be taught and, by 1938, these rules covered every school year and most subjects.
What did Nazis do generally regarding education and the curriculum?
- No independent organisation between youth and regime.
- Stereotypical gender roles
- “Healthy German” “New human being”.
- Men would be imbued with a fighting spirit and women would be willing to place their bodies at the service of the State by producing large numbers of children.
What did the Nazis do to control the curriculum?
Political indoctrination permeated every area of the school curriculum:
- The Nazis’ aim to promote ‘racial health’ led to an increasing emphasis on physical education. Military-style drills became a feature of PE lessons.
- Aimed to instil a ‘consciousness of being German’ through the study of Nordic sagas and other traditional stories.
- In Biology, there was a stress on race and hereditary. There was also a strong emphasis on evolution and the survival of the fittest.
- Geography was used to develop awareness of the concepts of the concepts of Lebensraum (‘living space’), ‘blood and soil’ and German racial superiority. Atlases implicitly supported the concept of ‘one people, one reich’.
How did Nazis change universities?
With the importance placed on physical education and political indoctrination, the Nazis downgraded the importance of academic education and the number of students attending university decreased between 1933 and 1939. Selection was made on the basis of political reliability. Women were restricted to 10% of the available university places, while Jews were restricted to 1.5%, their proportion within the population as a whole.
What Nazi policies changed universities?
- Under the Law for Re-establishment of a Professional Civil Service, about 1200 university staff were dismissed on racial or political grounds. Amounted to around 15% of the total.
- In November 1933, all university teachers were made to sign a ‘Declaration in support of Hitler and the National Socialist State’.
- Students had to join the German Students’ League (DS) although some 25% managed to avoid doing this.
- Students were also forced to do four months’ labour service and and two months in an SA camp. Labour service would give students experience of real life, considered by the Nazis to be more important than academic learning.
Why were universities so compliant?
Even in the Weimar period, the universities had been dominated by nationalist and anti-democratic attitudes and traditional student ‘fraternities’ were a breeding ground for reactionary politics. The Nazis were, therefore, able to tap into pre-existing culture of extreme nationalism and infuse it with Nazi ideology. This was helped by the students’ knowledge that their prospects of employment after graduating depended on showing outward support for the regime.
What organisations were there for boys?
- Pimfen (6-9)
- Jungvolk (10-13)
- The Hitler Youth (14-18)
What were Nazi aims for organisations targeted towards young boys?
These organisations aimed to reinforce messages taught in schools. (E.g. Pamphlets were issued which condemned the ToV, and explained racial purity and the importance of having strong healthy babies). Members of the Hitler Youth were expected to report on anything their teachers (or family) did which went against Nazi values.
From the age of 10, they were taught the motto ‘Live faithfully, fight bravely and die laughing’. The emphasis in youth activities was on competition, struggle, heroism and leadership, as boys were prepared for their future role as warriors.
What were the policies concerning youth movements and Nazi organisations?
All other youth movements were abolished. In 1936, the Hitler Youth had 4 million members, and it became compulsory in 1939 to join the Hitler Youth.
In 1936, a Law for the Incorporation of German youth gave the Hitler Youth the status of an official education movement, equal in status to schools and the home.
How was the Hitler Youth attractive and why did enthusiasm begin to wane in the late 1930s?
The opportunity to participate in sports and camping trips away from home made the organisation attractive to millions of German boys, many of whom grew up in the 1930s with no experience of any other system. For these boys, their growing up was shaped by the Hitler Youth and the Nazi emphasis on struggle, sacrifice, loyalty and discipline became accepted as the norm. Many children joined against the wishes of parents who were not Nazi sympathisers and had grown up in a different era. For these boys, the Hitler Youth offered an outlet for their teenage rebelliousness. By the late 1930s however, as the organisation became more bureaucratic and rigid, there were signs that enthusiasm was beginning to wane. There were reports of poor attendance at weekly parades. Boys resented the harsh punishments imposed for minor infringements of the rules.
What organisations were there for girls?
- Jungmadel (10-13)
- Bund Deutsches Mädel (BDM) or League of German Girls (14-16)
- “Faith and Beauty” (17-20)
What were the aims for these organisations for girls?
These organisations aimed to reinforce messages taught in schools. (E.g. Pamphlets were issued which condemned the ToV, and explained racial purity and the importance of having strong, healthy babies).
‘Be faithful, be pure, be German’ - was part of a process of preparing girls for their future role as housewives and mothers in the Volksgemeinschaft.
Raising fitness and developing comradeship.
At weekly ‘home evenings’, girls were taught handicrafts, sewing and cooking. Also sessions for political education and racial awareness. Flag-waving and saluting.
In Faith and Beauty groups, young women were instructed in baby care and social skills such as ballroom dancing.
What policies were there concerning organisations for girls?
The BDM became compulsory in 1939.
Why was the BDM successful?
Many girls found their experiences in the BDM liberating, as they were doing things their mothers had not been allowed to do, and they could escape from the constraints of home.
How were organisations towards girls unsuccessful?
After 1934, girls were expected to do a years work on the land or in domestic service. The aim was to put girls in touch with their peasant roots and give them practical experience in childcare. It also developed their sense of serving the community. This was very unpopular with girls in cities and many tried to avoid it. In 1939, this scheme was made compulsory. All young woman up to the age of 25 had to do a years unpaid work with the Reich Labour Service before they could get paid employment. This was the female equivalent to compulsory military service for the boys as part of the growing ‘coordination’ of all levels of German society under Nazi rule.
What was the Nazis’ main priority with women?
The main priority for Nazi policy towards women after 1933, therefore, was to raise the birth rate. This was closely linked to attempts to restrict the employment of married women outside the family home. 37% of the work force was made up of women by 1933, causing widespread resentment. If Hitler was to achieve a “strong, pure, greater Germany” then the Nazis needed to increase the population - of those who were racially pure.
What policies were introduced to encourage the idea of the traditional women?
- Marriage loans were introduced for women who left work and married an Aryan man. For each child born, the amount of the loan that had to be repaid was reduced by a quarter.
- The Nazis awarded medals to women for ‘donating a baby to the Führer’. Those with four or five children received a bronze medal, six or seven qualified for silver, and eight for gold.
- Birth control was discouraged. Abortion was severely restricted.
- Women were encouraged to adopt a healthy lifestyle, with plenty of exercise and no smoking or drinking.
What organisations did the Nazis set up for women?
- The German Women’s League was set up in 1933 to coordinate all women’s groups under Nazi control. It had a domestic science department, which gave advice to women on cooking and healthy eating. By 1939, the DFW had over 6 million members, 70% of whom were not members of the Nazi Party.
- The National Socialist Women’s Organisation was an elite organisation to promote the nation’s ‘love life, marriage, the family, blood and race’. It was primarily an organisation for propaganda and indoctrination among women to promote the Nazi ideology that women should be child-rearers and homeowners.
- The Reich Mother’s Service was a branch of the DFW for training ‘physically and mentally able mothers, to make them convinced of the important duties of motherhood, experienced in the care and education of their children and competent to carry out their domestic tasks’. By March 1939, 1.7 million women had attended its motherhood training services.
What were the policies towards workers?
The Nazi Volksgemeinschaft would be a society in which class differences, religious loyalties, as well as regional, age and gender differences would be put aside and replaced by national unity. Given their traditional ties to trade unions and non-Nazi political parties, industrial workers presented the greatest challenge to the process of Gleichschaltung. The Nazis could not ignore the working class nor could they rely solely on repression to achieve their objective of ‘coordinating’ them. Their first step was to ban the existing free trade unions, which was done on May 1933. Following that, the next step was to coordinate workers into a Nazi-run organisation, the German Labour Front.
What was the German Labour Front?
The German Labour Front or DAF was established May 1933 to coordinate workers into the National Socialist regime. The DAF took over the assets of the banned trade unions and became the largest organisation in the Third Reich. Its membership grew rapidly since it was the only officially recognised organisation representing workers.
What were the German Labour Front’s (DAF’s) aims?
The DAF had two main aims:
- to win the workers over to the Volksgemeinschaft.
- to encourage workers to increase production.
What were the features of the DAF?
The DAF had its own propaganda department to spread Nazi ideology among working class Germans. It also established a subsidiary organisation, ‘Strength Through Joy’ to organise workers’ leisure time. In 1936, the DAF started to proved vocational training courses to improve workers’ skills. The DAF also built up a large business empire of its own.
The Nazi system of labour relations was heavily weighted in favour of the employer and the State. Workers in the Third Reich had to work harder and accept a squeeze on wages and living standards. Nazi propaganda tried to promote the message that the reward for working was not material gain but the knowledge that they were serving the community. Nevertheless, the Nazis were well aware that they could not take workers for granted. Improved leisure facilities and opportunities, provided by Strength Through Joy, were a key part of this strategy.
What was Strength Through Joy (KdF)?
Strength Through Joy was set up to organise workers’ leisure time. The basic idea behind the scheme was that workers would ‘gain strength for their work by experiencing Joy in their leisure’. Workers who were refreshed by holidays, sports and cultural activities would be more efficient when they returned to work. The KdF also aimed:
- to submerge the individual in the mass and encourage workers to see themselves as part of the Volksgemeinschaft. With leisure time as well as work time regulated by the regime, there would be no time or space for workers to develop private lives. To this end, the KdF was a propagandist organisation.
- to encourage a spirit of social equality. All KdF activities were organised on a one-class basis with no distinction between rich and poor
- to bring Germans from the different regions of the country together and to break down regional and religious differences
- to encourage participation in sport to improve the physical and mental health of the nation. Every youth in employment was obliged to undertake two hours each week of physical education at their workplace
- to encourage competition and ambition. A KdF National Trades Competition was organised for apprentices to improve skills and standards of work.
Membership of the KdF
Through the KdF, workers were offered subsidiaries holidays in Germany and abroad, sporting activities and hikes, as well as theatre and cinema visits at reduced prices. Classical music concerts were put on in lunch breaks in factories. There were KdF wardens in every factory and workplace employing more than 20 people. Supporting these were over 7000 paid employees of the organisation by 1939. Membership of the KdF came automatically with membership of the DAF so that, by 1936, 35 million belonged to it.
Despite the gap between myth and reality in the KdF, it was one of the regime’s most popular organisations. By offering opportunities that were not available to ordinary Germans before 1933, the KDF was valued by workers and thus helped to reconcile people and even former opponents, to the regime.
