Women in Nazi Germany

Question 1

During a reform of the Civil Service shortly after the Nazis rose to power in 1933, how many women lost their jobs?

Answer 1

19 000

Question 2

between 1937-39 female employment rose from what to what?

Answer 2

5.7 million to 7.1 million.

Question 3

why did female employment increase from 1937-39 and onwards?

Answer 3

Nazis’ ideology towards women did not reflect the needs of the economy and by 1939, demands of WWII forced Nazis to promote female employment

Question 4

By 1945, how many women worked for the German armed forces?

Answer 4

500,000

Question 5

what kind of jobs did women do in the german armed forces?

Answer 5

from secretaries to concentration camp guards.

Question 6

what was the Nazi ideal woman?

Answer 6

modest, helpful and to live a simple family-oriented lifestyle

Question 7

what was ‘Kinder, Kuche, Kirche’?

Answer 7

means children, kitchen, church - was a Nazi slogan aimed at women

Question 8

what was women’s function in Nazi Germany?

Answer 8

• having 4 racially pure children was seen as standard and realistic
• in return, were offered a privileged status as mothers in Aryanised Europe

Question 9

Of the ~40 million German women in the Third Reich, how many were actively involved in Nazi Party organisation? and what kind of things did they do?

Answer 9

13 million - e.g. the National Socialist Women’s League (organised a variety of activities, including educational classes on subjects such as cookery, motherhood and using German products)

Question 10

what happened to women from invaded countries?

Answer 10

worked in factories, fields and private homes

Question 11

how many women from invaded countries were transported to Germany?

Answer 11

7 million

Question 12

in 1933, how many female teachers and doctors were fired?

Answer 12

100,000 teachers and 300 doctors

Question 13

what were some Nazi acts towards women?

Answer 13

• mass weddings were held to pressurise women
• contraception was banned
• abortion held a prison sentence and later the death penalty (Nazified doctors and nurses meant there was no patient confidentiality)
• Bridal Schools set up
• from 1939 league of german girls attendance was mandatory
• 800 mark marriage loan paid off at 4 children
• mother’ cross award

Question 14

what were bridal schools?

Answer 14

• created to train young women to be “perfect Nazi brides”, indoctrinated in Nazi ideology and educated in housekeeping skills.
• fiancées of prominent SS members and senior Nazi Party officials were taught skills including cooking, child care, ironing and to how to polish their husbands’ uniforms and daggers.
• required to swear oaths of loyalty to Hitler, pledge to raise their children as Nazis and to marry in what the Nazis alleged to be ceremonies based on pre-Christian model—ceremonies that Nazi officials presided over, rather than ceremonies in churches.

Question 15

what was Lebensborn?

Answer 15

• designed by SS to increase Germany’s declining birthrate
• originally intended to provide pregnant “Aryan” women with financial assistance, adoption services, and a series of private maternity homes where they could give birth.
• By end of World War II, it became involved in the Nazi regime’s systematic kidnapping of thousands of “biologically valuable” foreign children to be raised in German homes.

Question 16

how many compulsory sterilisations were carried out as a result of eugenics committees?

Answer 16

400 000

Question 17

when did Aktion T4 begin?

Answer 17

spring-summer 1939

Question 18

who led Aktion T4?

Answer 18

Philipp Bouhler (director of Hitler’s private chancellery) and Karl Brandt (Hitler’s attending physician)

Question 19

On August 18, 1939 the Reich Ministry of the Interior circulated a decree requiring all physicians, nurses, and midwives to do what?

Answer 19

report newborn infants and children under the age of three who showed signs of severe mental or physical disability.

Question 20

In October 1939, public health authorities began to encourage parents of children with disabilities to do what?

Answer 20

• admit their young children to a specially designated pediatric clinic (throughout Germany and Austria)
• In reality, the clinics were children’s killing wards where specially recruited medical staff murdered children by lethal overdoses of medication or by starvation.

Question 21

how many gassing stations, under T4, were set up for adults?

Answer 21

6

Question 22

after expanding T4 to adults, what were the categories of patients included?

Answer 22

• those suffering from schizophrenia, epilepsy, dementia, encephalitis, and other chronic psychiatric or neurological disorders
• those not of German or “related” blood
• the criminally insane or those committed on criminal grounds
• those who had been confined to the institution in question for more than five years

Question 23

did people in germany know about aktion t4? did they do anything?

Answer 23

• it quickly become an open secret - widespread public knowledge.
• there were private and public protests - especially from members of the German clergy eg Clemens August Count von Galen
• Hitler ordered a halt to the Euthanasia Program in late August 1941

Question 24

when and how did medical professionals and healthcare workers resumed the killings of Aktion T4?

Answer 24

August 1942 - more carefully concealed manner than before; more decentralized, relying closely upon regional exigencies, with local authorities determining the pace of the killing.

Question 25

when did Aktion T4 continue until?

Answer 25

the last days of WWII expanding to include an ever wider range of victims, including geriatric patients, bombing victims, and foreign forced laborers.

Question 26

how many people did the Euthanasia program kill?

Answer 26

~250,000