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Germany and West Germany 1918-89 > Women, Workers and the Youth in Nazi Germany > Flashcards

Women, Workers and the Youth in Nazi Germany Flashcards

1
Q

What was the meaning of Volksgemeinschaft, and what connotations did it have?

A
  • People’s community
  • It had racial connotations, so it was actually a community of ‘racially pure’ people
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2
Q

What slogan did the Nazis adopt to show their expectations of the role women had, and why?

A
  • Kinder, Küche, Kirche (Children, Kitchen, Church)
  • This slogan had existed pre-Weimar, and so the Nazis showed that they wanted women to return to traditional roles
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3
Q

What did the Nazis want women to do?

A
  • They wanted them to have many ‘pure’ Aryan children
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4
Q

What were 4 expectations the Nazis had of women?

A
  • They expected them to choose the ‘right partner’ to have children with
  • They expected them to be responsible consumers (since they did the domestic shopping), which included not buying from Jewish shops
  • For them to not be involved in politics
  • For them to have a ‘natural’ look
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5
Q

What were 5 policies the Nazis introduced to reduce behaviour that had become common among women in Weimar (particularly New Women)?

A
  • Contraception was severely restricted
  • Higher taxes for childless couples
  • Abortion was legal and there were harsh punishments in place
  • University enrolment for women limited to 10%
  • Punishments for perming hair, and slimming and smoking discouraged
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6
Q

What 3 policies did the Nazis pass in 1933 to increase the number of traditional families?

A
  • Law for the Reduction of Employment; limited women in employment, had top female civil servants and doctors dismissed, female teacher could no longer teach in secondary schools
  • Marriage loan scheme; a quarter of the loan was cancelled after each child born
  • Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases; made it possible for those with mental and physical disabilities to be sterilised, secretly extended to include non-German groups
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7
Q

What 2 laws did the Nazis pass in 1935 to limit inter-racial marriage?

A
  • Marriage Law; couples needed a certificate showing their genetic and racial fitness to be able to get married
  • Blood Protection Law; forbade marriage between Germans and Jews, gypsies and black people
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8
Q

What was the Lebensborn programme?

A
  • A programme created by Himmler to increase the number of ‘Aryan’ children born
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9
Q

When was the Lebensborn programme created?

A
  • 1935
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10
Q

Give 3 features of the Lebensborn programme.

A
  • It provided sexual partners from the BDM for the SS (in hopes that these women would then get pregnant)
  • It offered adoption services for unmarried Aryan women who would have terminated their pregnancy otherwise, and these children would then be given to ‘suitable’ infertile couples
  • During WW2 SS officers were told to abduct children with Aryan features from occupied territories, and they were then ‘Aryanised’ by German foster parents
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11
Q

What was the BDM?

A
  • Bund Deutscher Mädel: the League of German Girls
  • It was the older female Nazi youth group
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12
Q

What other group existed for women in Nazi Germany, and what was its purpose?

A
  • The NSF: Nationalist Socialist Women’s Union
  • It had been created in 1931 to attract female support for the Nazi Party
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13
Q

What change was made to the Marriage Law, and when?

A
  • Under the change, divorce was made easier to obtain in the cases of infertility, having an abortion or refusing to have a baby
  • 1938
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14
Q

What was introduced in 1939 to encourage women to have more children?

A
  • The Mother’s cross was given to women with more than 3 children
  • 4-5: bronze
  • 6-7: silver
  • 8+: gold
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15
Q

When did attitudes towards women working change, and what were 2 reasons why?

A
  • During WW2
  • There was more pressure on production
  • Men were being conscripted
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16
Q

How did the percentage of women working change in WW2 compared to WW1?

A
  • In WW1, there was an increase of 76% from 1913 to 1918
  • For WW2, it went up by 27% between 1933 and 1939, but by just 2% during the war
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17
Q

Give 3 reasons why the percentage of women working during WW2 did not rapidly increase.

A
  • Previous Nazi propaganda had been that effective
  • The government preferred for women to replace men in teaching or agricultural work rather than industrial work
  • Germany used people from occupied territories (including women) and prisoners of war to replace the men who had been conscripted
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18
Q

What were 2 measures introduced by the government to facilitate women returning to work in WW2?

A
  • There were 31,000 creches and kindergarten by the end of 1942
  • There were paid incentives
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19
Q

What proportion of the Germany’s agricultural and war production workforces were foreign by 1944?

A
  • 1/3
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20
Q

What order did Himmler issue to do with women in 1940? Was this a big change from before?

A
  • He ordered that women who were known to be unfaithful could be sent to a concentration camp for at least a year, since soldiers’ morale dropped when they believed their wives were being unfaithful
  • The SS and Gestapo had policed women suspected of having affairs since the start of the war
21
Q

What change was introduced for women from October 1940 and lasted throughout the war? Give 4 details.

A
  • They were allowed to join the army in women’s units that did clerical and support work
  • It was compulsory for BDM members to serve for 6 months- after that period of time they were free to leave or stay
  • By 1941, there were not enough women in these auxiliary services, so it was made compulsory for women from 18 to 40, although this was not strictly enforced
  • By 1944 there were so few men that women were being trained to use anti-aircraft guns
22
Q

What aspect of the Nazi regime was the most significant for workers?

A
  • The reduction in unemployment
23
Q

What proportion of the workforce were unemployed by 1939?

A
  • Only 35,000 out of 25 million male workers were unemployed
24
Q

What was the biggest negative aspect for workers under the Nazis?

A
  • The DAF (German Labour Front)
25
Q

Give 5 details about the DAF.

A
  • Set up in 1933 after independent trade unions were banned
  • It was controlled by the government, so it would not organise the working class to resist the government
  • Some radical Nazis thought the DAF would use its powers to advance the rights of workers
  • Senior Nazis wanted to maintain the support of business owners, so they did not allow the DAF to negotiate wages
  • It was led by Robert Ley
26
Q

Give 5 details on how Robert Ley’s leadership affected the DAF.

A
  • He was very obedient to Hitler, and had his trust
  • He wanted to build up the DAF to make it a power base for himself
  • He also wanted to improve conditions for workers
  • However, he was unsuccessful due to his own personal limitations, and the opposition of elites and party leaders
  • The DAF also did not develop its inherent social radicalism as a result
27
Q

What were 2 reasons why Hitler wanted to limit the power of the working class?

A
  • He wanted rearmament to proceed smoothly, without strikes or drawn-out negotiations
  • He was also aware of the power that strikes had in causing the abdication of the Kaiser
28
Q

What impact did Hitler’s desire to control the working-class have on their standard of living?

A
  • It caused it to deteriorate on average
29
Q

Give examples on how the living standards of workers worsened.

A
  • The average working week rose from 43 to 47 hours between 1933 and 1939
  • Average hourly wages decreased by 2% between 1932 and 1939
30
Q

What were 2 organisations and 1 scheme ran by the DAF, and when were each of them introduced?

A
  • KdF (Strength through Joy) in November 1933
  • Beauty of Work, 1934
  • The Volkswagen scheme, 1938
31
Q

Why was the KdF created?

A
  • To win working-class support
32
Q

What were 4 things that the KdF did?

A
  • Subsidised theatre and opera tickets
  • Subsidised holidays within Germany, or to some European countries, like Italy
  • Set up art exhibitions
  • Organised touring orchestras
33
Q

How big of a scale did the KdF operate on? Give 2 examples.

A
  • They were responsible for half of theatre bookings in Berlin
  • They subsidised over 1.7 million short holidays for workers
34
Q

What were 2 limitations of the KdF?

A
  • KdF holiday facilities often had very basic facilities with little privacy and poor sanitation
  • Workers also had no choice in the entertainment provided
35
Q

What was the purpose of Beauty of Work?

A
  • To improve work facilities
36
Q

How did the Volkswagen car scheme work? How successful was it?

A
  • Workers would give 5 marks weekly, and they would eventually be able to buy a car with this money
  • No workers ever received a car as production was switched to military needs in 1939
37
Q

What was the school system like under the Nazis?

A
  • Most of the Weimar school system was kept in place, but some new types of secondary school were introduced
38
Q

Which types of school did the Nazis introduce?

A
  • Adolf Hitler schools
  • NAPOLAS (National Political Institutes of Education)
39
Q

Describe 4 aspects of Adolf Hitler schools.

A
  • There were 11 of them
  • They largely enrolled working-class and lower middle-class students who had passed fitness and academic tests
  • They also had to prove their family’s racial history for 130 years
  • Nazi ideology was taught there
40
Q

Describe 5 aspects of the NAPOLAS.

A
  • There were 39 of them
  • Their standard of education was similar to that of Gymnasia
  • Their purpose was to educate future SS leadership
  • Most of the students were from the middle-class, and had to be physically and racially ‘fit’
  • 3 of the NAPOLAS educated female students
41
Q

To what degree did the Nazis change the school system?

A
  • Not much, as most leading Nazis sent their children to Gymnasia anyway
42
Q

What were the 3 important roles of schools for the Nazis?

A
  • To teach:
  • loyalty to Hitler and Germany
  • physical fitness for either fighting or childbirth
  • racial purity
43
Q

What were 4 ways in which the Nazis ensured teachers taught what they wanted them to?

A
  • From 1933 teachers had to join the Nationalist Socialist Teachers’ League
  • They purged the teaching profession; 20% of teachers were sacked in 1933
  • From 1935 the Nazis issued instructions on what should be taught in all years in all subjects
  • By 1937 it was impossible to get a job as a teacher unless you were in the union, and 97% of teachers were
44
Q

What were 7 ways that the Nazis changed the curriculum?

A
  • Textbooks were either replaced, censored or burned
  • There were new areas of the curriculum such as race studies, which taught that Aryans were the superior race and that others were inferior
  • Sport was increased for both boys and girls (became 15% of the curriculum)
  • Biology focused on eugenics and motherhood for girls
  • History was focused on an idea of nationhood, and German history as as a succession of great male leaders
  • Physics and chemistry focused on the military application of science
  • Geography focused on the wrongs of Versailles and the need for Lebensraum
45
Q

Which youth groups existed for boys, and which ages was each intended for?

A
  • Pimpfen: 6-10
  • Jungvolk: 10-14
  • Hitler Jungend: 14-18
46
Q

Which youth groups existed for girls, and which ages was each intended for?

A
  • Jungmädel: 10-14
  • Bund Deutsches Mädel (BDM): 14-18
  • Glaube und Schönheit: 18-21
47
Q

In what 2 ways did the Nazis ensure participation in youth groups?

A
  • In 1936 all non-Nazi ones were banned
  • In 1939 it became compulsory for all ‘racially pure’ children to go
48
Q

What were 2 purposes of the youth groups?

A
  • They continued the indoctrination from school
  • Members of these youth groups were also expected to report on anyone (including their family) that did anything against Nazi teachings
49
Q

How effective were youth groups? Give 2 details.

A
  • Rich families could avoid sending their children as long as they paid the subscription
  • In 1934, fewer than half of children in the south of Germany had joined, while this figure was over 80% of the north

Germany and West Germany 1918-89 (18 decks)

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