The mission of women is to be beautiful and to bring children into the world
Joseph Goebbels
An extracts from a speech made by Gertud Scholtz-Klink, leader of the National Socialist Women's League, in January 1936
‘The woman, besides caring for her own children, should first care for those who need her help as mothers of the nation.’
‘Women, I wish to try briefly to make clear what the deepest calling we women have is: motherhood. In the bad fourteen years between 1918 and 1933, motherhood was often robbed of its deepest meaning and reduced to something superficial, something that was even held in contempt.’
‘Not only those women with children will become mothers of the nation, but rather each German woman and each girl will become one of the Führer’s little helpers wherever she is, be it in the labour service, in a factory, at a university or in a hospital, at home or on the high seas.’
‘The woman, besides caring for her own children, should first care for those who need her help as mothers of the nation.’
‘Women, I wish to try briefly to make clear what the deepest calling we women have is: motherhood. In the bad fourteen years between 1918 and 1933, motherhood was often robbed of its deepest meaning and reduced to something superficial, something that was even held in contempt.’
‘Not only those women with children will become mothers of the nation, but rather each German woman and each girl will become one of the Führer’s little helpers wherever she is, be it in the labour service, in a factory, at a university or in a hospital, at home or on the high seas.’
What we already know:
- The Nazis claim "the emancipation of women was a slogan invented by Jewish intellectuals".
- Nazis wanted women to believe"world is her husband, her family, her children, and her home."
- During the election campaign in 1932, Adolf Hitler promised that if he gained power he would take 800,000 women out of employment within four years.
- In August 1933 a law was passed that enabled married couple to obtain loans of 1000 marks to set up homes and start families. To pay for this single men and childless couples were taxed more heavily. You could avoid repayment by having 4 children. [250 marks for each child]
- Married women doctors and civil servants were dismissed in 1934 and from June 1936 women could no longer act as judges or public prosecutors.
- Women were ineligible for jury service because he believed them to be unable to "think logically or reason objectively, since they are ruled only by emotion.
- Hitler appointed Gertrud Schultz-Klink as Reich Women's Leader and head of the Nazi Women's League. A good orator, Schultz-Klink's main task was to promote male superiority and the importance of child-bearing.
- Once girls reached the age of 10 they could join the Jungmädel, one of the sections of the Hitler Youth. At 14 they entered the Bund Deutscher Mädel. (German Girls' League). This included a year of farm or domestic service.
- In the year before the Nazis came to power there were 18,315 women students in Germany's universities. In 1939 this number had fallen to 5,447.
- In October, 1933, the Nazis opened the first concentration camp for women at Moringen. By 1938 the camp was unable to accommodate the growing number of women prisoners and a second one was built at Lichtenburg in Saxony. The following year another one was opened in Ravensbruck.
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Mutterkreuz (Mother's Cross)
Hitler was very concerned with increasing the birth-rate in Germany which had declined after the First World War. The Nazi regime organised a propaganda campaign which aimed to encourage women to have as many children as possible. They were rewarded in this with a medal according to how many children they had produced. Should a woman be particularly successful in this respect there were other rewards too. For example, Hitler would be the godfather of any tenth child in a family. |
