Women were very important for Hitler's plans for the future of Germany and the "purity" of the aryans. It was suggested by higher-ups in the German military that each male member of the Nazi party should have four children, whether or not they were married to the mother. This led to many women having several children with little to no income. Further, women were expected to focus more on being wives and mothers in Hitler's regime, so finding work was extremely difficult.
As mentioned in my previous blog post "Children in Nazi Germany", girls were often put into "Girl Scout" type programs that taught them how to be home makers. This led to many women not having many applicable skills that would help them get a job during the war. When compared to the United States, that put everyone with the ability to work, Nazi Germany focused more on the future of post-war Germany than they did on the actual current war effort.
Unrelated but Girl Scouts is nothing like that now. I think that it is really interesting how the roles of women evolved in Nazi Germany. There was even more focus on having children than before, and even though Nazi's believed that the were Christians, they permitted having children without being married. I think that is another aspect of their hypocrisy.
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up an interesting point, which is how Germany used its human resources versus America. During the war, the United States put away any gender inequality and allowed women to work alongside men for the sake of the war effort. Hitler Germany on the other hand indirectly stopped women from being able to work and help him win the war.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting because it gives insight into the Nazi ideology, its focus on custom and a future regime, and the Nazi's in terms of the war effort. I often forget that they had big plans to eventually try and rule a huge mass of people and part of these plans meant indoctrinating an entire people under one methodology, and it would make sense that it would systematically trickled down into everyday life of all people of Germany during the WWII period.
ReplyDeleteHitler's belief that women were only capable of traditional roles gives insight as to one reason why Hitler lost WWII. Unlike the United States, Hitler didn't utilize all his available resources to the fullest potential, both because of ignorance and prejudice. America's willingness to encourage women to help with the war effort (e.g. WAC, WAVES, SPARs, etc) may have given the Allies the upper hand and influenced the course of the war.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting post! I was not aware about Hitler's misogynistic views on women before. He seems to have very traditional beliefs where the men are the bread winners, and the women are housewives. This makes me question a lot about Hitler's war strategy. During this time in the United States, women were still not equal to men completely, but any prejudices were put aside and women were allowed to help with the war effort, however Hitler was not very smart when it came to utilizing all of his resources.
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