Women's rights
The Nazis opposed women's feminist movement, claiming that it was Jewish-led, had a left-wing agenda (compared to Communism) and was bad for both women and men.
The Nazi regime advocated a patriarchal society in which German women would recognize the "world is her husband, her family, her children, and her home."[63] Hitler claimed that women taking vital jobs away from men during the Great Depression was economically bad for families in that women were paid only 66 percent of what men earned.[63] This being said, Hitler never considered endorsing the idea of raising women's wages to avoid such a scenario again, but instead called for women to stay at home. Simultaneously with calling for women to leave work outside the home, the regime called for women to be actively supportive of the state regarding women's affairs. In 1933, Hitler appointed Gertrud Scholtz-Klink as the Reich Women's Leader, who instructed women that their primary role in society was to bear children and that women should be subservient to men, once saying
"the mission of woman is to minister in the home and in her profession to the needs of life from the first to last moment of man's existence.".[63] The expectation even applied to Aryan women married to Jewish men—a necessary ingredient in the 1943 Rosenstrasse protest in which 1800 German women (joined by 4200 relatives) obliged the Nazi state to release their Jewish husbands.
The Nazi regime discouraged women from seeking higher education in secondary schools, universities and colleges.[64] The number of women allowed to enroll in universities dropped drastically under the Nazi regime, which shrank from approximately 128,000 women being enrolled in 1933 to 51,000 in 1938.[60] Female enrollment in secondary schools dropped from 437,000 in 1926 to 205,000 in 1937.[60] However with the requirement of men to be enlisted into the German armed forces during the war, women made up half of the enrollment in the education system by 1944.[60]
Organizations were made for the indoctrination of Nazi values to German women. Such organizations included the Jungmädel ("Young Girls") section of the Hitler Youth for girls from the age 10 to 14, the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM, "German Girls' League") for young women from 14 to 18.
On the issue of sexual affairs regarding women, the Nazis differed greatly from the restrictive stances on women's role in society. The Nazi regime promoted a liberal code of conduct as regards sexual matters, and were sympathetic to women bearing children out of wedlock.[48] The collapse of 19th century morals in Germany accelerated during the Third Reich, partly due to the Nazis, and greatly due to the effects of the war.[48] Promiscuity increased greatly as the war progressed, with unmarried soldiers often involved intimately with several women simultaneously.[48] Married women were often involved in multiple affairs simultaneously, with soldiers, civilians or slave labourers.[48] "Some farm wives in Württemberg had already begun using sex as a commodity, employing carnal favours as a means of getting a full day's work from foreign labourers."[48] Marriage or sexual relations between a person considered “Aryan” and one that was not were classified as Rassenschande were forbidden and under penalty (people found guilty could face concentration camp, while non-Aryans death penalty).
Despite the somewhat official restrictions, some women forged highly visible, as well as officially praised, achievements. Examples are aviatrix Hanna Reitsch and film director Leni Riefenstahl.
An example of the almost cynical way in which Nazi doctrines differed from practice is that, whilst sexual relationships among campers was explicitly forbidden, boys' and girls' camps of the Hitlerjugend associations were needlessly placed close together as if to make it happen. Pregnancy (including repercussions on established marriages) often resulted when fetching members of the Bund Deutscher Mädel were assigned to duties which juxtaposed them with tempted men.[65]
Abortion was heavily penalized in Nazi Germany unless on the grounds of "racial health"; from 1943 abortionists faced the death penalty.[66] Display of contraceptives was not allowed and Hitler himself described contraception as "violation of nature, as degradation of womanhood, motherhood and love."
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Originally Posted by SingleMama
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