Success/ Failure of Nazi Policies on Women
Nazi Policies on women
The 1933 Law for the Encouragement of Marriage (newly married couples given loan of 1000 marks - for each child produced they got to keep 250 marks and did not have to repay.) These loans were for “vouchers for furniture and other household goods, provided, of course, that the women gave up work on marriage and devoted herself to motherhood” Women who had over eight children were given the Motherhood Cross (handed out on Hitler's mother's birthday) Abortion outlawed and contraceptives hard to come by. Young women had to join the BDM which taught them how to be perfect housewives and child producers. Nazi's established 'Lebensborn' during the war - this was where unmarried women could go to meet racially pure SS men to become pregnant. Women considered 'racially undesirable' were sterilized (by 1934 - 28 000) Laws were introduced to remove women from civil service. They were gradually barred from being doctors, lawyers, judges or any role with power or politics. Petty restrictions to encourage homemaking / childbearing included: banning of make-up and wearing of trousers, hair put in plaits/bun but not dyed/permed, slimming was discouraged and women were encouraged to develop child-bearing hips.
What the Statistics show of Nazi’s policies on women.
The year the “Law for the Encouragement of Marriage” was made, the amount of marriages rapidly started to increase. By 1934, 740,165 people were getting married, up by 101,592 from the year before! When the Nuremburg law in 1935 was passed stating that “Marriages between Jews and citizens German or kindred blood are forbidden. Marriages concluded in defiance of this law are void, even if, for the purpose of evading this law, they were concluded abroad” Numbers of marriages had decreased rapidly, questioning that many of these marriages before 1935 were between Jewish and “pure German’s”. By 1936 statistics had reached their all time low of only 609,631 people getting married in that year (28,942
The 1933 Law for the Encouragement of Marriage (newly married couples given loan of 1000 marks - for each child produced they got to keep 250 marks and did not have to repay.) These loans were for “vouchers for furniture and other household goods, provided, of course, that the women gave up work on marriage and devoted herself to motherhood” Women who had over eight children were given the Motherhood Cross (handed out on Hitler's mother's birthday) Abortion outlawed and contraceptives hard to come by. Young women had to join the BDM which taught them how to be perfect housewives and child producers. Nazi's established 'Lebensborn' during the war - this was where unmarried women could go to meet racially pure SS men to become pregnant. Women considered 'racially undesirable' were sterilized (by 1934 - 28 000) Laws were introduced to remove women from civil service. They were gradually barred from being doctors, lawyers, judges or any role with power or politics. Petty restrictions to encourage homemaking / childbearing included: banning of make-up and wearing of trousers, hair put in plaits/bun but not dyed/permed, slimming was discouraged and women were encouraged to develop child-bearing hips.
What the Statistics show of Nazi’s policies on women.
The year the “Law for the Encouragement of Marriage” was made, the amount of marriages rapidly started to increase. By 1934, 740,165 people were getting married, up by 101,592 from the year before! When the Nuremburg law in 1935 was passed stating that “Marriages between Jews and citizens German or kindred blood are forbidden. Marriages concluded in defiance of this law are void, even if, for the purpose of evading this law, they were concluded abroad” Numbers of marriages had decreased rapidly, questioning that many of these marriages before 1935 were between Jewish and “pure German’s”. By 1936 statistics had reached their all time low of only 609,631 people getting married in that year (28,942