In 1919, during the Weimar Republic, German women achieved equality in education for both sexes, equal pay in the professions, equal opportunity in civil service appointments, and the right to vote.
German Women’s Rights During the Weimar Republic
In terms of women’s rights, Germany was one of the most advanced countries in Europe and the United States at the time. By 1932, thirty-six women served in the German Reichstag (Parliament). According to Richard Grunberger (A Social History of the Third Reich), Germany had 100,000 women teachers, 13,000 women musicians, and 3,000 women doctors.
German Women’s Rights Reversed
When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, he reversed the gains German women had made during the Weimar years. He passed legislation that barred them from government and university positions. Girls were banned from learning Latin, a requirement for university entrance. Women were expected to forego careers, be subservient to men, and devote themselves to home and motherhood.
German mother with two girls and a boy in Hitler-Youth Uniform, 1943. www.walled-in-berlin.com
Hitler’s Unemployment Conundrum
In 1932, thirty-three percent of the workforce was without jobs. It was often easier for women to find employment than for men because female labor was cheaper. Hitler decided to reduce unemployment among men by removing women from the labor force. He did so by making interest-free loans of up to 1,000 Reichsmark available to would-be couples if the prospective wife agreed to give up her job. Hitler’s manipulation worked. Within four years, 800,000 women married and opted out of employment.
Hitler’s Ideal Woman – No Rights and No Brains
According to Ian Kershaw (Hitler 1889-1936), Hitler described his ideal woman as “a cute, cuddly, naive little thing – tender, sweet, and stupid.” He detested women with their own opinions, women who smoked, and women who wore make-up. Nazi ideology stated that a woman had a different mission than a man. Her world was her husband, her family, her children, and her home.
Women’s Rights Changed Again
In 1937, Hitler changed his tune about women in the workforce. When war efforts were ratcheted up, married women were needed in the factories so that the men could go to war. Hitler quickly rescinded the interest-free loans to young one-income couples, and within a few months, women made up a third of the employed workforce again. At one point, Martin Bormann, Adolf Hitler’s private secretary, proposed the army form women’s battalions, a plan quite the opposite of tying women to the home. Then, after Germany’s defeat at Stalingrad in 1943, the Nazi government called for total mobilization of female labor. Forgotten was the Nazi notion that the most suitable place for women is at home. Today, German women enjoy equality in education, pay, and opportunities again.
Moral of the Story
Throughout world history, not just German history, governments have manipulated the populace for political reasons. Propaganda glorifies their objectives. But ideology quickly changes when the objectives change.
Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall, and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.
