Expert: Michael FitzGerald - 5/19/2007

Question
Dear Mr. FitzGerald

I am doing a coursework on history about the Nazi period. I am centering on to what extent was the role of Nazi women consistent with the slogan 'different but not inferior'. Do you have any ideas about this? I would appreciate a lot your help.

Thank you very much

Elvira Broeks

Answer
Dear Elvira,

Thank you for your fascinating question. The reality is rather more complex than the myth.

In my most recent volume, the prizewinning biography 'Adolf Hitler: A Portrait,' I actually dealt fairly briefly with this subject. Currently I am actually writing a book on the whole subject of women and the Nazi/Fascist movements.

As well as my own book, I would particularly recommend to you Martin Durham's 'Women and Fascism' which is currently the definitive work on this particular subject.

The official slogan of the Nazis with regard to women was 'children, church, cooking.' The reality was somewhat different. As early as the mid-1920s, the leader of the largest feminist organisation in Germany approached Hitler and asked to have her movement incorporated into the Nazi Party. Hitler agreed to her request. Women like Guida Diehl, Lydia Gottschewski and Gertrud Scholtz-Klink all exercised enormous power over their countryfolk and were probably the most powerful women in the world during the 1930s. Gottschewski's 1934 book 'Women in the New State' combined a resolutely Nazi position with an overt call to German women to become 'Valkyrie warriors' and to fight for the victory of 'the new society' as vigorously as the men. Diehl was also a forceful character and both she and Gottschewski regularly outargued and outmanouevred their male colleagues.

Hitler also set up a radically improved system of women's education, led by the equally formidable Hedwig Foerster. She pushed through educational reforms, in the teeth of fierce opposition from male colleagues and conservative members of the Nazi Party, which placed women's education in Germany onto a level higher than it had ever been.

Hitler also set up universities for 'Higher Women' which he envisaged as training centres for future female leaders of the new Germany. He also encouraged women to be physically strong, active in sport and even traditionally male areas of life. The slogan of 'church, children and kitchen' was one designed to appeal to the conservatives but Hitler only at best half-believed it. Goebbels and Himmler did not believe in it at all and they persuaded Hitler to introduce some of the most radical and proto-feminist legislation in the first half of the 20th century.

The League of German Girls was designed to promote a more independent and confident spirit among German women.

Hitler also removed the stigma from single mothers and gave them respect on the same basis as married women.

Hope this helps a bit.

If you need any more assistance please let me know.

Regards

Mike FitzGerald