Women in the Third Reich

by Stibbe, Matthew

• ISBN13: 9780340761045
• ISBN10: 0340761040
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-07-31
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

While Nazi Germany has been the subject of countless scholarly works, gender studies, as a category of analysis, has largely been neglected in interpretative surveys of Nazi Germany. This book examines the female half of the German population during the years of the Third Reich and asks why such a sizeable portion of the population was ready to rally around a movement both blatantly anti-feminist and determined to exclude women from public life. It explains how ordinary Germans translated Nazi beliefs into action and what factors, in addition to gender, influenced women's political choices between 1933 and 1945. Matthew Stibbe is Senior Lecturer in European History, Sheffield Hallam University, UK While Nazi Germany has been the subject of countless scholarly works, gender studies, as a category of analysis, has largely been neglected in interpretative surveys of Nazi Germany. This book examines the female half of the German population during the years of the Third Reich and asks why such a sizeable portion of the population was ready to rally around a movement both blatantly anti-feminist and determined to exclude women from public life. It explains how ordinary Germans translated Nazi beliefs into action and what factors, in addition to gender, influenced women's political choices between 1933 and 1945. While Nazi Germany has been the subject of countless scholarly works, gender studies, as a category of analysis, has largely been neglected in interpretative surveys of Nazi Germany. This book examines the female half of the German population during the years of the Third Reich and asks why such a sizeable portion of the population was ready to rally around a movement both blatantly anti-feminist and determined to exclude women from public life. It explains how ordinary Germans translated Nazi beliefs into action and what factors, in addition to gender, influenced women's political choices between 1933 and 1945.

Author Biography

Matthew Stibbe is Senior Lecturer in European History, Sheffield Hallam University, UK

Table of Contents

List of Tables	vii
Acknowledgements	viii
List of Abbreviations	ix
Introduction	1	(8)
The Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazis	9	(25)
The position of women after the First World War	11	(5)
Nazism and the `woman question' in the 1920s	16	(5)
The impact of the economic depression	21	(4)
The Nazi seizure of power	25	(9)
The incorporation of women into the Nazi state	34	(25)
The DFW and the women's `work of the nation'	36	(4)
Nazi propaganda and the ideal Nazi woman	40	(6)
Strength through joy	46	(4)
The policing of female sexuality and the reproductive sphere	50	(9)
The impact of Nazi racial policies	59	(25)
Nazi policies towards the Jews	61	(6)
`Mixed' marriages and `mixed' partnerships	67	(3)
The `hereditary ill', `asocials' and others `unworthy of life'	70	(5)
Women as agents of Nazi racial policy	75	(9)
Women and work	84	(24)
Women and the labour market in the 1930s	85	(6)
Women and the wartime labour force	91	(5)
Jewish women and forced labour	96	(4)
Civilian deportees, prisoners of war, concentration camp inmates	100	(8)
Education, youth, opportunity	108	(20)
Education and opportunity	110	(3)
The BDM - League of German Maidens	113	(3)
Labour service schemes	116	(4)
German youth at war, 1939--1945	120	(8)
Opposition and resistance	128	(22)
Types of opposition and resistance	130	(3)
Organised resistance	133	(6)
Opposition and non-conformity in everyday life	139	(4)
German-Jewish women in hiding and in the concentration camps	143	(7)
From total war to defeat and military occupation	150	(24)
War on the home front: rationing and its impact	152	(2)
Marriage, divorce and sexual relations at time of war	154	(5)
Denunciations and their consequences	159	(3)
The bombing of German towns	162	(3)
The last weeks of the war and the first days of peace	165	(9)
Conclusion	174	(9)
Bibliography	183	(10)
Index	193