explain the condition of women and children during Nazi period
Answers
Answer:
Women in Nazi Germany were subject to doctrines of Nazism by the Nazi Party (NSDAP), promoting exclusion of women from political life of Germany along with its executive body as well as its executive committees.[1][2] Although the Nazi party decreed that "women could be admitted to neither the Party executive nor to the Administrative Committee",[2] this did not prevent numerous women from becoming party members. The Nazi doctrine elevated the role of German men, emphasizing their combat skills and the brotherhood among male compatriots.[3]
Women lived within a regime characterized by a policy of allowing and encouraging them to fill the roles of mother and spouse and excluding them from all positions of responsibility, notably in the political and academic spheres. The policies of Nazism contrasted starkly with the evolution of emancipation under the Weimar Republic, and is equally distinguishable from the patriarchal and conservative attitude under the German Empire. The regimentation of women at the heart of satellite organizations of the Nazi Party, as the Bund Deutscher Mädel or the NS-Frauenschaft, had the ultimate goal of encouraging the cohesion of the "people's community" Volksgemeinschaft.
First and foremost in the implied Nazi doctrine concerning women was the notion of motherhood and procreation for those of child-bearing ages.[4] The Nazi model woman did not have a career, but was responsible for the education of her children and for housekeeping. Women only had a limited right to training revolving around domestic tasks, and were, over time, restricted from teaching in universities, from medical professions and from serving in political positions within the NSDAP.[5] Many restrictions were lifted once wartime necessity dictated changes to policy later in the regime's existence. With the exception of Reichsführerin Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, no women were allowed to carry out official functions, however some exceptions stood out in the regime, either through their proximity to Adolf Hitler, such as Magda Goebbels, or by excelling in particular fields, such as filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl or aviator Hanna Reitsch.
The historiography of "ordinary" German women in Nazi Germany has changed significantly over time; early studies after the war tended to see women as another victim of oppression by the Nazis. However, during the late 20th century, historians began to look at German women's agency within Nazi Germany and argue that they were able to influence the course of the regime and even the war, as well as how women's experience varied by class, age and religion.[6]
Henceforth, while many women played an influential role at the heart of the Nazi system or filled official posts at the heart of the Nazi concentration camps,[7] a few were engaged in the German resistance and paid with their lives, such as Libertas Schulze-Boysen or Sophie Scholl.
*please mark it as brainless*
Answer:
Women:-
Children in Nazi Germany were repeatedly told that women were radically different from men. The fight for equal rights for men and women that had become part of democratic struggles everywhere was wrong and it would destroy society.
- While boys were taught to be aggressive, masculine and steel hearted, girls were told that they had to become good mothers and rear pure-blooded Aryan children. Girls had to maintain the purity of the race, distance themselves from Jews, look after the home, and teach their children Nazi values.
- They had to be the bearers of the Aryan culture and race. In 1933 Hitler said: ‘In my state the mother is the most important citizen.’
- But in Nazi Germany all mothers were not treated equally. Women who bore racially undesirable children were punished and those who produced racially desirable children were awarded. They were given favoured treatment in hospitals and were also entitled to concessions in shops and on theatre tickets and railway fares. To encourage women to produce many children, Honour Crosses were awarded. A bronze cross was given for four children, silver for six and gold for eight or more.
- All ‘Aryan’ women who deviated from the prescribed code of conduct were publicly condemned, and severely punished. Those who maintained contact with Jews, Poles and Russians were paraded through the town with shaved heads, blackened faces and placards hanging around their necks announcing ‘I have sullied the honour of the nation’. Many received jail sentences and lost civic honour as well as their husbands and families for this criminal offence.
Children:-
- Hitler strongly believed that a strong Nazi society could be established by teaching children Nazi ideology
- All schools were ‘cleansed and purified’ by dismissing teachers who were Jews or seen as ‘politically unreliable’
- German and Jew children could not sit or play together’
- Subsequently, ‘undesirable children’ were thrown out of schools
- In 1940s they were taken to gas chambers
- Children classified as ‘Good German’ underwent prolonged period of ideological training in a process of Nazi schooling
- School textbooks were rewritten and racial science was introduced and justified Nazi ideas of race
- Maths classes also popularised stereotypes about Jews
- Children were taught to worship Hitler and to be loyal and submissive and hate Jews
- Sports nurtured violence and aggression among children
- 10 year olds had to enter Jungvolk
- Boxing was supposed to make children iron hearted, strong and masculine
- All boys had to join the Nazi youth organization at the age of 14 where they learnt to worship war, glorify aggression and violence condemn democracy, and hate all those categorised as ‘undesirable’
- They had rigorous ideological and physical training
- At the age of 18 they joined the Labour Service
- Later they had to serve in the armed forces and enter one of the Nazi organisations
- Youth organisations educated German youth in ‘the spirit of National Socialism’
- The Youth League, founded in 1922 was renamed as Hitler Youth in 1926
- All other youth organizations were dissolved and banned