Week 5: Women in the Fatherland 

Graph: The Gender of Denouncers, Cologne Special Court, 1933-1944
Graph: Cases of False Denunciation, Cologne District Court, 1933-1944
Graph: The Occupation of Female Denouncers, Cologne Special Court, 1933-1944
Graph: The Gender of Persons Accused of Political Crimes, Cologne District Court, 1933-1944

Image right: The Aryan Family (undated) is a print after a painting by Wolfgang Willrich (1897-1948). It depicts what could be described as the quintessential Aryan family, with their sunshine-blond hair, strong jaw lines, chiseled “Nordic” features, and rosy-red cheeks. The clothing of the boy in the foreground seems to identify him as a member of the Hitler Youth, while the traditional rustic clothing of the others links them to the rural population so idealized by the regime. Symbols of hard work, fertility, bounty, health and vitality, and connection to the land abound. The family’s home, a half-timbered, thatched-roof construction, exemplifies the völkisch vernacular architecture celebrated by the Nazis, and, as such, provides a fitting backdrop for this idyllic family scene. Image source: GHDI/Bildarchiv preussischer Kulturbesitz.

Adolf Wissel (1894-1973), Kahlenberger Bauernfamilie (1939). Wissel's nostalgic image of a German peasant family was featured in the "Great German Art Exhibit" for 1939.

Women, Race, and National Socialism
A. Nazi Attitudes Toward Women
B. Nazi Women's Organizations
C. Women and Work
1) Enforcing the Ideology of “Hearth and Home”  (1933-1937)
2) Return to Work (1937-1939)
3) Women at War (1939-1945)

Image: Gertrud Bäumer (1873-1954), head of the Federation of German Women's Associations (Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine, or BDF)
Image: Helene Stöcker (1869-1943), pacifist, sexologist, activist in the League for the Protection of Mothers (Bund für Mutterschutz)
Image: Guida Diehl (1868-1961), founder and head of the New Land Movement (Neulandbund)
Image: Reichsfrauenführerin Gertud Scholtz-Klink (Lüneburg, 1939)
Image: An SS wedding (1934)

Graph: Women at Work in Modern Germany, 1880-1980
Graph: Matriculations at German Universities, 1928-1944
Graph: Marriage and Fertility in Germany, 1931-1939

Image left, above: The 1 August 1938 edition of the Frauenwarte, the official party magazine for women. The legend reads: “Happy Families are the Most Secure Foundation of Our People”; Source: German Propaganda Archive at Calvin College.

Image left, below: A poster for the NSV Relief Campaign “Mother and Child,” which with the help of the National Socialist Nurses Association provided immunization, food for children, and domestic help to women deemed worthy of assistance on racial and eugenic grounds; Source: Dokumentation Obersalzberg/Institut für Zeitgeschichte München-Berlin.

Law for the Reduction of Unemployment, 1 June 1933

Decree on the Re-Employment of Women in Receipt of Marriage Loans, 5 February 1937 

Karl Binding, Permission for the Destruction of Worthless Life (1920)

Committee of Experts for Population and Race Questions (Reich Interior Ministry), 1933

Operation T-4