Hitler's policies towards women

• Political
• Women had received greater amounts of rights and freedoms during the rule of the Weimar
• However, it ended with Hitler and the Third Reich
• Women had no place in politics, according to Hitler
• Consequently:
• No women delegates in the Nazi party’s Reichstag
• Hitler argued that ‘the Emancipation of Women’ was invented by the Jews and should therefore not be followed
• Women were to stay at home and nurture the coming generation
• Industry and education
• Goebbels wrote in 1929: “the mission of women is to be beautiful and to bring children into the world.”
• Women were not to work
• Employers were encouraged to hire men rather than women
• Due to other policies (economic recovery) there were more women employed in 1939 than in 1933
• Women were not to be educated – no higher education
• 1934: 10% of the male population in higher education could be girls
• Hitler’s concept of Lebensraum created the need for people to fill the newly conquered territory, so that  became women’s priority number one
• Social                     
• Historian Lisa Pine argues:
• The Nazis systematically reduced the functions of the family to the single task of reproduction. The family as an institution completely in the service of the totalitarian state.
• Women were strongly encouraged to marry and have as many children’s as possible
• Especially the Aryan race were encouraged
• KKK – Kinder, Kirch, Kuchen
• Children, church, cooking
• On Hitler’s mother’s birthday, 12^th august, the Motherhood Cross gave out rewards to mothers, Gold for 8 children, silver for 6 and bronze for 4.
• On the harsher end of the spectrum:
• The Law for the Encouragement of Marriage - 1933
• A loan program that gave couples 1000 Marks, but depending on the number of children they had, the payback amount would decrease 25% per child
• Abortions were prohibited
• Lebensborn – an SS, state supported, program designed by Heinrich Himmler to produce more Aryan offspring
• Aryan race women could go and meet with SS officers who were considered of good genes to have children – outside marriage

Hitler's rise to power

Hitler's rise to power

•  Long term causes

• Political Problems of the Weimar Republic

• The association between the Weimar and the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles
• Weak constitution
• Article 48
• Gave the President extensive emergency powers
• He was able to suspend civil liberties in the event of an emergency
• This undermined the populations confidence in the democratic state
• Became important after the Reichstag Fire where Hindenburg used it to declare a state of emergency in which Hitler was enabled to arrest Communist and Socialist opponents and close down their newspapers
• Proportional Representation
• Parties gain the same percentage of seats in the Reichstag as the percentage of votes they gain in the elections
• Led to weak coalition governments, which undermined the credibility of the Weimar Republic, and led to many different governments (8 between 19-23). This also led to the fact that the governments had a hard time agreeing on anything.

• Economic weakness of the Weimar Republic

• Treaty of Versailles
• Loss of territory
• Lost 13% of European territory and all overseas colonies
• This included important industrial areas, such as Upper Silesia, Alsace-Lorraine and the Sudetenland.
• Lost 75% of their iron ore
• Loss of population
• Lost 12% of their population  
• Reparations
• Allied Reparations Committee in April 1921 had determined the reparations to £6,600 million
• This led to serious inflation as the government tried to finance the war pensioners and the reparations by printing more paper money undermining the mark. This led to serious dissatisfaction from the population whose savings were lost  
• The Ruhr Crisis (1923)
• Worsened the economic situation and led to hyperinflation and this resulted in the creation of the Dawes Plan (1924)
• The Dawes Plan (1924) and the Young Plan (1929)
• Although the decreased the rate of payment and the Young Plan reduced the final amount of reparations they did tie the German economy closer to the American ones which had grave consequence when the Wall St Crash happened
• Nazi exploitation of the ‘stab in the back’ myth
• Ring-wing and nationalists blamed the Politicians (Catholics, Socialists and Jews) for losing the war as they believed that Germany still had the military strength to win the war. Hitler used this propaganda in his campaigns to gain their votes.

• Short term causes

• The impact of the Great Depression

• The Germany economy was greatly dependent on loans from America to keep their economy afloat, with the Wall St Crash this flow of capital seized and the Allied powers demanded their reparations this deeply damage the economy
• Unemployment rose from under 2 million before the crisis to 3.5 in 1930, 4.4 million in 1931 and peaked at 6 million in 1932
• This caused further distrust in the government by the population
• Correlation between unemployment and Nazi votes
• Less than 3% in 1928 to 107 in 1930 and to 230 in 1932

• Immediate causes

• Political intrigue in the Reichstag

• Von Schleicher replaced Von Papen as Chancellor, however Von Schleicher’s land reform worried the conservative president Hindenburg and he therefore wanted to replace him with Hitler to stabilize the government and he and his allies also believed that they would be able to control Hitler
• He was appointed in March 1933 and immediately had the SA begin to attack their political enemies (especially the Communists and Social Democrats). They closed down their papers, their meetings were attacked and their members were beaten. Hitler promised the army to tear up the military clauses in the Versailles Treaty to stop them from intervening   

• The Reichstag Fire

• Alleged Dutch communist Van der Lubbe set fire to the Reichstag building, which Hitler took advantage of and passed an emergency law which allowed the Chancellor to suspend the parliament, which formed the basis of a police power state

• The Enabling Act

• March 1933 Nazi gained 52% in elections
• Hitler passed the emergency law called the ‘Enabling Act’. To gain support for the act the SA stood outside the parliament to intimidate the members of parliament to vote for the act. The act allowed Hitler to pass laws without seeking the approval of parliament or the President. It formed the legal basis of the Nazi dictatorship. The Nazis could now close down the other opposing political parties, arrest political opponents etc. They could crush all opposition.
• In 1934, Hitler was the sole leader of the Nazis and he could start build the Nazi dictatorship.