Women's Roles in the Nazi Regime

 

Germanization and the Nazi Woman

Within the policy framework based on benefits, women held a privileged position in the Nazi regime. Hitler believed that women's place was in the home. He did not enlist them in the war effort, neither as soldiers nor as factory workers. He saw their purpose as housewives, whose primary role was to bear children and support the men serving the Reich. In her book, "Women and the Nazi East: Agency and Complicity in Germanization," Elizabeth Harvey examines the activities of German women outside the motherland, particularly in occupied Poland. These women concentrated their efforts mainly in the western regions of Poland annexed to Germany, but they were also active in the areas that remained under self-rule. The responsibility for "Germanization" fell upon the women of the Third Reich. Denied equality with their male counterparts in the homeland, Nazi women found an additional sphere of public control in the East. Although their tasks were primarily domestic, their role was empowered by the fact that while they were subordinate to their German male colleagues, they could act with a sense of superiority and impose strict authority over the local population.

Indoctrination and Expansion

As early as 1933, the Nazis formalized the key role of women in the Germanization of the East. Propaganda emphasized that the struggle to instill "Germanness" in the border regions began at home, in school classrooms where mother-teachers taught health, racial purity, language, and faith. This propaganda aimed to prepare German women for their role in the East. The Nazi victories at the beginning of World War II profoundly impacted these women for the rest of their lives. Many volunteered for the mission of bringing the homeland's culture to Eastern Europe, driven by a sense of German superiority. They believed that people in the East lacked order, hygiene, and efficiency, essential qualities that Germans cherished. Naturally, the lower standard and quality of life in Eastern Europe reinforced their views. The women who moved eastward were portrayed as both courageous pioneers and traditional housewives, serving as settlement advisors, teachers, welfare workers, and the like.

Complicity and the Final Solution

Nazi women were representatives of a brutal and racist regime and participated in activities that advanced its goals. They assisted in the racial screening process, selecting Germans from the general population, resettling them, and confiscating and redistributing Polish and Jewish property. The Nazi women involved in indoctrination in the East, actively or passively, were all aware of the Final Solution's course, culminating in the extermination camps. It was an open secret. They rarely engaged in direct murder, but they contributed as much as they could to the unprecedented plunder of tens of millions of people.