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Michaela Tegeler
Mr. Hawkins
World History, Period 2
21 March 2016
The Gender Roles and Attitude toward Women in Nazi Germany
From doing research and investigating what peoples gender roles and attitude were
toward women in Nazi Germany, I really wasnt surprised with most of the information I found.
Women much like everywhere else at the time were expected to get married, have children, raise
the family, cook, and keep up with the house. One thing that did surprise me was how creative
Hitler was when using propaganda to encourage married couples to have many children.
Throughout all the research I did I found that The general roles and attitude toward
women in Nazi Germany were largely shaped off of personal beliefs of Adolf
Hitler(Article #1); his beliefs came from his mothers role when he was growing up. Adolf
Hitlers Mother was a very protective and caring housewife. Hitler felt that women are gentler,
caring, and more emotional than men, which therefore made them better for raising the family,
and taking care of the house. Because of that Hitler said that they werent equipped for the harsh
fast pace work/business world. Hitler preferred women who were quiet, demure and
motherly (Article #1). Because he believed this, he felt that everyone else should also
believed that women should stick to being the perfect housewife. Hitler found it difficult to
relax around women who were confident, outspoken, well educated or professionally
successful (Article #1). Thats one of the reasons he really pushed women to be housewives

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instead of being in the working world. When Hitler finally had power, one of the Nazis first new
policies was to send women back into motherhood in order to increase the population. He was
successful at doing this through propaganda. On July 1933 the Nazis passed the Law for the
Encouragement of Marriage. Married couples would receive what was call the Baby bonus
(Article #1) it was a state loan of 100 Reichmarks, it was partially repaid every time the wife
gave birth. The loan was discharged after four children (Article #1). That was just one of
the sneaky ways that Hitler encouraged married couples into having an abundant amount of
children. Another form of propaganda Hitler used was Women who bore multiple children
were awarded a medallion (Article #1). The Cross of Honour of the German Mother was the
title of the medallion. Women who bore four children were awarded in bronze, silver for a sixth
child, and gold for an eighth child. By achieving the medallions it showed patriotism. While
Nazis hailed mothers National heroes, single women and workingwomen were treated as secondclass citizens. Unmarried women were viewed by the law as Mentally infirm (Article #1),
which was the same title given to Jews later on.
Women in Germany were given very specific and straightforward roles. Theyre roles
were to be good mothers bringing up children while the husband works and also to keep up with
house work, Hitler made that very clear (Article #2). Young girls were taught from a young
age even in school that they were to marry at a young age to a good Germany, and that was her
job, to take care of her husband, house hold, and the many children that would soon have. The
Baby bonus (Article #2) would encourage the couple to start having children fairly quickly
after getting married. The Nazis outlawed contraception in order to increase the birthrate and also
because Many pioneers of contraceptive medicine were Jewish (Article #1). Eventually,
publicizing or even discussing birth control became banned in Nazi Germany. The Nazis cracked

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down on abortions; setting difficult requirements for pregnancy terminations on medical

grounds, they also had harsh penalties for illegal abortions. Divorce, for example, was made
easier for men than for women; judges permitted men to pay less alimony than before
(Article #3). Men had it easier then women did this includes in both the work world and
everyday life. Women were discouraged from having jobs, especially jobs that required
leadership. When the Nazis took power in 1933 there were 100,000 female teachers and
3,000 female doctors working in Germany (Article #1) eventually they were forced to resign
or into a marriage and motherhood. From 1936 women were prohibited from working in careers
that required authority such as judges, lawyers, principals and countless other professions.
Women were also stripped the right to work in high-ranking or influential positions in
government, agencies. Charities schools, and hospitals, they would quickly be replaced by all
men. There were restricted place in Universities and colleges. Men had completely taken over
the work world when the Nazis took over. The Nazis only wanted women to be good
housewives, so they made it difficult and looked down upon women to be in the work force. Not
only were women forced out of the professional world, but they were also forced out of the
entertaining world. Local governments passed by-laws restricting women from singing,
dancing, or appearing bare legged in public(Article #1). This shows how much Hitler
brainwashed everyone to believe that women were incapable of doing anything other than being
a quant little housewife.
In conclusion the attitude and gender roles toward women in Nazi Germany was that
young girls are encouraged and taught to marry a good Germany man at a very young age. Once
they get married then, they have many children. Then from there they become gentle soft-spoken
housewives that teach their daughters to do the same. Thats how the rest of the world saw

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women, and it was frowned upon to be any different. If you were different, you were considered
to be mentally infirm.