World War II brought upon numerous lifestyle changes for both legal citizens and those who were not considered to be German citizens anymore as a result of the war under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. One of the most prevalent examples of this lifestyle variation was the idea of the new woman. The “new woman” of German society was now solely focused on the present. She made decisions based on the immediate effect that they were going to have on both herself and her lifestyle right then and there. On the contrary, the Nazis’ idea of womanhood and a women's societal roles revolved around how a woman’s actions were going to affect both her and her family in their future. The Nazis would have rejected the image of the new woman based on the sole …show more content…
Elsbeth Zander, a Nazi activist who headed the German Women’s order, wrote that women were to be the primary guardian of both her family and their household. Because many women did not go off and fight in the war as the men did in World War II, the duty of a woman during this time was to take care of the kids and run the household. A woman’s motherly responsibilities were fulfilled only when all of her daughters were married to husbands, and her sons were working. After this was accomplished, if the woman had done her job correctly, then she should have exerted all her energy on her family that she would have nothing left to use for herself. Instead of finding her own job to contribute to the household’s financial income, a traditional woman would often help her husband with his own business or professional duties. A woman’s conventional lifestyle always caused her to be thinking about the future and when the two of them would be able to retire together. Because men typically made more money than women, wives knew that by choosing to help her husband with his work would eventually open their doors to retirement much sooner than if she were to have a separate job all on her