German women’s lives changed significantly in the 1930s when the Nazi party came to power. Towards the end of the Weimar Republic, women had become more emancipated and were allowed to work, vote and take office. However, during the Gleichschaltung period, women in Nazi Germany were allocated specific roles within Nazi society. (Evans,2006). These roles were in line with the Nazi ideology that was being driven in Germany at the time: a woman’s place was in the home supporting her husband and providing children.
To drive this ideology forward Adolf Hitler appointed Gertrud Scholtz-Klink as Reich Women 's Leader and Head of the League of German Girls. As a good orator and a long-standing member of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party,
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These were women who in the 1920s had status, good jobs, and were self-reliant. The sudden loss of their jobs and independence would have caused a great deal of anger and frustration. For independent and career-minded women, the rise of the Nazi party had both a dramatic and negative effect on their life. Not only were they no longer expected to work, but after having been fully independent beforehand, they were now expected to stay at home and rely on their husbands and the government for support. (Haste, …show more content…
They were indoctrinated through the League of German Girls and the Reich Bride schools, that their responsibility as a wife would be to keep a clean, tidy home for their working husband and to have lots of children. German women were fully controlled and were given guidelines on how to be an exemplary German woman. “The German Women must be faithful, She must not wear makeup and she must not smoke”. (Haste, 2003) Women were encouraged to wear their hair in a certain style and dress in a specific way. (Role of Women, 2017) Women were recommended to only wear only flat shoes and were deterred from dieting, as this was considered bad for childbirth. A well-built figure was actively promoted on health issues with the propaganda that slim women would have problems in pregnancy. (Bytwerk, 1936) (Role of Women, 2017) ‘Many women had been led to believe that it was their duty to stay at home and bring up a family and now saw the added benefits when they received money for doing so.’ (Bytwerk,