Role of Women in NAZI - Essay Example

Introduction With the proclamation of World War 2, women did not hesitate but mustered up to the campaign. Although Australia wanted her entire population to take part in the cause, women hastened for that chance and joined their military personnel in saving their golden state. Women however played vital roles in the process and contributed largely to the warfare exertion. They carried multiple tasks from worrying about their people who had flown overseas for war, household duties, as well as undertaking various duties in the industry. However, women from Australia were not afraid and volunteered themselves to fight for their nation by joining the military officials when their state experienced shortage of workforce and more men were required to come up and help supporting the operating war thriftiness. Women, therefore, decided to leave behind their roles in the house and meet crucial roles in the demanding society. Although sometimes they faced strong resistance from various unions, men and governments as well, they did not stop or give up. Womens organizations in the early months Although the Australian government was not ready to allow women contribute in the World War 2, women hastened and grabbed the chance of taking part in the state’s warfare associations. At first, women formed various units and groups, which were meant to provide necessary services and any help they soldiers, would require. First, they came up with Women’s Transport Corps whereby; various women were trained on how to drive ambulances, trucks, Lorries, motorbikes, as well as cars. The tutors here were experienced women who had acquired driving skills back in the 1920s and 1930s and other women drivers. After acquiring the necessary driving skills and experienced, they went to the government and asked if they could offer their assistance but the government declined their request (Williamson, 134). They then offered to help any organization that needed drivers and later found themselves driving soldiers to different parts of the city and transporting products to kiosks. Secondly, they formed another group that was referred to as Women Emergency Signaling Corps. This one taught women on how to substitute male Morse code manipulators in post agencies as well as other communication offices. 300 women from Sydney were trained on this. They were also trained on other functions like signaling and Morse code. Just like the transport corps, the attained the necessary skills but then they were not given duties to perform. Their fortune came in 1942 when an agency known as the Royal Australian Air Force announced the recruitment of women who had skills and experience in Morse code and other communication fields. They came up with their agency known as Women Australian Auxiliary Air Force (Marsh, 78). Thirdly, they came up with another group known as Womens Australian National Services, which was organized by Lady Wakehurst wife to the New South Wales governor. This one trained women on physical exercise, armed forces drills, first aid, air raid performances as well as nursing activities. On completion of the training sessions, they would be picked for further study on various fields such as rifle shooting, telephone operation, radio, cooking, army intelligence as well as signaling. Unfortunately, the government did not accept their assistance. In addition, their pursuits and objectives contravened with the Women’s Army Corps, and this led to its dissolution. In the Nazi Germany, Hitler had declared that the function of women was to be home and raise their children as well as take care of their families as their husbands were working (Lower, 102). He did not see the importance of a woman working. Girls learned from school that for them to be real women, they should marry at tender age and stay at home to make her house in good order and have children for the husband. In 1933, Hitler became president and passed a law, which stated that, all newly married people were going to get a 1000marks loan from the government for 9months. Close to 800,000 couples took the credit, which was simply non-refundable. On giving birth to one kid meant you will not pay 25% 0f the loan, two children said dismissal of 50% of the loan and four kids meant you would not need to pay back the whole loan. This law was mainly to encourage people have as many kids as possible so as in the future they would be recruited in the army. In addition, many young girls would become future mothers and give birth to more kids. This motive became useful not only in Nazi Germany but also in the entire western part of Europe. France went ahead and abolished the use of contraceptives and abortions in fear of population decrease. Role of women in NAZI In 1943, another law was enforced in efforts to increase the population. It stated that each particular woman was supposed to have four children with a racially pure man. For those families, which already had the four children, the man was supposed to go out and sire more children with other women. However, the Nazi officials found out that this law would bring disorder into the community and therefore pushed for its dismissal. The Nazi government was on the issue of employing women or women getting involved in payable jobs. When Hitler came to power, he sacked all women employees who included 3000 female doctors, 100,000 female teachers and 13,000 female artists who had been employed in Weimar Germany. A number of women lawyers were also sacked. By the time World War 2 began, Germany had very few women working. In 1937, Germany government realized that they had a shortage of skilled women and therefore passed a law. This law stated that, women were supposed to do what was referred to as “Duty Year” meaning that they had to work loyally to help in boosting the Nazi’s economy. In addition, the government went ahead and got rid of the marriage loan. Women’s lives particularly homemakers, were regulated by the government. They were not supposed to put on trousers or even use make-ups. The dyeing of hair was prohibited, and only flat shoes were meant to be worn. Slimming was discouraged as they argued that it caused problems during childbirth. The habit of smoking by women was prohibited as the Nazi officials considered it Un-German. On Hitler’s mother’s birthday, which was held every 12th of august, those women who had many children received a motherhood Cross award. Those with eight children received gold cross, silver cross for those with 6 children and bronze cross for those with 4 children. It was right for unmarried women to have children in the Nazi Germany. There were Lebensborns, which were houses where unmarried women went to get pregnant by men who were considered racially pure. Nazi seizure of power In 1933, general election was conducted, and Nazi emerged the winner of the biggest percentage of the popular vote but they failed to have a majority. This made Hitler lead a coalition government which did not however last for long. NSDAP and the GNPP formed his government. President Paul von Hindenburg, on 31st of January, nominated Hitler as the chancellor of Germany having been strongly pressured by industrialists, the business community and other politicians. In the months that followed, the NSDAP quickly brought everything in their control using a process they called “Gleichschaltung” that meant co-ordination. By June 1933, only the army and churches were not controlled by the NSDAP. All other organizations, groups and sports clubs were brought under the party’s control. On February 27th, 1933 during the night, fire broke out in the Reichstag building. After close investigations, it was discovered that the fire was started by a Dutch called Marinus van der Lubbe who pleaded guilty, but Hitler announced that this incendiary showed the beginning of the communist arising. The Reichstag Fire Decree was enforced, on February 28th, 1933, which overturned many German civil autonomies (Webb, 132). It also reversed assembly rights as well as freedom of the press (Marsh, 89). This decree also allowed police to arrest and confine a person without any charges or order from the court to detain the person. In March1933, following the Weimar constitution, the enabling Act passed in the Reichstag decree. This law gave Hitler and his government the authority to pass laws inclusive of those that is against the constitution and even without the head of state’s permission. Since the bill needed 2thirds majority to be passed into a law. The communists had been prohibited from attending meetings, the Nazis took advantage and used the conditions of the Reichstag Fire Decree to prevent various surrogates absent in the meeting meant to enforce the bill (Webb, 134). On 14 July, the government disbanded all the remaining political parties after banning pulses belonging to social democrats. German, therefore, became a one-party state. In the three general elections that followed up to 1938, the Nazis were in control of everything. In January 1934, the federal upper house together with the parliament was dismissed. The Nazi government together banned the Weimar republic symbols with other thing, which were the flag with the gold tricolor, red and black colors, and the retro royal symbolism, which had been adopted. Nazi regime restituted the two original national flags, which were the imperial black, white, and red tricolor and the swastika flag, which formerly belonged to the NSDAP. It then was made a standard flag later in the year 1935. During this period, Germany was facing economic failure with millions of its citizens being unemployed and the deficit in balance of trade intimidating (Best, 45). Hitler valued German’s economy. He provided the information, which was very crucial to recreating Germany’s economy. He, therefore, created 1.7 million public work projects and put the jobless citizens to work there. This led to boost in average weekly wages and per hour. World War II Foreign policy During the period of war, German foreign policy was to make confederate governments under direct, as well as indirect control of Berlin. Its main objective was to work hard, get soldiers from elderly friends from Italy and Hungary, getting large numbers of experienced workers, and obtain plentiful food supply from implemented states like France. In the year 1942, Germany had received several segmentations from its allies, which included 10 divisions from Hungary, 10 from Italy and 24 divisions came from the eastern part of Romania (Lower, 120). When German realized that, the company was unreliable; it took full control of it and everything that belonged to it. However, Germany was clever that it could not share anything with anyone not even with its closest allies. It also kept distance with some allies however high and prosperous they were. For example, it declined to give Japan the method they used to obtain oil from coal. Outbreak of war The World War 2 began officially when Germany intruded on Poland and in return, France, and Britain announced war on Germany after two days. Poland was put down quickly as it was attacked from the eastern side by the soviets. This was all happening on 17 September 1939. On September 21st, the head of Gestapo, Reinhard Heydrich announced that all Jews be collected and put together in the cities that had adequate rail connections (Best, 89). At first, their plan was to take Jews to the eastern region or to the Madagascar. The military officials were killing people based on a list that had been issued to them. As a consequence, dozens of people lost their lives among them, noblemen, clergy, teachers and approximately 65,000-polish clerisy. All these were Poland citizens (Best, 220). The war continued and at this stage, it was referred to as winter war. The soviets attacked Finland, and German military took part in the war at the sea. From the beginning of the war, Britain aimed at bringing down the Germany economy by blocking the sea transport, which was used to transport imports into the country like grains, oil, and coal. Hitler saw this and enjoined that Norway should be attacked. War was then staged on Norway on 9 April 1940 whereby Germany police officials invaded the whole country. Afterward, the troops went and attacked Denmark. Irma Grese in NAZI war This turned out to be the rudest woman among the Nazi women who took part in World War 2. Irma Grese was born on seventh of October in the year 1923. Her parents were farmers, and she managed to attend school although she was not able to complete. She was forced to drop from school in the year 1938 aged 15years. After dropping out of school, she was employed on a farm where she worked for a period of half a year. From that instance, she moved to work as a shopkeeper where she was used for four months. Later she moved to a hospital where she worked for a period of two years before moving to the Ravensbruck concentration camp. This prison was established by the German SS to incarcerate women during the World War 2. By the time she was sent at this camp, she was only 19 and worked there as a security guard. In March 1943, she was forced to transfer to another concentration camp, which was known as Auschwitz. Here she was promoted and made a senior SS Supervisor where she was to be in charge of over 30,000 women who had been remanded here. Most of those women who had been imprisoned were Jews and others from Poland. When war ended, those who were lucky to survive explained how Irma Grese subjected their fellow remanded women to torment, sexual harassments, murders, and ruthlessness’s (Kathryn, 78). They evidenced how she carried out ruthless beatings, vagarious shootings, savaging prisoners, sexual pleasure and general persecution, which was performed by her fully trained dogs. She took innocent prisoners to gas chambers for killings. She used to carry a whip and a gun and enjoyed shooting innocent convicts after brutally torturing them. She used her whip to beat up women that she could beat some of them to death. The people who went to inspect her house found three human skins. She was taken back to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp in January 1945 where she served shortly before being taken to Bergen-Belsen, which happened in March. There she was termed by the Bergen- Bergen commandant as the rudest and ill-mannered suspect and was arraigned in court where the court ruled that she should be hanged. On 13 December 1945, Grese was then put to death. Conclusion Japan gave up officially on 15 august 1945, and this ended World War 2. At this point, something else came up whereby the two superpowers set war against each other. This was referred to as the cold war, which came up because of the central war. The United States now fought with the Soviet Union. There was fear that this war would result in other alternate wars in the future as other small nations would decide to back on their favorite superpower. The Nazi regime’s fascination started a campaign based on their culture “racial purity” that meant eradication of those people that infrahuman. These were mainly the Jews, gypsies, Slavs though not all, the mentally handicapped, homophiles, commies, politicians and whatever other radical of people who were conceived unfit. This process left millions of Jewish people dead, with some of them getting brutal persecution, some shot, and others hanged. Many died in the gas chambers and the concentration camps due to starvation and forced labor. Many Jewish women died due to rape and forced abortion. They were subjected to barbarous maltreatment. Disabled women living in preserved institutions, Polish women as well as women from Rome (Gypsy) also faced these brutal persecutions. The Nazi regime had designed individual camps and specific areas in the concentration camps as prisons for incarcerating female criminals and those women who protested against their rules. This way of killings is what is called the Holocaust. Large numbers of Chinese nationalities were burned, and others slaughtered like animals. For instance, women played a very vital role in the World War 2, particularly in resistance part. They had become part of communist, socialist and Zionist movements, which were operating among the youth. Those in Poland acted as messengers who collected vital information, brought it to those in the ghettos, and concentrated camps. For example, in February 1943, Sophie Scholl, who was then a member of the resistance group and a student at the Munich University was arrested and persecuted for distributing anti-German leaflets to the people. The World War 2 finished colonial era. Due to the war-weary, the European nations were weakened. Revolts that were left in the colonies involving Africa and Asian countries had to withdraw their colonial powers, which were peacefully done where there were instances of guerilla warfare. Majority of the rebels, were trained on combat during the war; frequently, the communist groups who had proper combat training with best-armed rebels and best organization. Uprisings for independence and reforms on lands geared the fear for the communist to take over. Since the Eastern Europe had fallen at the end of the war, the communists had won the Chinese civil war finished in 1949, where the aid and even military support was supplied by the western nations. From the surveys conducted, such as palmer failed to give an ideology of the female labor force and the hypothesis relating to world war II. In much depth, the war changed the norms that were evident in women marriage. This period of war affected the womens life and changed the young women involved in labor attitude greatly from 1940 to 1944. These young women were aged between 14 to 19 years old. However, the participation of the women in the World War II contributed to the women’s economy change in the long-run, which was attributed to increased education and many were involved in the clerical sector. Further, from the historical evidence relating to marriage bars in suggest that women work changed when the supply of young women had been reduced from forced labor, and they were provided with proper education and marriages increased. Works Cited Kathryn, Atwood, Women Heroes of World War II: 26 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance, and Rescue. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2011. Print. Williamson, Gordon, World War II German Womens Auxiliary Services. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2012. Print. Marsh, Carole, World War II: Reproducible Activity Book. Georgia: Gallopade International, 2004. Print. Webb, William, Scary Bitches: 15 of the Scariest Women You will Ever Meet! Princeton: Absolute Crime Press, 2013. Print. Lower, Wendy, Hitlers Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. Print. Best, Nicholas, Five Days That Shocked the World: Eyewitness Accounts from Europe at the End of World War II. New York, N.Y.: Macmillan, 2012. Print. Read More