Mothers in Fatherland by Claudia Koonz - Assignment Example

Under the new role, women were to be confined into homes as guardians of family and hearth. All major decisions were to be done by men only, women should take care of the home, bear children and take care of them and keep the institution of the family working properly. This, de facto and de iure, was a huge step back for women of Germany who were among the first in the world to be granted voting rights under the Weimar Republic.

            Yet, somehow large numbers of German women supported Hitler. They were, as Koonz describes, devoted to the cause and, almost religiously committed to it. That way a paradox arose in Nazi Germany, a paradox in which women supported something that will give them a second-class citizen status at best. Koonz asserts that women in Germany were the same as men distrustful of democracy, liberal and modern ideas, and at the same time, intensely nationalistic.

            To best illustrate her point Koonz included in the book an interview she did with Gertrud Scholtz Klink in the early 1980s. Scholtz was a former Head of Frauenschaft, Women’s Department under the Nazis. She, as interview done four decades after the fact shows, embodied exactly what Koonz was claiming. Even then she stated numerous times how proud she was of her so-called new power given to her and women in general by Hitler. The whole conversation proved, beyond any doubt, that “female supporters of the Nazis accepted the Nazi division of the sexes into a public sphere for men and a private sphere for women.”

            Professor Koonz, also, explores the process in which German women politically influenced the country at that time. By sheer logic, women made one half of the German population and having voting rights at the time, were very instrumental in aiding Hitler’s rise to power, which in turn, allowed him and the Nazis to implement their policies and commit atrocities in the coming years. In those years of the Third Reich, German women, like Gertrud Scholtz or Elsie Koch, were avid participants in destroying ethics and, in theory, and practice, erasing the values of human life.

            “Mothers in Fatherland” is an interesting account of German women during the Third Reich. It exposes the paradox that women in Germany created and lived under Hitler. By being submissive to the greater cause of the Fatherland( note the name clearly saying who was in charge) they influenced in many crucial ways Nazis and their policies.

            “How the Nazis could come to power in the land of Bach and Beethoven?” By posing this question, Jackson Spielvogel,  History professor at Pennsylvania State University in a best possible way characterizes the main idea of his book “Hitler and Nazi Germany.” The book is an overview of the Nazi period in German history, a time explored by many scholars, and yet still lacking all the answers to Spielvogel’s question.

            Spielvogel broke down the book into several parts he taught were consequential for the history of the Third Reich. He writes about Germany before Hitler, Hitler himself, a Nazi path to power and systems established after Hitler and his supporters were in power. Spielvogel believes that there were two clear logical results of Nazi philosophy in general- World War II or as Spielvogel calls it “Hitler’s war” and the Holocaust. The author besides his own insight offers rich additional resources for research.

            The book is a comprehensive survey of the institutional, cultural, and social life of the Third Reich. It explains Hitler's role in it, his role in the Second World War, and the Holocaust. Spielvogel gives a detailed look at Hitler, both as a man and a leader, going deeper than usual into his character traits, life development and his narcissism and messianic pretensions. In that light, the book includes an extensive quotes from Hitler’s writings and speeches. Also covered are anti-Jewish policies and the involvement of ordinary Germans in the Holocaust, the mechanisms of terror and control and the machinery of the “Final Solution“.

            Above everything, however, Spielvogel tries to teach us how easy it is for evil to infect anybody, anywhere- individually and collectively. That is why he asks, in disbelief, the question mentioned earlier. Germany is by all standards one of the most civilized countries in Europe. It is a country of rich tradition and culture, a culture of Bach and Beethoven, Goethe and Schiller, Durer and many others. Yet, for the brief period of two decades, it became an opposite, a savage culture filled with hatred and people that lost touch with their humanity.

            “Hitler and Nazi Germany” is an easy book to read. Spielvogel relies on simple terms to explain his views and, as such, the book is a good starting point for further research of Hitler and the Third Reich. The message Spielvogel conveys to the reader is two-fold. First, it is his dilemma how is it possible for something like Nazi Germany to even happen, and, second, it brings us a message that all the hatred and evil displayed by the Nazis is hidden somewhere not deep beneath our skin. In the case of Nazis it took a mixture of overemphasized national pride, grandeur and a messianic leader to bring it out. The music of Bach and Beethoven died under the Nazi boot.