Women In Nazi Germany Essay

The Impact of Women in Nazi Germany

Throughout the beginning of the twentieth century, Germany saw a dramatic increase in female employment rates. However after 1933, during the rise of Nazi regime, new societal ideals were imposed that directly opposed this social trend. Out of fear of a decreasing population, women were usually reduced to working inside their homes, as caregivers and wives. Their main role in society was to bear and raise multiple children. To encourage this, the Nazi party created the 3 German Ks, ‘children, kitchen and church’ (Layton 71). This slogan, among other programs, were created and advertised to encourage the breeding of perfect, Aryan babies, ultimately to achieve Hitler’s ideal German race (United States Holocaust

It is estimated that amongst the thirty-three thousand SS guards, only approximately ten percent were women. They had usually been raised within the Nazi Regime, many attending the League of German Girls, which instilled the Nazi ideologies from a young age. Very little is known about women guards who showed signs of compassion inside the camps, except for one, Krüger. She was rumoured to have shared her food amongst the starving workers in the camp she oversaw, Ravensbrück (Wilmott). On the opposite end of the spectrum, was Irma Grese, commonly referred to as the “beast of Belsen”. Eventually sentenced to death, she was found guilty of committing numerous crimes against humanity (Roland). Witnesses claim that she would use her whip on the faces of good-looking women, in an attempt to destroy their beauty. She was also known for starving her dogs for when they were unleashed onto prisoners, shooting at the ones she did not like, and beating women until they collapsed (Wilmott). Similarly, Charlotte S would force women to stand still outside in the cold weather, and if someone moved, she would punish them by unleashing her dog. She trained it to brutally attack them, biting the genitals of her targets (Hall). Ilse Koch collected the tattooed skin of the dead prisoners, and used them for her homemade lampshades

Where the majority of the contributors the genocide were men, women also played an essential role. Female secretaries worked alongside male officers to simplify their job, women consisted of the greater portion of the nurses at fault for the mercy killings of the Euthanasia Programme, and upwards of 3 300 women guards worked within the walls of concentration camps. Eliminating the women who worked for the Nazis, would mean thousands would not have been killed. It can be said that without their help, including those who stayed home to raise children, the Nazi Regime would not have been managed as proficiently as it