Policies toward women, young people and minorities

During the Weimar Republic era in the 1920s, major improvements to the status of women in German society came about. They were granted equal voting rights, were accepted in professional jobs, and given the freedom to participate in leisure activities. However, Hitler and the Nazis had a clear path for German women. They considered the female sex as the key to securing a pure Aryan race, thus making the home the best place for wives and daughters. German women were expected to live by the Three Ks.

INDER (children)

ÜCHE (kitchen)

IRCHE (church)

Babies born under the Lebensborn policy

In 1933, the Law for the Encouragement of Marriage gave newlyweds a loan of 1,000 marks and allowed them to keep 250 marks for every child they produced.

Through Lebensborn, 'pure' German women were allowed to volunteer to have a baby with an Aryan SS.

Throughout the Third Reich, it was estimated that about 20,000 babies were born under this policy.

Traditionally known as the Mother's Cross Awards, Hitler decreed that children-rich German mothers should be awarded for their contribution to the future of the Aryan race. The following criteria applied:

1. Both parents should be 'pure-blooded' Germans without any Jewish blood going back to the 4th generation of grandparents.
2. Mothers should be cleared of any criminal and moral offences.
3. Children should not be born with any hereditary or genetic disorders. 3rd class mothers were awarded a bronze medal for bearing 5 children.

2nd class mothers were awarded a silver medal for bearing 6 to 7 children.

1st class mothers were awarded a gold medal for bearing 8 or more children.

Hitler's Mother's Cross Awards Bronze, Silver & Gold

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During the post-WWI years, cosmetics, short hair, trousers and French fashion were adopted by German women. When the Nazis came to power, they believed that such fashion contributed to the moral degradation of German women, so they adopted the following policies:

French, American, and Jewish influences on clothing were prohibited. Only Aryan-designed and manufactured clothes were allowed in the Third Reich.

In May 1933, Adefa or Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutsch-arischer Fabrikanten der Bekleidungsindustrie, a clothing manufacturing association, was established to secure Aryanisation of fashion.

Aryan women were discouraged from using cosmetics and indulging in unhealthy habits like drinking alcohol, smoking and doing physical activities that impacted birth rates.

Image of German schoolgirls wearing traditional clothing

In terms of employment, German women were discouraged from working. The Law for Reduction of Employment was introduced, which gave women incentives to stay at home.

When Hitler became Führer, all teachers were required to join the Nazi Teachers' Association and follow the political and racial ideology of the Nazis. All lessons started with "Heil Hitler!"

SUBJECTS	CONTENT (lessons should highlight the following:)
History	The rise of the Nazi Party.
Biology	Nazi racial theories of evolution and eugenics, or improvement of Aryan genetic quality.
Physical Education	Five one-hour lessons per week on physical fitness.
Race Study and Ideology	Studying Aryan ideas and anti-Semitism.
Geography	Suitable resources and territories for the German living space.

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In 1936, German boys and girls were encouraged to join the Hitler Youth Movement at the age of 10. By 1939, 90% of German boys aged 14 and over were members.

THE HITLER YOUTH

Young boys were trained to become soldiers. Most activities included physical exercise, rifle practice and political indoctrination. They wore military uniforms.

THE LEAGUE OF GERMAN MAIDENS

Hitler with members of his Hitler Youth (left) and League of German Maidens (right)

Young girls were prepared for future motherhood. Most activities included physical exercise and improvement of household skills. They wore a white blouse and blue skirt.

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Training in NAPOLAS

Aside from the Hitler Youth Movement, the Nazis also established schools solely for training future Nazi leaders including Napolas, Adolf Hitler Schools and Order Castles.

NATIONAL POLITICAL INSTITUTES OF EDUCATION (NAPOLAS)

On Hitler's 44th birthday, the Prussian minister of education, Rust, established Napolas, a secondary school for the future Nazi elite. Boys aged 10 to 18 were given rigorous military and physical training for a future in the army, especially the Waffen-SS.

Following the Napolas were Adolf Hitler Schools, which trained children for future posts in the Nazi government. Boys aged 14 to 18 were subjected to political indoctrination rather than academics.

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THE ORDENSBURGEN OR ORDER CASTLES

Image of Hitler visiting Vogelsang Finishing School

Order Castles were named after the German Teutonic Knights during the Crusades. These establishments served as the highest residential schools for training the future Nazi elite. Attendees were called Ordensjunkers and were expected to be tough.

Each Ordensjunker was required to have six years of education in an Adolf Hitler School and 2 ½ years in the State Labour Service followed by four years of full-time employment. Given the requirements, entrants were in their mid-20s. Among the Order Castles were Crössinsee, which emphasised physical training, Vogelsang that specialised in skiing and mountaineering, Sonthofen for general physical training, and Marienburg for the final year of political education.

Despite being brought up Roman Catholic, Hitler rejected Christian beliefs. He particularly wrote in his Mein Kampf why Christianity should be rejected as a belief system. Thus, when the Nazis came to power in Germany, he established the Reich Church.

Meeting of a Vatican ambassador and Adolf Hitler

In his Mein Kampf, Hitler argued that Christianity had the following effects:

• The belief protected the weak and the low.
• It was of Jewish origin and Germany would not bend and crawl to the cross of a foreign God.
• The tenets of forgiving sins, resurrection and salvation were nonsense.
• He rejected the idea of equality that protected the racially inferior, the ill and the disabled.
• The idea of mercy was not German. Despite his rejection of Christianity, Hitler signed a concordat with the Catholic Church in Germany on 30 July 1933, in which he guaranteed the protection of the Church provided that it didn't interfere in politics. The concordat did not last long.

The Catholic Church and other religious denominations did not escape Hitler and Goebbels' Nazi propaganda.

Priests were accused of immorality. Moreover, nuns and monks were charged with smuggling gold out of Germany. In response, Pope Pius XI questioned the acts of Hitler and the Nazi government's actions against the Church, which was a direct violation of the concordat.

Nazi religious Propaganda

Martin Niemoeller, a German Protestant leader, was arrested and charged with sedition for disobeying the Reich Bishop of the Reich Church.

In addition, Dr. Karl Barth, a known German theologian, was dismissed from teaching at Bonn University because he refused to say "Heil Hitler" at the beginning of his class.

Hitler believed that Aryans were superior above all races. By outlining their racial enemies, Jews within and outside of Germany became their priority target. The Nazis viewed Jews as instruments and supporters of capitalism and communism.

Among the minorities in Germany, the Jewish population was heavily targeted from 1933. When WWII began, mass killings of Jews through the Final Solution were well recorded in history.

The Nazi ideology was formulated by Adolf Hitler. He believed that a person's attitude, behaviour and capability were determined by race. Aside from possessing physical and mental traits, Hitler and the Nazis adopted the Darwinian concept of 'survival of the fittest'.

A Nazi officer affixing a sign which tells shoppers to stop supporting a Jewish store

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Nazi propaganda poster warning Germans about the dangers of east European 'subhumans'. Germany, date uncertain.

The Nazis believed that it was their obligation as a superior race to subdue and exterminate inferior races. For them, maintaining the purity of their race was vital, so they avoided interracial relationships to prevent the degeneration of Aryan genetics.

1933

Jewish businesses and products were boycotted by the Nazis. Books with Jewish authors were publicly burned. Furthermore, Jewish professionals including teachers, lawyers and civil servants were fired. Race science taught German students that Jewish people were subhuman.

1935

The Nuremberg Laws took effect, which stripped the Jewry of German citizenship. Marriage between Jewish and German couple was outlawed and sexual relationships were also prohibited. The Jewry were stripped of civil and political rights.

1938

Jewish children were forbidden from attending school. Jewish people were required to add Israel (men) and Sara (women) to their names. On 9 November, Hitler's SS embarked on Kristallnacht, which attacked around 191 synagogues, Jewish homes and businesses.

1939

They were not allowed to own property or businesses and were highly restricted with work opportunities. As a result, about 115,000 Jewish people left Germany, contributing to the 400,000 that had fled come 1933.

A Jewish store plastered with anti-Semitic slogans

Sterilisation

Nazi scientists believed in eugenics in which people with disabilities were believed to be carriers of degenerative genes that should be eliminated in order to keep the next generation of Aryans pure. On 1 January 1934, the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring came into effect, which decreed that any person who had hereditary diseases should undergo medical experiments and sterilisation.

Social outsiders were named 'asocial' and were accused of carrying defective genes. They were either subjected to sterilisation or persecution. Moreover, male homosexuality was also declared as a threat to the Aryan race, thus, homosexuals were persecuted.

Tagged as Rhineland bastards, people who were born to German mothers and fathered by French-African soldiers from WWI were also sterilised.

(lef)Image of Jews rounded up in Mlaw (right) Jews in Krakow-

Early in history, many believed that people could inherit mental illness and criminal tendencies. Adolf Hitler was among the supporters of this science, which sought to improve reproduction of the human species through selective mating of individuals free of undesirable characteristics. With his view to make the Aryan race superior, Hitler enforced forced sterilisation. With WWII ongoing, Josef Mengele, an SS doctor, oversaw the experiments conducted on adult and child twins at Auschwitz.

Among the experiments were using eyedrops to create blue eyes, surgeries without anaesthesia, and injection of prisoners with diseases, which earned him the name Angel of Death.

Image of Josef Mengele between two other Nazi officials